1946 New Orleans, Louisiana

Audrey Cerise
1938
New Orleans, Louisiana
Interviewed on September 15, 2019
by Lili Cerise

The first movie I remember seeing? It was called Song of the South. I was probably eight or nine. It was either 1946 or ’47⁠—somewhere around there.

I was with my great aunt Althee. She had the same name as my mom. She was Althee, and her sister was Alice, so we put “Taunt” in front of both names and shortened them: they were “Talthee” and “Talice.”  Talthee was the one who took me to the movie. 

We got on a bus and went to the Saenger Theatre on Canal Street. It had to be at least two buses, ’cause we lived in Gentilly. So you would take—I don’t know exactly where you would switch buses—but you would take at least two buses to get there. 

The Saenger Theatre was on one corner, the Loews Theatre was on another corner, and across the street was the Joy. So they had 3 theaters right within a block, but I didn’t go Downtown to the movies except that time.

I think it was my birthday. I believe that’s why she took me. I know it was something special because Talthee didn’t take us out just randomly.

I’m sure I wore a frilly church dress, because we didn’t wear pants in those days. And it was a big deal. If you went to Canal Street, you dressed up. I mean, ladies wore hats and gloves and everything. 

Tickets were twenty-five cents when I was ten. Friday after school, all the kids in the neighborhood used to walk about three or four blocks to the Arrow for the evening show. Six, seven, or eight of us would walk down there and sit through a doubleheader: Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, whatever kind of stuff they were showing. I was such a big kid they wanted to charge me an adult’s price—I had to bring my birth certificate to show them I was under twelve. I remember that. Anyway, the Saenger show couldn’t have been much: Althee didn’t have any money. 

At that age, I don’t remember liking to go to the movies a lot, but I remember this one particularly because the Saenger was like an old opera house. The theater was so grand, and I’d never been in there before. The ceiling was painted to look like outdoors— I remember being mesmerized by it. It had stars and the moon and everything on it.

Oh, and they had those special seats—those box seats. Where Lincoln was murdered? Boxes like that. On both sides. Those intrigued me—you could go up to the balcony and play with their curtains. I always wanted to go sit in those, but we didn’t that day. We sat downstairs. Remember, this was my mother’s aunt, so she was my great aunt. Not real young. My mom was forty when I was born, so this lady was seventy. 

I’m sure there was a concession, but I never was a candy eater. We always got popcorn.

The movie had just come out. It wasn’t out very long when we saw it, and it was a family movie: a Disney movie—one of the first Disney movies. Everybody wanted to see this one. It was in color. That was good for those days too, because a lot of the movies weren’t in Technicolor. 

Most of the movies, there was a cartoon before the main film shows, and there were always newsreels. ’46 was right after the Second World War ended, so the country was fighting back, trying to get back to normal. Before that—and I didn’t experience this—but before that, you would go to the movie and you could get in the movie with so many tin cans or so much, I don’t know, stuff they needed for the war effort instead of paying a price. My brothers would do that: bring whatever they needed.

I remember that there were real people and animated people. Br’er Rabbit had all kinds of problems, and Uncle Remus would help him solve them. Mostly I remember the song, because I loved the song. It won an Academy Award.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

My, oh, my what a wonderful day

That was the song, and I sang it all the way home. I remember because Talthee told me to be quiet. 

It was a long movie. I remember it being a long movie. Maybe that was because I was eight years old.