1947 Mexico City, Mexico
Nicolas Waiss, my grandfather
1939
Mexico City, Mexico
Interviewed September 20th, 2019 by Andrea Gorodezky
(this interview has been translated from Spanish into english).
The first movie I ever saw was called Aventuras de Birmania (who’s name in english is Objective, Burma! ). I think the year was 1947 and I was about eight years old. I went with my older sister, Adela. We walked to the theater, because nobody really drove back then. There were multiple theaters in the neighborhood I grew up in, called Condesa, but the one we went to that day was called Cine Lido or maybe Cine Gloria, I can’t remember. The theater was big, and had a balcony but we sat on the first floor. The seats were comfortable and had pillows, pretty different to the way the seats are today with all of the new reclining technology.
I remember I really enjoyed the movie, so much so that I watched it three times while it was in theaters. Back then, the theaters would usually have about three different movies playing at a time. The movie was about some war, I think the war involved the Americans versus the Japanese. This was around the time of World War II, so there were many movies about the war at that time. All of these movies ended similarly, with the Americans emerging as victorious, always the heroes. It makes sense, given that these movies were all made in America. The movie was in english but had subtitles in spanish so we would read the dialogue. It was a really exciting movie, with a lot of action and effects. I remember being really excited and surprised by all of the movement within the film.
I remember I was really excited by the snacks the first time I went to the movies. There were vendors that would walk around the theater selling snacks before the movie started. They would sell popcorn and. Mueganos are a cheap, sweet Mexican snack, they’re basically fried dough coated in sugar. Those were my favorite movie snack, and my sister would always buy some for us to share. Movie theater tickets were really cheap in Mexico, especially at that time, so I went to the movies often and it was one of my favorite activities, especially going with my sister. When I was young, we would go at least once a week. Many times, this meant watching a movie we had already watched. Once I got a bit older, I would mainly go to the movies with my friends from school. Back then, there wasn’t really any television so our only chance at watching a film would be in the theater, so we definitely took advantage of it.
I still go to the movies nowadays, but not as much as I did when I was young. My daughters like to take me sometimes, which is nice. I like the theaters with reclining seats, but I sometimes fall asleep in the theater. I would have never fallen asleep during a film when I was younger!
