1948 Binghamton, New York

Judy Heller

Born in 1942

First movie memory in Binghamton, NY

Interviewed on September 17th, 2019

By Maddy Heller, Pace University

I remember the first movie I saw was Bambi. I was around six years old, so it must have been in 1948. I know Disney was around before that, but this is when our theater was playing it. I saw it in Binghamton, and you talk about different! Theaters today are so fancy, but I remember our theater was standing, barely. You needed to wear boots or good heavy shoes when you went because the floors-the floors were covered in critters! There were mice, and you could definitely hear them running around, but that’s just how the theater was. There were the same snacks as today, and everyone always spilled their popcorn which didn’t help with the animals. The seats were cloth, but had no cushions. It was a hard and uncomfortable seat, but you weren’t there for the comfort!

At one point during the film, an usher or the theater manager would get up on the stage in front of the screen and introduce themselves and tell us we would be having an intermission. This is when people would go buy popcorn, but they would also play a newsreel on the screen during the intermission. So we would watch the news reel because afterwards, when the movie was about to come on, there was a short video of a lion real close to the camera, and he would open his mouth wide and roar. I think it was a symbol for one of the movie studios, but it was very exciting.

I went to the movie with my mother and my little brother, my father never went with us. We didn’t have TV or anything like that at home, so going to the theater was a big deal.  And I remember the movie being in color! I didn’t think that was possible at the time, and I was very surprised by it. At the end of the movie, everyone would always clap. That’s because seeing a movie was such a crazy thing and it was the biggest thrill!