1950 Ann Arbor, Michigan

Tom Pullen

1943

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Interviewed on February 8, 2022

by Alan Zheng

The first movie I remember seeing is The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – the one with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It was not new on the screen, but a bit after it came out. I saw it in 1950 so I was probably 7 years old at the time. I also remember seeing a bunch of cowboy pictures (not John Wayne) and Dracula movies during that time, but the movie that sticks out most is Robin Hood. It was in color – technicolor! That was quite something back then. The whole movie was beautiful! None of it looked fake. The characters were well-done. I own a digital copy of the movie, and there’s a disc that tells you how the movie was made. There was a sword fight scene which was really quite good. You could see them sword fighting in shadows, which was a novelty. Arrows were actually shot by real archers into the characters’ breastplates, but luckily, nobody was harmed. I just saw the movie about a month ago, but talking about it makes me want to watch it again!

I saw it at the Michigan Theater on Liberty, in downtown Ann Arbor. I went to the theater with two of my close friends. It was about a 15-minute or 18-minute walk from where I lived. It was no big deal. Back then, walking was nothing. Nobody rode their bikes; we didn’t need that nonsense. We just walked and made our way downtown. At the theater, there were concession stands but we never did that. Popcorn would be 10 cents. The theaters made their money selling popcorn. It cost them almost nothing to make it but they sold it for a lot. That’s where the profit was. I think the movie cost 17 cents. You could buy a bottle of pop for a nickel, and a big bottle of pop for 10 cents. I never bought the candy; I never did it. We never drank any pop as a kid. It was not good for you. Bad for your teeth. There was no fluoride when I grew up. A lot of kids drank pop and their teeth were just rotten; there were so many kids with cavities in their front teeth.

Ushers were at the theater to show people to their seats, not to sell tickets. You bought tickets right as you walked in, next to the concession stand. Ushers told you where to go, but they didn’t walk you to your seat. Ushers would help you with a flashlight if you walked in late, and they would also clean the area.

I would say The Adventures of Robin Hood is probably my favorite movie of all time. I have a copy of the movie so I watch it maybe twice a year. I’ve probably seen it 25 times over the years. It’s nostalgic because it goes back to when I was real young. It’s romantic and it’s a feel-good movie. The story is great – I always like feel-good movies where the bad guy gets what they’re supposed to. Every single actor delivered a first-class performance. Alan Hale was spectacular. Claude Rains was great as the villain; you may know him from Casablanca or Notorious. All of the actors lit up the screen. Over the years, there’s been many remakes of Robin Hood but the 1938 version remains my favorite. You can’t improve on something that was already great.

After watching the movie, I wanted to go home and get my bow and arrow out and play Robin Hood. It made me feel good. We didn’t have cell phones or none of that crap. We had time to be kids. We all wanted to be Robin Hood.

Movies in my day were simply better – there’s no doubt about it. I don’t care for modern movie stuff with the drugs where one person with a gun kills 26 people. To me that’s crazy. I feel like movies these days are not realistic. I mean, it’s just ridiculous. It’s all crime, drugs, sex, and violence. It’s crazy what these movies are doing. Violent movies definitely have an influence on people (especially kids), and they make things seem like everyday stuff even though they aren’t.

Back then it was just good acting; actors these days just can’t act very well. I mean, you see on Netflix actors you’ve never even heard of giving mediocre performances. I’d go back to the Classical Hollywood era in a heartbeat. Actors like Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck, and Katherine Hepburn, among others, were simply phenomenal. I mean, you had movies like Robin Hood, The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, 12 Angry Men, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, The African Queen, and so many more. I still watch and adore those movies to this day.