1950 Waterbury, Connecticut

Anne Donofrio Brown

Born 1942

Waterbury, CT

Interviewed on January 27, 2019

by Patrick Brown

You know, of course, I didn’t come to this country until I was five. I probably didn’t go to the movies much at first. But I think when I was around eight, by then we had movie theaters in the neighborhoods. You know? There was a theater by your grandfather called The Ville, ours was called The Tower, there were the ones downtown that were State and The Palace, and the East end had theirs and the North End had theirs. The movies ran Monday to Wednesday and Thursday to Saturday, so there were two every week. They had cartoons, or something like “The Three Stooges,” a short film, and sometimes even news coverage, so you really got your money’s worth. It always cost twenty-five cents, too, which I know sounds crazy, but really, it’s the prices today that are crazy, not the other way ‘round!

The theaters were larger than the small theaters that you have now, and they had nice plush seats. There was a stage, and sometimes there were performances or contests before the movies. I remember the ushers used to call kids up to the stage to compete in different little acts, maybe singing or dancing or yo-yo tricks, whatever it was on the particular day. The winners might get a chocolate bar, or free tickets for next week, you know? Your grandfather was always upset that the only time he was ever called up was for a singing contest, and he just looked at the usher and said, “no thanks!”

The theater that I went to, you went upstairs to go to the restroom, and it was like a circular staircase that was carpeted, and a lot of us—I did it once or twice, but not a lot—would come down on our fannies right down the stairs! They were pretty plush in comparison to the theaters now.

We would always buy candy when we got there, too. We usually—it was silly, but we would sometimes buy some of the bad candy because it would last longer. I wasn’t really ever that partial to Good and Plenty—they had licorice inside—so a lot of times I would get that. I actually don’t remember getting popcorn, but they had Jujubes—do you know what they’re like? I don’t know if they hung around that long, but they were very small, tiny, like the tip of your pinky finger. They were supposed to be fruity, but they didn’t taste like fruit. But they stuck in your teeth and they lasted a long time, so sometimes we would get those. Mounds were always a good one, and I think they had Snickers, and the other one that’s like it… I can’t remember what it’s called now.

I absolutely loved “Cinderella,” that was the first animated movie I ever saw, but my first movie was “Annie Get Your Gun” (1950). Nowadays you would look at her as a role model for strong women, but she also was called Annie, so I had something in common with her! I think I was eight when I saw that one. At that time, a lot of movies were musicals, and that was the case with “Annie Get Your Gun,” so the music was really important, but the story was more memorable to me, because she showed all the guys that she could do everything that they could do—only better. That was one of the songs I think, I can’t remember it exactly… “Anything you can do, I can do better,” and I liked that, even though I was just a kid. That was Betty Hutton, she had a beautiful voice, and it was all really nice, the music was good, the story was good, and I really enjoyed it. It was in Technicolor, which was a huge deal.

My friends and I would always meet in the neighborhood and walk to the theater together. It was close, but we would walk a lot farther than you kids ever did. I don’t even think it was a half a mile. We would walk to the end of the street, to the crossroads, and take a left and we were there. That was to get to The Tower in the West End of Waterbury. It wasn’t a big deal, but we always looked forward to it. Television wasn’t as big a thing, so movies were very important to the community. Every Saturday from when I was eight until I was about thirteen, fifty-two weeks a year, I was at the movies. Our parents were happy to get rid of us for twenty-five cents for an afternoon.

The movies were absolutely the biggest part of our lives growing up. You could ask my brother, you could ask any of us from the neighborhood, and we’d all tell you the exact same. It was really special.