1951 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Ann Friedman
Born in 1943
Philadelphia, PA
Interviewed on Jan. 28th, 2019
By: Joe Lybik
I remember, I must have been, well because I remember going with some friends. We’d get off the bus and we’d go to the movies in kind of a neighborhood. It wasn’t downtown Philadelphia, but it was the Germantown area of Philadelphia. There was a movie theater. We’d go to the movies. It cost a quarter and there was always—I remember seeing the news and I remember seeing at least one or two cartoons and then sometimes it was a regular feature or sometimes it was a double feature. So you could spend like the whole afternoon at the movie theater.
If my mother let me go on the bus, I’m trying to think. See I used to take the public buses to school anyway, so I must have been probably 13 or 14. Prior to that I probably went to the movies with one of my parents. But I remember more going with my friends. And I remember that it was like a quarter and I remember then we could get popcorn as well. But the thing I think that stands out is, it was so different then today I mean, there was always like a news reel on the current news and there was always at least one or two cartoons. Cartoons like, it could have been, like a Donald Duck or Goofy—often Disney or Roadrunner or Woody Woodpecker. So those kind of cartoons and usually there were two of them. Obviously they weren’t very long they were probably no more than 5 to 10 minutes.
I saw a lot of the Busby Berkeley movies. Like movies with Esther Williams, who was a famous movie star and swimmer. She was a wonderful swimmer and so they always had scenes of her swimming in bathing suits. And what they had was like—it was always like she and a whole group were synchronized swimming. And she of course always did kind of a solo swim as well. Busby did things like—hold on let me think a minute—something to Broadway. All of a sudden I’m blanking. His films always had a lot of singing and dancing and there were always—Two Tickets to Broadway (1951). That was probably one of them that I saw. And he always did– there were always like these long staircases and dancers, lots of dancers, for dancing and singing. I mean all of these were musicals. And then there were others of course like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Singing in the Rain (1952), An American in Paris (1951). Now those weren’t Busby Berkeley, but there was a lot of singing and dancing. So those were some of the movies that we saw. I’m trying to think—there were some older dramas and the cowboy movies with John Wayne. Well then there were the Marilyn Monroe movies, but those may have been a little later, so I would’ve been a little older then. But the 50s which was when I was in junior high and high school, the movies I saw were the ones I described.
The theater was called the Orpheum theater, the one I am thinking of. There’s the Orpheum theater and then there was the Band Box theater. The Orpheum theater was a big theater and very elaborate. It was more like a theater you would think of now—ornate you know. They were quite ornate. The Band Box was a smaller theater and not quite as fancy. But the Orpheum was the main theater we used to go to. It was kind of in the neighborhood even though we had to take a bus to get there. But it was like one of the theaters you might go to in New York to go see a play. I don’t remember exactly but there might have even been frescos up on the ceiling and those kinds of things. And the seats were velveteen probably. I know the Orpheum theater was a bigger theater.
I am trying to think of what else I can say about it. Oh you know what else there were. I forgot. There was often a sports film too. So after the news there might be a sports update on baseball or something. I don’t remember exactly. It could be that the sports was just part of the regular news or its own thing.
It’s interesting, some things you recall and make a big impression because it’s not like now where you can watch your movie on television. You know, you had to go to the movies to see a movie.
