1952 New York, New York

Andrea Small

1952

New York

Interviewed on February 2nd, 2022

By Leo Lehrer-Small

I really don’t remember the first movie I watched. It was probably Bambi or something like that. Hah, maybe that’s why I’m still so into animals to this day! But my earliest memory of going to the movies was probably Valley of the Dolls. I was horrified. The movie was all about these women popping pills, and it was a little disturbing to me, I think I was a young teenager at the time.

Yeah, I guess I should give some of the backstory first. I was a teenager but a young teenager. I’m not remembering all of the details—like who exactly I was with—but I know I went with friends from school. We most certainly did not have parental permission to go watch the movie, hah! I don’t remember too well, but I think we went together in a group after school. So we didn’t exactly sneak out, but our parents definitely didn’t know. We all felt cool going after school in a group to the movie theater, and it made it all the better that we were going without parental permission.

In terms of the movie itself, Valley of the Dolls, was a novel by this woman named Jacqueline Suzann, and they made it into a movie about a year later. It was about these women—these housewives—that were popping pills. The “dolls” were the pills. And I don’t know… it was horrifying, I was horrified. I don’t think movies were rated back then like they are now, or if they were I didn’t know. But today maybe Valley of the Dolls would be rated R! There was so much drugs and sex and creepy stuff too, it was just disturbing for someone my age, and I wasn’t expecting it to be like that at all. It was a whole world that I had been completely oblivious too before the movie, I didn’t know anything about people taking pills and doing serious drugs like that. It was just… shocking. 

Looking back on it now it’s funny, thinking of a young me sneaking off to see that movie with my friends, and just leaving so shocked and disturbed! I don’t remember why we even wanted to see the movie in the first place. I think I was just going with a crowd… it was the cool thing to do. 

I do also have a few other bits and pieces of childhood movie memories. I remember that my mom loved Charlie Chaplin. She LOVED him. So we would watch those together sometimes. And I also remember my mom taking me and my little brother to see A Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles movie. That was wild. I mean, we all loved the Beatles, but we weren’t as crazy as lots of the girls in the theater. It was hard to hear the movie, there was just constant screaming the whole time. Literally, it felt like the whole theater was standing up and screaming through the entire movie. That was definitely one of the most unique movie experiences that I can remember. The movie theaters were just an exciting place back then. The chairs were cool, the decorations were awesome, and it felt like a special occasion for everyone that was there.