1955 Queens, New York

Diane Wirin

Born 1941

Jamaica, Queens, NY

Interviewed on 27 January, 2019

by Gavin Boyd-Goodrich

Movies were kind of our big social outlet because we wouldn’t really spend a ton of time sitting around watching TV because there wasn’t as much on since TV was really just picking up around that time. So instead of hanging out with friends watching TV on the weekends, we went to the movies most weekend afternoons, and we would use it as a time to unwind, catch up on gossip, and admire the movie stars. It was our excuse we would tell our parents to get out of the house when we mostly wanted to see our friends.

I can’t remember the absolute first movie I saw, but I have a distinct memory of loving anything James Dean was in. He was a bit of an icon for teenagers so I do remember going to see Rebel Without a Cause when I was a teenager. I must have been about thirteen when it came out. I went with my girlfriends on a Saturday afternoon; we would always go to weekend matinees. We went to the Utopia theater in Jamaica, which I distinctly remember had a “smoking” and a “non-smoking” section, and the ushers would check to make sure the kids weren’t getting into trouble in the smoking section. They always showed newsreels before the movies and most of the time they would show a double-feature. I don’t remember exactly what showed after Rebel Without a Cause, but I do remember that it was always an American movie first, and then some British film second. A lot of people didn’t care about the British film, but I usually watched both and sometimes the British one was better than the American one! When I went to see Rebel Without a Cause, I got Raisinets, the little chocolate-covered raisins — they were my favorite candy at the movies — and my girlfriends all got soda but I never liked soda at the movies. It was usually warm at the matinee showings but if I remember right this instance was pretty cool.

Like I said, I loved James Dean. I remember also seeing East of Eden and Giant at some point but Rebel Without a Cause is the one I remember the most. He was a great actor but he kind of had a different style, a Marlon Brando type with his method acting. He was also a sort of an icon for the trials and tribulations of tennagers and growing up so my friends and I all loved him. The scene I remember most from Rebel Without a Cause is the “chicken” scene where they’re drag racing on the cliff by the water. It was scary and I almost couldn’t watch but in a similar way to Harrison Ford he was kind of the young handsome hero so you always knew he would be ok. It was an emotional movie though, because it dealt with a lot of tough subjects in growing up and that’s part of why my friends and I all loved him was because he always overcame family issues or adolescence issues in his movies.

The movies were kind of a fantasy world where they meant a lot to people in real life but they also were a place to escape real life and just relax for a bit. Going to the movies was really the center of my social scene on the weekends and I’m not sure there’s quite the same relationship with movies anymore.