1956 New York, New York

Barbara Harnik
Born in 1941
New York, New York
Interviewed on September 20, 2019
by Justin Schneiderman

Love Me Tender with Elvis Presley comes to mind as the first movie I vividly remember going to see. The girl was Debra Paget… and Richard Egan was the other guy. Now that was 1956. I was fifteen years old because I was born in ’41. I felt like I was younger, but I guess I wasn’t. It was before he, being Elvis, was really famous. And also, he wasn’t known for westerns, and this was a western, but I was just so crazy for Elvis Presley. I mean I was one of those crazy teenagers. My girlfriend Linda, not as much, but she’s who I went to the movie with, her and her family. Her father was just always so caring and wonderful to me. But anyways, this movie was… I know it has four brothers, and Elvis Presley is the youngest I believe, and he stays home to be with his family while his three other brothers go away to war. The brothers are Confederate soldiers in the Civil War. While his brothers go away, one of them leaves his girlfriend home, and Elvis eventually marries her. So that was really, you know, a cause for friction within the family.

I always remember the movie being in this theater in Manhattan because I wasn’t really familiar with Manhattan. Other than going to the Christmas show at Radio City, which is the big thing my mother used to take me to, I never really was in Manhattan. It was a big theater, ushers, you know. All of it was just a big splash because it was opening night and one of Elvis’s first films. I wasn’t even really into westerns. I was just into Elvis Presley. He was just a real-good looking guy, really sexy guy, who was just, you know, jiggling his bottom all the time. Elvis Presley did the twister while he sang, I mean, you know.

I liked the movie, but it was really basically Elvis to me. The one main thing I really remember most is they were selling this booklet at the theater. And on that booklet, there was this Elvis record, like perforated on the cover of the booklet, and that record would play on the Victrola at home. And you could hear him breathing. I remember sitting on the floor with my friend and bursting out, “MY GOD. YOU COULD HEAR HIM BREATHING!” I remember that. I don’t know if I remember this particular film because the picture was that wonderful but rather the booklet is really what I remember. The booklet was just this cardboard thing. I played it over and over again, of course in my friend’s house because she had the Victrola. Poor me…

I didn’t see many movies back then. My family didn’t have a car at the time, so I had to go with somebody, one of my friends like Linda, because my mother worked, my grandmother watched me, and the one thing my mom and I did was just go to Radio City. But that wasn’t a frequent thing. That was only around the holidays. For Love Me Tender, Linda’s parents drove me since her father had a car. My family lived in Brooklyn with Linda and her parents about a block and a half away from me, so Linda, Linda’s parents, and Linda’s sister all packed into the car with me to head into the city.

I know the ushers had these uniforms. I can’t really remember much else about what they looked like, but I remember the concession because we definitely got popcorn. Of course, small bags never were $3.50 or anything like that. They were actually small bags though, but still not even close to $3.50 like today. They also used to have these chocolate-covered almonds in a larger box. I loved them. They always had drinks too in these machines. These machines just always had sweet stuff, you know, lemonade, orangeade, and something red. Don’t forget there wasn’t bottled water or anything like today. When her parents took us, it was at night, and of course they bought us all this stuff. I’ll tell you the truth though: most of the time, like when I saw Singing in the Rain for the first time, my grandmother would make me a roast chicken sandwich or some other leftovers, and I’d take food in so that I wouldn’t buy food. If I ever wanted anything, I’d take it from the house. And this food smelled too… with the bag and grease on the bag… you know. They wouldn’t chase me out of the theater or anything though. Seeing Love Me Tender was just a different thing. My grandmother also used to take a piece from a brown paper bag and wrap up 2 or 3 cents in it, so I could buy wax lips or dots on a strip or some old-fashioned candy or even little fudge pies with a little silver spoon. I’d get so excited for that. She’d wrap it up and throw it down from the second floor. We didn’t have cars. We didn’t even have a man in the house, so forget cars.

The one theater from the Elvis movie was so fancy because it was like a big spectacular that his film was opening. It seemed to me much more exciting than the local theater that I would more likely walk to with a few friends. All the colorful things I did back then were actually with Linda and her family because they made everything really better for me. My family didn’t really have anything. We didn’t go out for sushi to say the least. We didn’t really go out to eat at all. I used to adore Horn & Hardart though. It was this automated cafeteria with windows. I’d get baked beans, spaghetti, all starch, and maybe even mashed potatoes. They also had meat and other stuff like that. But then sandwiches and desserts and pies and all that good stuff would be in this little glass thing you’d insert a nickel into. Then, you’d open it up, take what you picked on the plate, and then they’d fill the spot with another one. I mean, I loved Horn & Hardart. That was a place I went before movies sometimes. For me, movies were never really like this Elvis night unless I was with Linda’s family though. That was just such a special night.