1956 Tulsa, Oklahoma

My first film must have been the Ten Commandments. It was Vistavision, before Panavision. It was the first color widescreen. Everything you watch today is widescreen. We went to Oklahoma City because they had a big theater there: the Centre Theater. It was two hours between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. It’s about 100 miles. We went with the family when I was a little kid. I would have been 12 or 13, so my sister must have been 7. It wasn’t for any special occasion that I can remember. I don’t remember it being a big occasion other than the fact that we just decided. The folks decided they were going to drive us up and see the big theater and big movie experience.

The only concessions back then were popcorn and a bottle of pop, but concessions were not like they are today. Whether we got popcorn—I really don’t know if my daddy splurged for it because my daddy spent the money to drive there and then he spent the money to buy us all tickets.

That was my first time going into a theater. It was such a big “to do.” To even go to the movies, and then to go all the way to Oklahoma City to this theater to see this movie. It was a big to do; it was a big family thing.

I just love movies, I still do. For my birthday, the four of us that grew up together, we always went to the movies for my birthday gathering to see a new Jerry Lewis movie because he was silly and whatnot and it was funny and clean. You know back then, of course, it had to be. That probably started when I was about 14 or 15 and then every year, we would do that or we would walk down a block and a half to the fairgrounds and go ice skating. One of the two, or both.

I’ve seen the movie about 10 million times more. At the age of 78 I’ve had lots of opportunities to see it multiple times on TV.

It was just a great movie. The Ten Commandments were stories that we had heard growing up in the church and so it was fascinating seeing it put visually and told that way. I loved the main star of it, Charlton Heston, he died not too long ago. He also starred in Ben-Hur, so I was an avid fan of Charlton Heston and he also did an awful lot of special PBS series and stuff like that too. He very much impressed me. It was fantastic, I mean, of course it was: it was a Cecil B. DeMille movie. He always did the big spectaculars and so it was always something you wanted to go see what Cecil B. DeMille did. He did Cleopatra too. He was quite known for doing his big spectacular movies.

My husband was a big movie buff too, so we watched a lot of movies. Things that have changed are the quality of the movies and the cost, of course, but I mean, we’re talking a lot of years. More than anything, it’s the quality of the movies. Oh yeah, the movies were wonderful.