1957 Morristown, New Jersey

Ruth Koizim
1952
Morristown, New Jersey
Interviewed on January 28, 2022
by Patrick Yang

My first movie was in—it had to be the spring or the summer—of 1957. I was 5 years old, and my adored cousin Betty came to stay with us in Morristown, New Jersey. She was 9 or 10 years older than I was, and we walked—I looked it up on Google Maps and it was 1.3 miles—we walked from my parents’ house to the community theater on the Morristown Green. She said I held her hand the entire way and chattered. I guess I didn’t change that much growing up.

The movie we saw was Bambi. My cousin’s recollection is that I sat there with eyes like saucers. I did not budge, and I did not register fear. My recollection is I don’t think I necessarily understood the mother was killed. I mean I was five years old, and I heard the shot, but it didn’t register at the time. But the forest fire… attributed to a lifelong fear of fire. I have a fireplace in my house—there never was nor will there ever be a fire in that fireplace.

I loved Bambi and Faline, but my favorite was Thumper. And I think I must’ve been really poised to go see Bambi because my crib—my baby bed—actually had Bambi and Thumper and Flower on it. So it’s like Bambi and friends were always part of my mindset. I had been asking my mother for a stuffed animal Thumper—and this is before I saw the movie. When my mother brought my brother home from my hospital, wouldn’t you know it, that brilliant little baby brother, he brought my Thumper. Now how could you not love him.

That movie… the richness of the animation. Any Disney movie we were allowed to see without question. Most of them were heartbreaking. I mean Old Yeller—the kid has to shoot the dog. Every one has some horrible lost thing, but what did we know back then. The classic Snow White, Cinderella… I mean I loved these. I have a huge carton in my basement of Disney VCR tapes. It was very important to me when I had my own son that we shared this experience. It shocks me how many students just really don’t remember their first movie. Now for me it was a big deal because we went to the movie theater. TV was not on 24 hours a day—most of the day you have what was called a test pattern.

But I loved the whole experience of the theater. I can… the smell of the popcorn, the Raisinets—we had Raisinets. I asked Betty if we had gotten any snacks, and she said she’s pretty sure we had Raisinets. You shake the box—you know there’s still some in there. I love chocolate and anything basically, but those Raisinets are damn good. The theater was enormous, but I do not remember any other people. Now I’m sure there were other people, but I was a little kid. Movie theaters—you know, nowadays they’re coming back with this idea of the palatial movie theater. This was a beautiful movie theater, and for a small child, I was sitting in this big armchair. I’m not surprised I don’t remember other people because there was an image—I had never seen an image that big. I was transported. Those scenes of the fire were so realistic… the crackling sound. Many years later I lived in California, and I had a friend whose dad was an animator for Disney, and he had actually worked on Bambi. I mean how they did these things—it was all hand-done.

But I felt like such a big girl, that was the other thing. I went to the movies. My little brother didn’t go, my baby sister didn’t go—I went with my grown-up cousin. I love movies. There is nothing—for me—there is nothing like the experience of seeing something on the big screen. I felt like very grown up going to the movies, so it had all kinds of positive connotations for me. It helped me process the scary stuff. Now as an adult, and I look back on these Disney films—the same as with fairy tales—there’s bad stuff in those. But it’s presenting it in a way that’s encapsulated and shows us that bad stuff happens… but you can get through it. It doesn’t leave you at the point of trauma. It takes you through the loss of the mother, through the importance of the friend group, through the natural catastrophe. And life is different, but it goes on. Simba’s dad gets killed by the stampeding herd of wildebeest… but he eventually becomes the lion king.

I don’t know that it matters to anybody that the setting is less elegant—you know, movie palaces—New Haven had some gorgeous movie palaces. When you went to a movie theater, we’re going to the theater. This was an event. There was a decorum—you know, people did not bring 6-month-olds to a movie. And it was the way that people consumed this art. You didn’t have other options. Now, do I feel like schlepping all the way to the movie theater? Let me pay $6.99, and I’ll watch it on Amazon. If you wanted to see the movie, you went to the theater. What I would say is this: so many times in my life were connected with movies. The first pair of glasses I had ever got—I actually needed glasses for years before that, but I had memorized the eye chart. After I got my first pair of glasses, we went to see 101 Dalmatians, and I remember my brother was laughing so hard he literally fell out of his seat and was rolling on the floor.

It’s not a big deal for people anymore, but it became almost ceremonial. And it was special.