1957 New York, New York

Mowlot Kazati (born Timothy Bley)

1948

New York, New York

Interviewed on February 5, 2022

By Zev Kazati-Morgan

I can only really remember seeing one movie as a kid. It was Old Yeller. My sister was eleven and I was nine. I’m mad that my sister didn’t answer my call earlier, because she might have remembered more. 

We didn’t have a television, so we weren’t exposed to ads for the movies. Although we must have seen ads on billboards around town. Going to see the movie was a big event. It wasn’t like we told our parents to take us. Rather, our mom said: do you want to see this movie?

I can’t remember if our parents dropped us off at the theater. I don’t remember much about the theater, except that it was big. It had over-stuffed seats that folded down. It seemed a little seedy. It wasn’t really grand, but to us it was impressive. It had a big marquee that stuck out. It must have been the Thalia Theater. It was one of those big theaters on Broadway. We might have walked there, or might have taken the subway. 

My mother was the world’s biggest cheapskate. I don’t think she planned on us having concessions, so we didn’t. We didn’t walk around with a bunch of money in our pockets back then.

I remember loving the dog in Old Yeller and being very sad when he died at the end. I remember the family. I don’t really remember what the plot was. But they were a very nice homespun, ranch family. Very different from us. I think—and the same is true with TV, because we weren’t exposed to it—that movies affected us a lot. 

In thinking back I think the film must have been shot in Technicolor, because I remember the vividness of the colors. I don’t remember thinking it was special at the time! But now, when I’m thinking about it, I can remember the lush vivid greens of the forest where the story took place. I remember these homespun scenes, and it was very sad, because the dog dies in the end. It was horrible. 

Back then, I didn’t realize what technicolor was. I thought it was just a commercialized word for color. Which reminds me, I must have seen Moby Dick in that same theater. It was also in Technicolor. I remember Queequeg and Captain Ahab, and him lashing the whale and killing it, and blood going everywhere. It was awesome. 

I went to see Sinbad the Sailor with Felix Berenberg, my friend from school, the psychiatrist’s son. We went and saw it on our own at 181st street. Maybe we were eleven or twelve. Man, it was this seedy theater in this rundown Greek neighborhood. Felix and I went, just the two of us. Sinbad sails all around the world and had all these adventures. He was fighting monsters, kind of like Ulysses. I can’t remember if it was in Technicolor too. That was such a fun film. 

I remember seeing quite a few movies in high school. The kind of movies that I saw were not what was popular in hollywood. I never saw Bambi or Donald Duck, because my parents were too snobby. When I became a teenager, I was snobby too. I used to see art films, French films, films by Truffaut. Those theaters were small. They were also kind of seedy. I remember one place served coffee, espresso— a left over from the Beatniks, I think. 

I saw several French and Italian movies in the early ’60s. A lot of them were post-war movies, which dealt with those themes. A movie that really affected me was called Shoot the Piano Player. I think that was by Godard, not Truffaut. Those were the two French directors that I loved. It was Charles Aznavour who starred in that. I remember that it was in black and white. The whole movie was so well done. It was impressionistic. These French films weren’t like Hollywood movies. They didn’t follow a set plot. Whatever happened just happened. There was a great movie—I think it was Italian—called The Bicycle Thief. It was about these Italian kids who got put in jail. They were twelve or thirteen. It was earthy, grainy, black and white, gritty kind of stuff. And then Fellini came along! He was somewhat surrealistic. How wonderful that was—La Dolce Vita. 

I loved Fellini’s 81/2. I tried to take this girl to see it, but I didn’t have enough money. The person had told me the wrong time that the movie was playing, so we had an hour to kill, and I had no spare money. I had just enough money for the tickets, but I didn’t have anything to buy her a soda while we were waiting. I was so embarrassed that I never talked to her again after that.