1957 St. Louis, Missouri

Jean Lange

Born 1952

St. Louis, Missouri

Interviewed on February 02/04/2024

by Eli Bader

The first movie I watched was Old Yeller, about a dog. I cried, I cried, I cried. And I loved it. I don’t know if I ever watched it again now that you can do things like that. 

I probably saw Old Yeller in a big ol Fox movie theater. And this is in St. Louis. And there was another movie theater that was newer at the time called The Esquire, so maybe one of those. But the Fox movie theater was one of those things that was grand and stately and plush. 

Another one of my favorite movies was Doctor Zhivago which I went to with my mom and dad. It was about Russia, a major novel that I think I read after seeing the movie. It was with Julie Christie and Omar Sharif. It was about WW1 in Russia and the revolution and all sorts of things. You should see it!

I think that the dog movies we went to we’d sort of get dropped off with kids. But later on I went with one of my grandmothers. I have distinct memories of going to see To Kill a Mockingbird and just being blown away by this. And I have this very very distinct memory of that. My grandmother decided I needed a lesson in race relations I guess. 

A big thing in high school, and even college was drive-in movies. And, you know, drink beer or whatever and have fun and watch movies together. And one thing I forgot was the James Bond movies. The older ones I really think are better. They are less violent, easier to understand the plot. 

I loved the dogs in these movies. I really loved Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird

My memory is that there was a lot of popcorn and crackerjacks and peanuts and soda. A lot of things we didn’t get at home. You know how popcorn is so expensive now? They seem more expensive than the tickets. Then they were not, they were cheap. A ticket would be $2 in the 50s and 60s. When I was 7,8,9,10 your parents would just pay for it. As a teenages I had an allowance and I assumed I would pay for it. And it was affordable. To get an allowance I would have to do something. I would clear the waste baskets or clear the dining room table. 

I think that [movies] today are not as good. I hate to say worse. That sounds like, oh you’re old, new stuff is worse. I do think there is too much violence, too much sex. When you’re a teenager it’s great to see some sex in the movies, you know. But somewhat discreet. But I really think there is too much violence. The first foreign language film I saw with English subtitles, again with my grandmother, was A Man and a Woman, un homme and une femme. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that. I’ve watched it again and again to this day. And later on, in junior high school, The Graduate came out. It was just amazing. It was Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross and the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. All of the movies I’ve mentioned I’m trying to think of a movie recently or even in the last 20 years that really touched me like some of these movies that I still remember… Well we just saw Barbie. We really liked it. 

I’ve smuggled in popcorn recently. I am also not sure I love all these seats that recline and your legs go up. You keep trying to not fall asleep. The other thing I don’t like is 20 minutes of previews. It’s so annoying. And the other thing about the 20 minutes of previews is that I think “oh I’m not going to see that one” so they’re really doing themselves a disservice. And one other thing, there are certain movies that are fine to see on our TV, but other movies I would always go see in a movie theater, like a James Bond movie, or a movie with a lot of big scenery. So it really isn’t as much fun to go to the movie theater. In Georgetown, there were these great old movie theaters when I started living here. They were fabulous. Now, they don’t exist. They’re a CVS, a Wawa, a coffee shop. 

Relationship to interviewee: Wife of Great Uncle