1957 Wilmette, Illinois

Susan Florsheim

1942

Wilmette, Illinois

Interviewed on February 7, 2021

By Emma Gray

I think the first movie I ever saw was Gone with the Wind. That’s the first one I remember. We didn’t go to that many movies growing up. I didn’t start going to the movies until I was in high school. I must have seen Gone with Wind around 1957, when I was 15. It came out earlier but movies didn’t come to all the theaters at once back then.

There were only two movie theaters near me but I know that I saw Gone with the Wind in the Teatro Del Lago in Wilmette, Illinois. That’s where I saw many of my first movies. It was across from Lake Michigan and that’s why the Spanish translates to Theater of the Lake. It was in a place called “No Man’s Land” because it wasn’t quite in Wilmette or Kenilworth and no one knew what part it was technically in. The theater was directly across from the lake so we passed it every time we took Sheridan road. It was in one of the first shopping centers built near me. If you didn’t go to the Teatro you had to go to Evanston and going thirty minutes away was a big deal.

I was sitting in the Teatro Del Lago when I saw Gone with the Wind. It was a beautiful theater with carvings and it had a Spanish theme to it. It was not very modern; it was very traditional, with columns. This was before the theaters got modern and looked like spaceships. It seemed gigantic and very fancy. I remember it was red with gold; those were the two colors. The decorations were painted on in gold and there were animal heads sticking out like gargoyles. The gold was kind of fading out and there was a lot of décor on the ceilings. Both the Teatro Del Lago and the other theater, The Grenada, were very ornate. They only had one screen. I miss that theater. It was demolished to make room for another shopping center.

The theater had concessions and ushers. I probably got popcorn. The ushers were all dressed up in uniforms. They wore jackets with gold buttons and they kind of looked like they had strings across them. They were kind of military looking. They might have worn hats. I remember walking into the theater and seeing the fancy red carpeting. Today, the theaters just have tile floors but I can’t forget the red carpeting. The chairs were kind of plush. There was a theater smell which wasn’t so great. It always smelled a little, slightly rancid.

It was a treat to go to the movies. I think I was with friends when I saw Gone with the Wind. I didn’t go to movies by myself. I probably drove because nothing was in walking distance. It was a big deal when we got our drivers licenses. Today a mile and a half is walking distance but back then no one walked. We would go on Saturdays. We never went during the week. We would go with just the girls. It was a social event and we weren’t going for intellectual stimulation. We were going to have a social activity. Sometimes you went to the movies to see what was in fashion or it was just for fun. We would go outside and we would have a cigarette during the movie so sometimes we would even miss some of the film.

We all dressed to go to the theater. It wasn’t like today where people just wear gym shoes. I think I was wearing a plaid skirt and a sweater — the fair isle sweater. The fair isle sweater was a wool sweater with a woven pattern called an intarsia and it was a big deal if you had a sweater set. We wore bobby white socks that were folded over. I wore penny loafers called weejuns and I had to save up for them because they were what the rich kids wore.

Gone with the Wind was a period piece with wonderful costumes. It was with Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable who were ahead of my time but they were very famous actors. I remember it was sad and I remember that I cried. It was a Southern way of life so it was very educational for me because we were from the North and we didn’t know about stuff like that. It was very moving and it stayed with me for a while. It was political in its own way and for that time. I haven’t seen the movie since then but I know that it was very meaningful and it really struck me. The whole Southern plantation life was a shock. The class system was an eye opener. The dialogue was wonderful but it felt dated even when I saw it. It was a well-known movie and well received.

I really cried when it was over. I think the girls I was with were crying too. We talked a little about it on the car ride home but we didn’t get into it too deep. There was a degree of tone deafness when we grew up and there were things you didn’t talk about. We didn’t delve into the psychological meaning that you would today. Life felt a little less complicated back then.