1958 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Annette Ketterson
Born in 1940
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Interviewed on September 18, 2019
By Hannah Yi
The first movie I remember watching was the musical South Pacific. I must have been about 16 or 17 years old, in high school. The theater was in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and my high school was in Havertown, Pennsylvania.
I went with a high school class of girls sponsored by a teacher; I guess you could call it a kind of field trip, since it was definitely school-arranged and we did have to leave school an hour or so earlier than the normal time. It was a teacher of a home economics class that one of my friends was taking who decided to go, and they had a few extra spots for people in other classes. The girls were allowed to invite one person each, and my friend happened to choose me.
We took a bus to the theater – I don’t remember the theater name, but there were definitely ushers present as far as I recall. If there was a concession, I don’t remember if I got anything. But generally, my favorite candy was Snickers and my favorite snack was peanuts.
South Pacific still remains one of my favorite movies. I thought the actors did a great job of getting the storyline across and expertly playing both their singing and acting roles. The things that stuck with me most about this movie were its music and scenery. The movie was supposed to take place during World War II in the islands off the coast of Asia – where the main island is Bali Ha’i – but I later found out that it was actually filmed in Hawaii off Kauai.
I also loved the storyline. It revolves around two intercultural love stories. One of the U.S. Navy sailors falls in love with a Polynesian native, and an American nurse falls in love with a French plantation owner who has two Polynesian children from his deceased wife. The movie really brings out the fact that prejudice is something that is taught at an early age. Much of the storyline is especially evident today with interracial relationships and marriages, though we have certainly made a great deal of progress since the 1940’s.
We didn’t do a lot of movies in those days, for some reason. We kept ourselves busy with other activities, just not movies. In fact, I remember seeing West Side Story several years after this one and Grease with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John but not too many besides that. My high school senior class did Grease as a school play in 1958, and they didn’t make the movie version of it until the mid 60’s, so they must have had the play before the movie, although I don’t remember watching many plays either.
A vast majority of the movies I’ve seen throughout my life have been in more recent years. My friends just didn’t go to the movies that often. I don’t remember hearing a lot of talk about the theater in classes or in my friend group or anything, so I think we just didn’t go to the movies as much as today.
The production companies in my time were not nearly as big, and the special effects were not near as anything like today, but I don’t know if that was the reason not as many people went. I did enjoy the experience every time, it just wasn’t as popular of a spot to hang out with friends or family even. I can’t really say why; it definitely wasn’t for a lack of things to watch, because there were a fair amount of movies even before the ones I was talking about. I just wasn’t really a moviegoer, but I am now.
