1959 Princeton, New Jersey

Hallett Johnson
1952
Princeton, New Jersey
Interviewed on January 28, 2019
by Izzy Nixon

The first movie I went to see was The Alamo, and Poppy (my father) took me. Just him and me – it was pretty cool. I was probably seven years old, and The Alamo was about the last ditch effort of a bunch of kind of pioneering people fending off those who wanted to take Texas back. Everyone was fighting over Texas. The United States wanted to keep Texas theirs and Mexico wanted it too, so this movie was called The Alamo. So, my father took me, and the funny thing about it was before 1960 Davy Crockett was a huge thing…I mean, maybe even in your time – Davy Crockett, coonskin cap, all his adventures on the Mississippi and his adventures staring down bears and the song Daaaa-vvy Daa-vy Crockett! Davy Crockett was Disney. Disney just kind of grew around Davy Crockett.

In 55’ 56’ 57’ I grew up on Davy Crockett. It was one of the funniest things in the world. In Maine, we would just play Davy Crockett all day long on the record player. My grandfather, I think, actually threw away the record player, because he was so tired of the song. But we grew up on Davy Crockett, so Davy Crockett fought at the Alamo.

And so, my dad knew I loved Davy Crockett, knew I followed everything, so he took me to see the movie The Alamo. And this is really – I don’t know if it’s the funny part or not funny part – but we went there and I don’t know if you know the story about The Alamo but everybody gets killed. Davy Crockett gets killed! The reason I remember it was because I went it was a happy evening with my dad. He’d never taken me to a movie before. It was just me and him, you know, and Davy Crockett is killed! What a bummer!

I remember being very upset, and I remember my dad trying to explain to me, “Oh, it’s only a movie. It’s only a movie. He didn’t die. He got up, walked away, and became Davy Crockett on the Mississippi or whatever.” But, here was this movie, where basically all the heroes were killed. How about that for a first movie? They were all heroes, but they all died fighting in The Alamo. When suddenly you see a real life movie with real life people with blood all over the place- the idea that they are just going to get up and walk away is pretty eye opening.