1961 Kingsport, Tennessee
Nancy Beane
1946
Kingsport, Tennessee
Interviewed on February 4, 2022
By Claire Chen
Well, this is going to seem very superficial, but I loved the movie The Parent Trap, and I still love both versions of it. I don’t remember if it’s the first movie I saw in theaters, but it’s certainly the one I remember best. Honestly, I’ve watched it so many times on planes since then when I’ve been on overseas trips because it just helps to pass the time. It’s probably my most favorite movie, and I’ll watch it so many times that my family laughs at me for watching that silly thing.
You know, I remember being concerned because the parents were divorced and the girls were trying to get them back together. When I was growing up, I didn’t know anyone who was divorced, period. And for me to see this, I thought, Well this is something that only happens in the movies or happens with rich people because clearly they were well-to-do. And I remember thinking that was strange. I knew one woman who worked, but no women in my hometown worked—they all stayed home with their children. So in The Parent Trap, here was this woman who was incredibly creative and incredibly well-to-do who designed beautiful wedding dresses. The world I was seeing in The Parent Trap was very different from the world in which I existed. My parents weren’t poor, but you know—that impacted me greatly.
I saw The Parent Trap the first year it came out in 1961, so I suppose I was 15 at the time. The second version had Lindsay Lohan in it, and she was just so cute at the time. And personally, I just think she’s a nut-head now, or at least she seemed to be for a while. I remember going when it first came out in 1961 though, and what was her name? Hayley Mills! I thought she was just great. And Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith—I thought they were just fabulous!
I first saw The Parent Trap at one of my home theaters. We had the State Theater, and I don’t remember the name of the other one, but it was across the street. Our theaters were not grandiose, let me just tell you. They were pretty mundane. We had two movie theaters in my hometown. What I really remember, though, is that it cost 90 cents to see The Parent Trap, and my father would give me a dollar and tell me to bring him the change… that’s what I really remember. Also, when I was young, my father worked for Tennessee Eastman, which wasn’t a branch of Eastman Kodak, but was related. And they had movies there on Saturday morning, and it was called Horse Krickers because it was near Horse Creek. We were very active in that. Nearly everyone in my hometown worked for Tennessee Eastman.
State Theater (Kingsport, TN)
Horse Krickers Coin
When I first started going to the movies, they were not 90 cents, they were 15! But people didn’t make the same kind of money then. It was a nickel for coke and a nickel for popcorn, so for 25 cents, I could go to the movies. And I just thought that was the grandest thing in the world because I could come up with 25 cents. But I think that was my weekly allowance too, 25 cents. My favorite snack was popcorn and a Coke—real Coke, not Diet Coke! Real Coke had enough sugar in it to sink a battleship. Every time I ever went to the movies, I had popcorn and a Coke. I don’t remember who I went to see The Parent Trap with for the first time, but it would’ve been with a friend or two. My parents never went to the movies with us, they would just drop us off at the theater. But that was during a time when my parents wouldn’t lock the doors in their house either. We locked them at night, but not during the daytime.
I’ve never liked scary movies, and I don’t like violent movies. Anything that was violent, I tried to stay away from. I don’t know whether it was too realistic, or whether… I just didn’t like them! So I like things like The Parent Trap which may have some sad parts but resolve themselves well. I know that my initial impressions of The Parent Trap were that it was just a good movie, and I loved the way it ended. I love when movies have a positive ending—a lot of the movies today, I think, are probably more realistic, but I don’t like the fact that the endings are often not really very positive. I like movies that are forms of escapism, and I don’t know what that says about me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate movies with substance, but I just don’t know that I need to be reminded. I see too much in the news.
Here’s something I do remember and being upset about: there were not many people of color in my hometown, but they had to sit up in the balcony. And even then, I knew that was wrong. I don’t think I was very into civil rights until I was a little older, and I just remember thinking, Why in the world do they have to sit up in the balcony? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. So, that was also impactful to me—that our society was like that, and I just didn’t understand it. I do also remember seeing a lot of cowboy movies, and the cowboys were always good, and the Indians were always bad. I think it caused a lot of people in our society to grow up with misconceptions about Native Americans. There were a lot of seeds that were planted, either through movies or experiences in life when I was young, that later on made me realize how strange things were in our society. Things have improved tremendously since I saw The Parent Trap, but we still have a ways to go.
