1961 Monterrey, México

Jesús Sánchez

1953

Monterrey, México

Interviewed on February 4, 2022

by Jessica Sánchez

I was about eight years old, and my mom took my sister and me to watch Tarantula! It was in this bullfighting arena, La Arena de Guadalupe. It was open air and had rows and rows of wooden seats. The whole neighborhood would come and sit in the stands; it was a happening. When they put on movies, they had this big reel-to-reel projector to show the movie on a screen in the middle of the arena. The people who put on the movie would go from town to town showing the same movie, and the next week they would be back with a different one. It took a while for American movies to reach Mexico; maybe they showed them faster in the movie theaters downtown, but in the neighborhoods far from the theaters, you depended on these makeshift showings. We walked to the arena. Everyone walked everywhere at that time— No one had cars. It was about six or seven blocks from our house. The roads weren’t paved, so everything was dirt. When it rained, everything became muddy, and instead of snow fights we’d have mud fights. In the same way you can put something hard like a rock in the middle of a snowball, you can do the same with a mudball… 

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember much about Tarantula! except for the huge spider that ate people, that scared everybody. And of course they had a damsel in distress that the hero had to save. It was in black and white.

Supposedly this spider became such a big monster because of the nuclear tests they were doing in the middle of the desert. I remember at our school we would do the drills where we had to hide under our desks. We were told to prepare for a nuclear war, just like in the United States. 

Like all the American movies that came into Mexico at the time, they showed the movies with Spanish subtitles. I think that might have helped me a little. Even though I couldn’t understand what the heck they were saying, I could pick up a couple things and familiarize myself with the language. 

It wasn’t very formal. There were no ushers, just a ticket person who took your money. There weren’t concession stands, so everyone brought their own food. I don’t remember what my mom packed for my sister and me, but it was probably bologna sandwiches, simple bologna slices on white bread. It was cheap, but it was enough. I don’t remember how much it cost, but back then 5 pesos could get you a ticket and coke, some popcorn and candy at the theaters, when the theaters started coming up. Although back then, wrapped candy like Milky Ways were either too expensive or not available. Sometimes someone would come in from the States with candy bars, but candy like that wasn’t easy to find. The greatest thing you could eat was bolitas de leche quemada, these balls that were hard on the outside, covered in sugar, with caramel in the middle. 

My first movie theater was El Cine Tropical. This one didn’t have a roof or covering either, but it was an actual building. One time I was with my friend Ricardo—we must’ve been 12 or so—and while we were watching a movie—I can’t remember what it was—we saw the clouds go by really fast. They turned on the lights and told us to go home. We were getting the end of a hurricane that came through the gulf, and the wind wouldn’t let us walk. It was so bad, pushing you and throwing rocks in your face, that it took us 30 minutes to walk a couple blocks home.

I thought Tarantula! was very scary. Walking back home, all I could think was “Can you imagine a scorpion? Or a snake?” I’ve seen short clips of Tarantula! since then, but I’ve never been able to watch it again. It’s too silly. But back then, it wasn’t silly at all to me.