1950 Owego, New York

Barbara Buckley

Date born: 1942

Owego, New York

By Justin Buckley

(chuckles) Oh yes, do I remember the first movie I saw! The movie was Cinderella, by Disney, and it was wonderful. It was animated, one of the first ones. But I didn’t know that going in. I was seven or eight at the time, and my parents had asked me earlier in the week if I’d like to see a movie about a princess on Saturday night. I was so excited to watch it that I read the story in an “Early Reader Book” so I’d be prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was the animation, though. It was like a moving painting, and I thought it was so neat!

See, I didn’t go to very many when I was young, not like today. Today it’s much less of an event than it was back when I was little. Everyone back then dressed up nice and spiffy to go to these things, it was an occasion! But my family was not wealthy when I was young, so we would go to maybe – oh – one, two movies a year. And for that movie I went with my whole mom’s-side extended family, and we all bunched into two cars to drive there. We went to the Dryden Theatre, basically a drive-in movie theater where you park your car and set up lawn chairs, and you watch from there. There were huge speakers all around us and a projector way far back with the concessions. The experience was kind of surreal with the sound blaring and the animated artwork on the screen – it was a lot to process! You know those cartoons where the people are hypnotized and have swirls in their eyes? Yeah, that was me! (laughs)

The character of Cinderella made me go crazy about princesses. She was an idol for young girls like me – she was pretty, witty, and charming, and a prince falls in love with her! For my next birthday I asked for all-Cinderella presents. I got a little toy fluffy mouse just like the one in Cinderella and a princess tiara and a cape. I had the little toy mouse for twenty years until I lost it when I moved. About the movie itself – well, of course I remember how Cinderella goes. But I don’t remember much about the details of the movie except that I wanted to be like Cinderella. Now you have Ariel, the “Frozen” girl, Beauty from Beauty and the Beast – but the only one I saw when I was growing up was Cinderella, and so she was kind of an icon to me.

The concessions at the movie theaters were half the fun of going. My brother told me always flooded the concessions stand at intermission (being older, he’d been to movies before), so he and I tried to get there a few minutes before intermission to skip the line. Raisinettes were my favorite. You know, the chocolate-covered raisin candies? Oh, those were really good.

I remember being totally scandalized when I saw boys and girls at the back of the theater making out during the movie. But, you know, you had that then just like you have that now. The were movies the perfect place for a date because they were pretty expensive so nobody went all the time, making it a really special occasion. Also, the theaters would often show just one movie for several weeks, they didn’t have much variety. So if you wanted to see a movie on any given night, you couldn’t really pick and choose like today. You just went with whatever was showing.