1947 Queens, New York

Elissa Greenwald 

1944

Queens, New York 

September 18, 2019 

By Shaima Shama 

        It was the movie Snow White, which was a Disney animated movie I think. We saw it in theaters. I think I was about 3 years old. I was very, very excited. As soon as I walked into the theater and I saw these huge images on the screen, I was totally transfixed because I had never seen television or anything before then. It was the first time I had seen these big, moving images on a screen. I thought it was amazing. 

        We lived in Flushing, which is in Queens, New York. I believe it was 1947. I don’t remember exactly. I don’t remember the name of the theater, either. I do seem to remember that there were ushers and I think that at the time a lot of theaters had these really tall, velvet curtains over where the movie was projected. I remember they’d pull back the curtains when the movie started and we’d watch with anticipation. 

        I guess Snow White was one of the earliest movies that was specifically made for children. My parents always liked going to the movies and it was one of the movies they could finally take me to. I’m not exactly sure how we got there. We didn’t have the car then, so I think we took the subway – not really sure. I’m sure there were concession stands in the theater, but I don’t think I got to eat anything. The movie was amazing. I remember that there were songs in it which I liked a lot. Some of it was very scary, though. I think the story is that there’s like an evil queen that tries to kill her (Snow White) with a poisoned apple. She does poison her for a while, but then somebody saves her. Probably one of the seven dwarves…I don’t remember exactly. I remember that part of it was terrifying. It was one of those things where the audience knew that someone was trying to kill Snow White, but Snow white didn’t know. It was very, very frightening. But then I really liked the cheery music and it had a happy ending, so overall I liked it. I think I really wanted to stay and see it again. I even begged my parents. They said no.

        It was hard to go back into the real world, as the experience was very entrancing – kind of like magic on the screen. We didn’t have a TV until like 1961 or so. I would always ask to go to the movies. I remember there were a lot of Disney movies that came out around that time, so we saw several of those. Those were in a different location. I think we actually watched those movies in a theater at a strip mall – it wasn’t nearly quite as grand. It was still a great experience. Actually, I remember once when I was about 8, my parents left me and some other kids alone in the theater because they had ushers. So that was kind of cool. They ushers were very attentive to everybody and my parents trusted them to look after us. When I was a little older, I think about 12, I went to see a reshowing of Gone With The Wind. I went with about 6 friends of mine. Our parents drove us there because they wanted to leave and go somewhere. I think it was when I was a little older, about that age or so, I think once or twice I even walked to the movie theaters to see movies with friends. That was very exciting. 

        I sort of wish that more young people, today and then, would go to the movies. Because even now I think it’s a different experience to see a movie in the theater than to see it at home. Its um, you know like, if there’s something scary and everyone in the audience gasps at the same time, it’s a much more powerful experience. Very rarely do I go to the movies now, maybe 3 times a year. We watch a lot of movies on TV. One thing that we do tend to go into the movie theaters for now is to see the theater broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. It’s definitely a lot less expensive than going to see the opera in person. I do, however, wish that we went to theaters more. It’s an experience like no other.