1947 Manhattan, New York

Sally Brewster
Born 1942
Manhattan New York
Interviewed on Friday, September 13, 2019
By Alex Weyerhaeuser

Sally was five years old when she first pushed open the large, heavy doors of a movie theatre. It was her friend Maxine’s birthday party, and the nanny brought a small cohort of Maxine’s classmates to see The Wizard of Oz and celebrate. This outing, Sally remembers, was completely extravagant. Going to the movies was not something any of her other classmates did for their birthdays, so all the children filed in to the theatre in complete awe. In 1947, Manhattan was still recovering from the war and going to the movies, even to young Sally who did not understand the full weight of the tragic global crisis, was an escape from reality. Before the movies there was always a news broadcast in those days, and Sally recalls a very loud broadcaster yelling about fighter planes while bombs and shooting transpired in the background. Perhaps generating and fostering national spirit and pride in some, for Sally this postwar nationalism was loud and frightening.

Rather than specific memories, Sally recalls how the experience made her feel. She does not remember many of the characters or much of the story, but does remember her wonder and amazement. Since there were no TVs at the time, only radio, seeing a radio show up on a big screen in front of her “was the most exciting, wonderful thing,” she said. She remembers Dorothy’s bedroom, the cornfield, and the thunder during the tornado. She remembers liking Dorothy and the scarecrow, and being afraid of the wizard. But more than anything, Sally remembers her surprise at how loud everything was. A completely new sensory experience, Sally felt smaller than ever in the big theatre as overwhelming sound and pictures enveloped her. She remembers being scared and, though she liked the experience overall, she was relieved when it was over. She doesn’t remember exactly what she was scared by—maybe the noise, maybe the novelty, maybe the Wicked Witch and the flying monkeys. Maybe, like Dorothy, she too was scared to be away from her family and her home in a completely new world.

Despite her first movie experience being with friends, to Sally going to movies was generally a family experience. She remembers going to Radio City Music Hall with her mother and father to see movies, especially the Disney movies that were coming out around this time. She specifically remembers seeing Bambi as one of her first movies, which she described as wonderful—the perfect child movie, despite the sadness. Ushers would greet them and lead them into the plush theater, and as Sally remembers the experience, she is still struck by all the people smoking in the theater, creating a hazy atmosphere.

To top off the whole novel, exciting event of going out to see a movie, Sally and the birthday party crowd (and later, Sally and her family) would go to a little store nearby, after the film. She recalls her excitement as she slid a quarter into a hole in a glass window and then open a little door where the food she ordered awaited her. While there were no concessions or other opportunities to get candy or snacks during the movie, this exciting outing afterwards brought sharing food into the cinema experience, tying it together in a communal way. The whole experience of going out to a movie, from beginning to end, was just that—an experience. Opening those big heavy doors was leading her into a new world of sound, color, stories, novelty, exciting food, family, and a ritual that was completely unlike anything else in her daily life. The movies could be an escape from reality, but more than that, they were an alternate, enhanced reality.