1942 Bronx, New York

Ray Hack

Born in 1935

Bronx, New York

September 21, 2019

by Matthew Hack

I think the first movie I remember seeing might have been The Philadelphia Story—was that the name? I guess I remember Bambi better. I don’t remember what year it was. I was seven years old. Now whether I saw it in ’42 or ’43, I’m not sure—but I was seven or eight years old. So I probably would’ve gone with my mother. And I saw it in the theater, not on television.

I don’t remember much about Bambi. It was in Technicolor. I didn’t necessarily prefer Technicolor over black and white. Can’t say I preferred one, myself personally. Was it an attraction? Yeah, I guess it was. I never really thought of it that way. But I remember the Technicolor was very striking, and was sort of faddish. I just remember the color and the animals! That’s all I remember. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it again. I don’t even remember the mother being shot. I just remember the deer themselves. I remember being sad, but I hadn’t recalled the reason for it … I guess you just gave me the reason for it! I just have a picture of Technicolor and of deer. I think that about covers it when it comes to Bambi!

There was another big one, Casablanca, but I didn’t see it then. I saw it later, and I loved it. It’s probably my favorite movie. It has to do with World War II, with Humphrey Bogart, and Ingrid Bergman, one of my favorite actresses. It had to do with World War II, which I’ve always been interested in. It’s a great love story, and a great war picture. The good guys come out on top! It ends that way. The bad guys are the bad guys. It’s just a great movie. Humphrey Bogart was one of my favorite actors at the time. He was a big star. There were more big male stars than big female stars at the time.

The movie was within walking distance. We had a fair number of movie theaters within walking distance. One, The Dover, was just a few blocks away. There were four movie theaters—The Elsmere, The Fairmont, The Washington—within walking distance in the Bronx, which we used to call the East Bronx, but is now called the South Bronx. Oh wait a second, there was another theater. Actually, there were six theaters. I’m just amazed by how many movie theaters were within walking distance. They weren’t all around the corner, but they were all within a healthy walking distance. Some of the theaters had double headers. Two films for the price of one. I would think those went out of style by the 60s. I remember that they changed the price of the movie from 10 cents to 11 cents. Eventually they changed it to a quarter, and then to fifty cents.

What were the conditions like inside the theater? Let me put it this way—air conditioning. No one had air conditioning in their homes. But there was air conditioning in the movie theaters. They advertised them by putting out banners that showed icicles coming down. One theater, The Elsmere Theater, did not have air conditioning, but had two big fans on the stage. If you wanted air conditioning, that’s where you went. I think they had concessions in every single movie. I don’t recall how much it costed at the time, but I don’t think it’s as much of a robbery as it is now. You always had popcorn, you always had soda. Some chocolate. Those little round things, not M&M’s. They were smaller, wrapped in silver, pyramid-shaped … Hershey’s Kisses! That’s right, that’s what they are.

One thing about theaters—there were usually balconies. And you could smoke in the balconies, but you couldn’t smoke in the orchestra. I don’t recall that the balconies were restricted to adults. And there were ushers in the theaters. I could say “usherettes,” but I’m probably not allowed to say that anymore. You didn’t have reserved seats or anything at that time, and they controlled, basically, to see that there was no funny business going on. Sometimes there were fights. I shouldn’t say often, but occasionally. I was never in one!

The very first date with a girl would invariably be to the movies. The second and the third date too! Your Grandma and Grandpa, their first date was to the movies. The movie we went to together was a science-fiction film called Them! As it turned out, Grandma had seen it earlier with a friend, but she didn’t tell me that at the time.

The movies were a universal experience. It was your main mode of entertainment, aside from the radio. At that time, in the 40s, those were the two major forms of mass entertainment: the movies and the radio. Starting around 1950, television of course came in. Television had already been around, but commercially, it hadn’t. But by 1950, everyone started getting a television set. And the prediction was that this would kill the movies. It did not, obviously. I don’t even think television changed movies. But in the 50s, on Tuesday evenings, the streets would be empty because everyone was in their homes watching the Milton Berle program. He was a prominent comedian and he had a weekly program. He was very, very popular.

I think the movies are more serious now, as a whole, and more topic-oriented. You did have race relations movies, but that was past the 50s. I don’t go that often anymore. They’re probably better now, overall. But I enjoyed them! Wow. They are all coming back to me.

Poster Source: http://www.impawards.com/1942/bambi_ver5.html