1951 Queens, New York

Marilyn Meyers

1942

Queens, New York

Interviewed on Thursday, September 19th

by Derek Demel

My love of movies started back when I was a little kid. Every Saturday, I would go to the movie theater. It was called the Earle Theater and was located about a block away from my parents’ neighborhood hardware store in Queens, New York. Because I was an only child, I would walk there on my own. I didn’t mind going by myself. If there was something I wanted to see, I would just go. (I still like going to the movies by myself.) And in this particular movie theater, there was even a children’s section. In fact, the building is still there but it’s no longer a movie theater. I think it’s now some kind of shopping mall. It still kind of looks the same… at least the canopy is kind of the same. It’s interesting because it all seems very big in my memory from when I was 10 or 11. But who knows how big it actually was. I think it probably had a balcony—something that they don’t really do anymore in the new theaters… it was kind of like an auditorium.

Anyways, in those days there was only one theater in the building. Everyone would come to see the same movies and they were ALWAYS double features. There were also many elaborate cartoons [such as] Donald Duck and Roadrunner that would play. You know, this was also post World War II era so there were news reels playing in black and white that would let you know what was going on in the world. You’d be there for hours! And the other thing is that there weren’t specific start times for the movies. You’d show up and watch the movie and then you’d get up and leave. But I never knew what the schedule was.

Now, the earliest film that comes to mind… I find it quite funny actually. It was called The Thing and it was a horror movie. It was made in 1951 so I was nine years old. I don’t have very specific memories of it but what I do remember is a scene about some sort of frozen creature that was in a freezer. And when [the main characters] opened the freezer, this sort of gelatinous creature came out. I actually looked it up [prior to the interview] and got a better understanding of the context. But that’s mainly what I remember. It wasn’t terribly scary. Although, what was a horror movie back then and what is a horror movie now? I also remember Psycho from when I was a teenager and how terrifying it was! It was a terrible movie. And I remember wanting to get up in the middle of it—it was just unbearable! And after that movie, no one ever wanted to take a shower. But I also watched a lot of television as a kid. Twilight Zone, Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), I Love Lucy… all of that stuff. Hitchcock was the big television series at that time though.

My favorite foods at the moves? I know I probably got popcorn with butter. But my favorite candy at the time was Good and Plenty which I think still exists. It was some type of licorice surrounded by either pink or white sugar. I also remember that there were all these wonderful old movie posters but I don’t quite remember which posters were out at that time. [The art style] was like someone had actually hand drawn or painted the posters. I also don’t remember if there were any ushers at that specific theater… perhaps there may have been ushers in the bigger theaters in Manhattan. My parent’s worked together six days a week so we would sometimes go to stuff on Sunday’s in Manhattan. Either to a movie or to a [performance] theater. But I can’t remember if I ever talked with them about the movies that I saw…

To me, movies are more than just about the movie itself; they are a way of communicating. I love watching the same movie more than once because you see things each time that you didn’t notice the time before. I’m not sure I cared much about what exactly I was seeing [when I was younger] but I sure enjoyed being there. Even nowadays, I still go to the theater fairly often. When you see a movie at home, you’re sort of distracted… so I like the feeling of actually going to the theater. People also joke that I’ve got a little bit of a movie trivia mind. Who played what and when… I love that! I am also a clinical psychologist and I’ve actually incorporated movies into some of my professional talks. I’m particularly interested in the holocaust and I’ve used movies like Sophie’s Choice and Lars and the Real Girl to show how film portrays certain kinds of trauma. [The latter] is fabulous and I also use it to teach a class on attachment theory and development. So as you can see, I really loved movies as a kid. Going to the movies every Saturday really planted [that love] into my head.