1940, San Francisco, California

Janice Rhoades

Born 1937

San Francisco, CA

Interviewed on September 22, 2019

Interviewed by Gabriel Vasquez

Growing up, I always went to the movies, and I remember the first movie I ever saw. My father took me to see Pinocchio. He loved movies, and I would always ask to go. I was probably about three and a half. I was so young that I remember the event of going more than I remember the movie. It was in color, but I couldn’t say much about the story. 

I think my father had told me the film’s story before, but prior to going, I didn’t know that a movie could build tension so well. For this reason, I think I liked the movies so much. As a kid, I really lived in those movies, and that’s why I think I shouted out loud in the movie: “Go Jiminy, go!”. I was little and scared for Jiminy. I remember the whole audience laughing when I said that, even though, I don’t remember the movie that well. Meet Me in St. Louis, which I saw a year later, had that same effect of making me feel like I was in the movie. I never had that kind of family life, but I felt like I did in the movie.  

My initial reaction was that I saw Pinocchio at the Avenue Theater in San Francisco because that was the theater I walked to my whole childhood, but now I remember that I actually saw it at the El Capitan Theater on Mission Street in San Francisco. 

The El Capitan didn’t have ushers and nor did the other local theaters that I could walk to, such as, the Bay View Theater. However, the Fox Theater downtown did have ushers. It was gorgeous. I remember the big marble sinks, and they even had a separate room in the bathroom just for the women to do their makeup. The El Capitan and The Avenue were smaller. They were plain. There was a marque and then a smaller lobby inside that had the concessions to right and stairs leading up to the balcony on the left. I never had a favorite concession. I wasn’t that big on them, but I would always get something– usually popcorn.

Before the movies, the theater would play trailers and the newsreels from the war. The trailers weren’t like they are now. These trailers would show longer scenes from the movie and had lots of narration. They weren’t complicated.