1957 Springfield, Massachusetts

Cary James

Born 1951

Springfield, Massachusetts 

Interviewed on September 19, 2019

By Isaac Robinson

I’m going to tell you a piece of interesting information I bet you don’t know. One of the greatest actors in the 50s was Cary Grant. I was actually named after him. My mother and everyone in my family was really into the theater, except for me. She was completely infatuated with Cary Grant. 

My earliest memory of movies was the drive-in. There aren’t many drive-ins left, but they were fun. My earliest memories of going to the movies were with my brother, my sister and me, and I was just a little kid. And for whatever reason, they loved to go to horror movies. My sister was four years older than me, my brother was 16 years older than me and they’d take me out, and I was just scared to death. For whatever reason I remember seeing this one particular movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They’d take me out and there were no age restrictions, you just go down, eat as much popcorn as you could, and go home, and I remember having to sleep with the lights on because I thought these people were coming after me, and that’s the god’s honest truth. That’s my first memory of movies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers with my brother and sister at a drive-in in Springfield, Massachusetts. Pretty crazy stuff.

I probably would’ve been 6 or 7 years old, which would have been 1957 or 1958. My brother had a Chevy Impala convertible, so we’d go down in the convertible and we’d sit out there and watch movies. And we went fairly regularly. For whatever reason they liked to go on the weekends. I don’t know why my brother was spending time with a 6-year-old, but we had a good time. But it did scare the liver out of me. And I’m sure we saw all kinds of other movies too. It seemed like the same people were in all the movies. John Wayne, Cary Grant. We would put the convertible roof down and sit out in a really nice, star-lit night, and watch horror movies. It was a good time, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I have really fond memories of it, other than being scared to death that one particular night. That movie was crazy. I think I’m still scared of it a little bit, to be honest with you. It definitely made an impression on me. And for whatever reason I can still see those people coming at me. It probably maimed me for life. I can thank my brother for that. It was a great movie, no doubt about it. It’s bringing back crazy memories to me, the blood and the horror of the whole thing. 

Of course, you got exposed to some stuff you didn’t want to see. I remember some of the people were NOT watching the movie. They were doing other things in the backs of the cars. It was pretty wild. 

Basically what happened is, you would drive in, it probably cost a buck or something, and you would pull up to these posts with speakers on them. Usually you’d try to get a spot near the concession stand. Everyone would want to get there early so you could be near the concession stand and just get stuff. I don’t think they served alcohol there, I don’t ever remember my brother drinking. It was mainly popcorn, hotdogs, hamburgers, stuff like that. You’d pull in there and you’d take this speaker and you’d clip it to the window. I remember my brother and sister would usually sit in the front, and I’d sit in the back. It was pretty comfortable. Sometimes you’d fall asleep, but it was a good time. It was always packed, it was very popular. 

We’d always get home late. It was hard to stay awake. We’d usually get home at midnight, and if you were a little kid, you generally don’t stay up that late, so I fell asleep most of them. I’d just end up sleeping in the back of the car while my sister and brother watched the movie. I didn’t get most of the stuff anyway, I was a little kid. But I watched every minute of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was absolutely fascinating. Frightening and fascinating at the same time. And then I’d get home and the next morning my mother would ask us what we did. She never gave us a hard time. Some parents would have never let their kid go, but for whatever reason she wanted to maim me for life so she let me go with my brother. Sometimes there’d be an argument with my mother as to whether or not I could go, but my brother would always say to me, don’t bother getting into any arguments with her, just say yes to whatever she says and then when you leave do whatever you want. 

Going to the movies was completely different back then. The drive-in was the major difference maker. And everything was black and white. And there weren’t a lot of choices. You had no idea what movies were playing, you just showed up. You never looked in the newspaper to see what the movies were. It was, do you want to go to the movies tonight, and people would say yes because there wasn’t anything else to do when you grew up in a small town. So of course you were going to go. And then you’d get there and all the sudden it was Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But you had no idea that that’s what was going to be there, it just happened to be what they were playing. And you just watched it. If my brother had known beforehand, he definitely would have still taken me. That was never a factor. He would have gotten a kick out of seeing me horrified.