1945 Baltimore, Maryland 2

Zelda Rosenthal

1935

Baltimore Maryland

Interviewed on February 13, 2022

By Olivia Plant

Oh I want to say I was eight or nine and the first movie I remember seeing was either Pinocchio or one of the Shirley Temple movies – but she was more grown up by then, she was older in her films by then. I don’t remember much about my first trip to the movies. We went often. There was no television or Netflix like you have today so if we wanted to see a movie we went to the theater. Now you can watch it streamed at the same time as it’s playing in the theaters. But when we were growing up, we didn’t have that. We had our radio and the theaters and that was our entertainment. We played outside a lot but besides that we really didn’t have much to do. So we went to the movies. It cost ten cents to go see a movie and we’d go on Saturdays – not every Saturday, we couldn’t afford that. We wouldn’t get popcorn or candy or anything like that, we just couldn’t afford it. We were quite poor.

There were a lot of theaters in our area but a few I remember more vividly. There was Warwick and Metropolitan on North Ave and we would go to one of those on Saturdays. It was about a twelve-ish block walk. From nine years old we were doing that walk by ourselves. Sometimes Elayne (her older sister) would walk with me or I would take Harriett (her younger sister). Doris (her oldest sister) was almost out of the house by the time I was going to the movies but even when she was home she had other things she wanted to do or friends or boys she wanted to go with. So other than Elayne or Harriett I would just go with friends. My parents never took us to the movies; they had things to be doing. My mom would use the time with us out of the house to run errands or get things done. You know in those times it was different than today. We walked to school from a very young age and we came home and played outside and then eventually we went home for dinner. We had a different kind of independence than you see in kids today. But so we would go on these Saturdays and pay our ten cents to get in and sometimes we would stay all day. We’d pay to get in and then we would just sit in the theater and re-watch the movie two or three times. We didn’t have anything better to do and it was fun being there.

I remember some of the actors and films we saw; Red Shoes was one of the bigger ones we went to see. I don’t remember too many of the movies specifically. Before the movie they would show coming attractions and everything was in color by the 40s and 50s. They would also show The March of the Times which would show us what was going on in the world: what was happening with the war, the economy, whatever may be going on. If you didn’t read the newspaper this was how you would get the news – by going to the movie theater. And then actors like Bogart and Clark Gable were always favorites. There were so many great actors but you know the companies owned their actors back then so actors couldn’t just do whatever they pleased like they might do today. 

There were balconies in the theater and that was where the kids would usually be sitting – that’s where the necking happened. There was also smoking in the theaters back then. Can you imagine that today? It was a very different time. But then smoking got moved to just the balconies so it changed a bit. Another thing I remember very vividly is the ushers, they don’t have those today. They would be there in case there were any problems, they’d break up the necking. I remember their uniforms and they would have their flashlights and they would take you to your seat. You wouldn’t have an assigned seat or anything like that but they would just make sure you were settled. 

The other theater we would go to was downtown and this was more for special occasions, really once a year for Christmas. Back then, being flat footed was considered a disease, a disability. And so each year on Christmas the clinic downtown would give out movie tickets and two bags of toys and candy to the kids with disabilities. Elayne would take me downtown to this clinic once a year and we would get this and then go to the theater, getting all this was a big deal for us. It was the one time of year [Elayne] talked to me. We would take the trolley down and then walk 2 blocks. The movie theater there was more extravagant. It was on Lexington Ave and there was a popcorn store right next door that you could smell up and down Lexington. And it was actually two theaters in the same building: Century and Valencia. It was always a very special day.