1962 Moss Point, Mississippi

Ray Horn

1949

Moss Point, Mississippi

Interviewed on February 5, 2022

By Gabby Ortega

The first movie I remember seeing? Ah, I don’t know, to be honest with you. I know that I saw many movies every Saturday. My sister and I walked downtown, to the little town we lived in, and watched Saturday films. I think they were mostly Westerns and Tarzan films, but none of them really stand out as being like a first. When I was about 4 or 5 or 6, my sister and I started walking to the movies every Saturday. It was really, really nice. What I remember the most is my mother would give each of us a quarter. And with that quarter, each of us would not only get into the movie, but we’d buy a box of popcorn, a drink, a candy bar, and we always came home with a nickel! Popcorn and candy were mandatory almost. Milk Duds were one of my favorite candies.

To me, To Kill a Mockingbird was the movie that was very very early in my memory as making a tremendous impression in my life. For one thing, it’s very Southern; a small Southern town that takes place in 1939 or something like that. It’s got a lot of racial conflicts in it. It’s told from a child’s viewpoint. It’s told by a girl, who I think she’s something like 5 or 6 years old. So when I saw it as a young child, I think I was in my 10 or 13 years old, I was immediately struck by the fact that I can relate to the movie through her because she was telling the story. And there were so many themes and comments and plots that involved young children at the age where they’re doing scheming things, telling little sips or hesitating to do things they shouldn’t do but going on ahead and doing them anyway. And, you know, they’re gonna get in trouble, and they knew they were gonna get in trouble. It was very child-oriented, and I really liked that part.

But also, if I may continue, growing up in the South, I always felt out of place because I never quite understood the racial tensions. I never ever viewed a difference between white people and black people, like so many people did. And when I saw this movie, I was able to see some individuals, mostly the father of this young girl who was a lawyer that was defending a black man for rape, and expression of emotions I always thought I had too: compassion for all people, openness of all races, fairness, equality, and all those were being presented on the big screen. I just found that moving and fascinating. I don’t remember the crowd’s reaction, but I remember my sister liked it a lot because it was told from a girl’s viewpoint. Which I guess in a sense, back at that time it was sort of an advancement of women’s rights so to speak. The book the movie was based on was written by a woman. I know my parents liked it a lot.

We probably walked to the theater. The towns I lived in back then were very small. The theater was called “The Roxxy,” but there were no ushers in this small town theater. And interestingly enough, because this film was based on racial conflicts between blacks and whites, there was a balcony in this theater that limited seating. Half the balcony was limited to black people. They had their own side entrance, own bathroom, etc. That alone was sort of a resemblance to the movie. Luckily, we don’t have those things nowadays.

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those movies, and maybe books, that we should all try to revisit because there’s so many lessons in it about fairness and equality. One thing that struck me was that Atticus Finch, the father that plays the lawyer part, was so much like my father. He was very practical, rational, quiet, fair, and he raised his children in that manner, trying to show them what was right and what was wrong, what was subjective and what was objective. And so many things are in that movie that teaches those lessons. Plus there’s also a character who’s mentally unstable, and all throughout the first part of the movie the kids were thinking he was an evil character because they had never even seen the guy. Everything they knew about him was hearsay and rumors. He ends up actually saving the children from a very bad threat, and ends up proving to be not only a kind creature but a loving and caring creature. So, all sorts of twists and lessons were in that movie. It’s just a composite of good teachings.