1950 New York, New York

Paul Brady

1950

New York City, New York

Interviewed on January 28, 2023

by Stephen Yin

Oh, I think I was around five or six years old. I saw my first movie in New York City in the mid-1950s, but I don’t remember what theater it was. My aunt took me and one or two of my sisters to see the movie. Yeah, that’s probably what was going on. My mother had just had a baby, and my aunt was coming to get us out of the house. The movie was a Walt Disney animated movie named Bambi, which is about a young deer who is in the woods when his mother gets shot and killed by a hunter. I wasn’t a country boy, so that scene was somewhat traumatic, but I thought it was fun. Bambi’s friend, a rabbit, was very fun to watch.

The theaters were great. There were around three theaters within walking distance from where I lived. It was not unusual for people to go downtown to Radio City Music Hall and see a movie. You could also travel to Fordham Road & Grand Concourse in the Bronx, and they had these very big, elaborate movie palaces. It felt like you were in a castle. Also, nobody had air conditioning back then, so the theaters were a great escape because of the cooling systems. They called it “refrigerated air”. But by the time I was growing up, TV had become very popular, so the movie theaters were suffering a bit from attendance. 

I remember the movies being no more than twenty-five cents to get in. You’d get a couple of movies and some shorts. Usually there was a top billing movie and then some sort of cowboy Western. You could stay in the movie theaters all day if you wanted to, and you could watch the movies over and over again if you could suffer that long. Was it kind of like a bucket list item? There was one time I may have watched the feature film twice, just to say that I did. 

Candy was an expensive five cents per candy bar. I don’t know how much popcorn was, but I didn’t have a lot of extra money. To be honest, my friends and I would probably try to sneak candy in. You’d put the candy bar in your pocket and forget about it once the movie started. Then, you’d find out that your candy bar had melted during the movie. It would be a whole mess.

The most memorable thing about the movie theater was the size of everything. I was used to seeing things on an itty-bitty TV screen or a book, you know? The movie theaters were huge in comparison. The size of them was impressive. The movie theaters were very loud. I think the movie theater owners cranked up the volume, because if you were showing movies to kids, there was a lot of screaming and yelling and people talking and kids talking. There was a lot of noise going on. There were ushers who were probably just teenagers, sixteen-year-old kids or something, whose job was to keep the peace and keep people quiet and down. They’d be running around using a flashlight in your face saying, “Hey, shut up down there!” It was kind of a chaotic experience. 

There was a particular section for unaccompanied children that you had to sit in if you didn’t have a parent with you. I suppose it was because they had to be monitored. Children were not allowed on the balcony, probably because some of them would screw around and fall off the balcony, or they’d throw candy or popcorn on people. Then, there were teenagers who would go to the back of the theater or the balcony, and they would try to make out with their girlfriends and what not. I remember sneaking up to the balcony and making fun of teenagers who were kissing in the back. 

For kids, the theaters would have promotions. They’d say, “On Saturday afternoon at three o’clock between the feature film and the B film, we’ll raffle off a boy’s and a girl’s bike.” You’d get a raffle ticket for going to the movie theater. I remember my mother and adults talking about how they used to go to the movies, and they’d get like a plate. They’d go to the movies once or twice a week and build up a collection of teacups and tea saucers. It was a promotional thing to get people to go back to the movie theaters. They’d have plates, glasses, and saucers, but I never won anything myself, so I always thought it was rigged.