1964 Martinsville, Virginia
Mr. Russell Leavitt
Born 1952
Martinsville, VA
Interviewed January 23, 2024
By Theo Haaks
T: What was the first movie you can remember watching?
R: Well you see, I grew up in a really small town in Virginia near North Carolina, and there were like two movie theaters, three if you count the drive-in. And I guess probably… the James Bond movies, and before that when I was a boy I loved horror movies, any kind of horror movies, I loved monster movies. We had this thing called Shock Theater, where on Friday night at midnight [the t.v.] would have Shock Theater and show these horror movies. I would go to my friends’ house for sleepovers and we would go to watch the horror movies together. Horror movies and war movies. And I guess some westerns. Who Shot Liberty Valance, I remember seeing that at the theater. That was actually a pretty good movie. Guns of Navarone, The Longest Day, those kind of thing…I remember living in that small town when James Bond came to town it was the biggest thing that ever happened. I remember seeing them all, I remember Gold Finger. Sean Connery — to every boy at that age he was “Mr. Totally Cool Guy,” you know? With his suits and martinis, I just liked him.
T: Around what age were you when you started going to movies and what was the name of your town?
R: This is like a southern, eccentric place…the town was called Martinsville, Virginia. My mother lived in this place that stemmed from her ancestors… it was like To Kill A Mockingbird, this town…
T: And you said your town had two small movie theaters?
R: My town had the Martin theater* and the Rives theater, and a drive-in called the 220 Drive-In and I would occasionally go to that thing. You ever been to a drive in? I don’t see them anymore but they are really eccentric. You put the thing on the window and the speaker [chuckles]. But yeah, it was like a relief… back then anyway, this was the most conservative part of the state in rural Virginia… it was like growing up in 1900.
*R: (this is a little bitty movie theater, and my great grandmother apparently had her own seat in the theater, her own chair because she was pretty fat, it was a double seat…)
T: Growing up in this small town, was going to the movie theater something you did with your friends? Who would you go to the movies with?
R: Yeah my friends. Every once in a while I would go with my father. But it was like an escape from this little bitty place…there was really nothing more to do… you felt really cut off in this place so the movies were like a lifeline to the bigger world. You know? Especially before I went off to school…(Ironically, when I went off to tennis camp I started dating this girl and it turned out that her family owned Twentieth-Century Fox)… I think when you live in a little town like that, your borders are very carefully prescribed. These movies were really out there, particularly if you’re a person who lives in your head, your imagination is all you have, and these movies are an outlet. It really opened my eyes… I always considered movies my education to the world; these movies were my way into things I didn’t know.
T: As far as the movie-going experience when you were sitting in those seats, were there any snacks or anything that made the theater feel special?
R: No, I would never get snacks. Every once in a while I would get a drink. I don’t know.
T: So you were more interested in just the movies themselves?
R: Yeah, exactly…
T: Do you think any specific film opened that “window” to the outside world more than others when you were growing up?
R: Well westerns I tended to relate to just ‘cause the way I grew up: outdoors hunting and fishing and stuff. I loved war movies when I was a kid… and then some of the stuff coming along set over the seas like the Bond films, that was a blast… The Bridge on the River Kwai, there’s another movie that really affected me, and it’s the type of movie we would watch as kids…
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T: You mentioned that you now have an appreciation for old, art-deco, Egyptian styled theaters that you’ve seen as an adult. What did the theater in your town look like?
R: Well I’ll tell you one thing, I kid you not, it had an upstairs balcony for Black people and a downstairs for white people… I’d be curious to know more about the history of the integration of movie theaters in my town.
Relationship to interviewee: Mr. Leavitt is the husband of my former employer (and current friend), Cilla Leavitt. Cilla recommended that I speak with her husband because he is a “film buff.” His joy for and appreciation of movies was highly apparent in our interview.
