1944/45 Brooklyn, New York

Judith (Judy) Baum and Gary Baum

Born May 1945, May 1944

Brooklyn, New York

Interviewed on January 25, 2026

by Daya Baum

What was the first movie you both remember seeing?

Judy: The Wizard of Oz? Hmm, I was four years old. My brother was 11. I screamed myself silly every time the Wicked Witch of the West came on, and he was so annoyed. I mean, just to think that you would have let an 11-year-old child take a four-year-old to the movies. But that was just done. And of course, it was 1939, the movie, from years ago. And that was the first movie that I remember seeing.

Gary: Kids would… well, the whole neighborhood would go to the movies on a Saturday. But I don’t remember my first movie. It was a theater full of kids. Remember, they had these, these—

Judy: —Matrons, who watched us so that we didn’t run amok. 

Gary: They used to have these short comics—

Judy: —Or sometimes there were 10 cartoons, fabulous cartoons, Looney Tunes cartoons. And then you had Westerns. They were just fabulous.

Gary: And newsreels, too!

Judy: Yeah, yeah, but definitely the Wizard of Oz was my first. 1949, how much older could I have been to see a movie?

What do you remember about the movie, besides screaming when the Wicked Witch came out?

Judy: The hurricane part—the tornado part. You know, it was very exciting, because it was in black and white while they were in Kansas. When she wakes up from hitting her head because of the tornado, she wakes up in Munckinland. It’s all in Technicolor, and that was so exciting. It was so pretty because it was for a child. Everything was so saturated; the colors were just so saturated! It was beautiful. 

Can you describe the theater for me, Grandma?

The theater was on Coney Island Avenue and Newkirk Avenue in Brooklyn. It was next to the Chinese restaurant that my friends and I loved to go to because it was $1 for an egg roll and a whole Chinese combination plate. And dessert! You walked in on the side, and so the screen was on your left. You walked down the aisle, and everything was facing toward the screen. In the back where you walked in, if you went to the right, there were the bathrooms and the candy counters. There was a balcony, but we never went on it. That was it. 

Dad previously mentioned to me that going to the movies was an all-day experience for many. Was that true for the two of you?

Judy: It was! On a Saturday —that’s what Grandpa was saying—we would go at about 12 o’clock. It was 20, well, it started out to be 18 cents, and everybody around would go in, and we would watch the 10 cartoons. Usually it was a Western, and I remember Broken Spur or other things. I remember that particular movie. This is what we used to do in those days! You would come in and you would see the movie from the middle—

Gary:—it didn’t matter!

Judy: You just sat down, and then you stayed till that part came again. 

Gary: We’d see the whole movie, just not in order. 

Judy: People nowadays would never do that. 

Gary: And people ate boxes of junkie candy. You have no idea the amount of candy and junk. Oh, Good & Plenty!

Judy: Aw, yeah, that was horrible stuff. Gum drops, and if you had a little extra money, you’d get bonbons. Do you know what BonBons are?

No. Are they similar to the ice cream ones that they sell at Trader Joe’s?

Judy: Yeah! It was ice cream, and once you bit into it, there was ice cream all over you.

Gary: I remember, they used to use the movie theater like a babysitter. Kids would go there, and parents would have some free time. I remember we came out to visit my mother’s first cousin in West Hempstead, and they had just built a house. I remember it was a Sunday, and the adults wanted to talk. So, they would send us to the movies in Hempstead, and I went with my cousin’s daughter. All I could remember was how many BonBons— I thought, wow, these people were rich! They had so much candy! 

Judy: I remember when we came home, my parents were always sitting with their friends having coffee. It was always around four o’clock. 

Gary: When I was older, though, I was never without money. I used to deliver packages and get tips. I’d always hustle a few bucks here and there. I was cheap; I’d find the soda bottle, get two cents for a regular sized coke, and a nickel for the return deposit. But the movie wasn’t much money. Oh no, it’s so expensive today. 

Judy: Oh, yeah. 

Gary: Then, I remember in the early 50s, right before they had the polio vaccine, everything was scary. The parents didn’t really want you to go out because they were worried you’d get sick. So instead of the theater, we used to play —we had a porch in my house— and my friends and I, we played Monopoly every day. 

Judy: I don’t remember my mother doing that, which is strange, since my brother had polio, but I don’t remember her ever saying that to me. But, I was just telling Gary the other day, many times, I would be walking home from high school, and on the way to the subway was one of the beautiful movie theaters, and they were playing South Pacific. So, I just went in with my friend, she lived a block away, and I came home at 6. My mother didn’t blink an eyelash. 

Gary: I mean, we didn’t have phones!

Judy: But it wasn’t the first time I saw South Pacific. I was so excited— I wanted to see it again.

What was your favorite genre to go watch?

Judy: Well, whatever was there. The cartoons were the best. Looney Tunes had the most amazing cartoons; they were so clever. Bugs Bunny was voiced by… what was his name? Al Cap. He was a substance abuser. He was so brilliant. Well, wait, it wasn’t Al cap. I don’t remember his name. Bugs Bunny always got the best of everybody.

Gary: Tom and Jerry, yeah, that was a mouse and a cat. 

Judy:   There was Wiley Coyote, and Yosemite Sandler was always running after, and then Wiley Coyote would not fall until he realized he had nothing underneath him. We always knew what to expect, and we saw it so often that we talked amongst ourselves. As we got older in junior high, you would go with your boyfriend of the week, and then many times, in the middle of the movie, someone would switch, or somebody would get dumped for somebody else. 

Was there a Hollywood Heartthrob or a key actor that you remember seeing in a ton of movies?

Judy: Well, of course, Cary Grant. I was not a John Wayne fan, even as a young girl, which I find amazing; I found him distasteful. I did not like his kind of masculinity. Yeah. James Stewart. I can’t really think of it now— oh, we saw lots of Abbott and Costello. 

Gary:   Or the Three Stooges! 

Judy: I didn’t see the Three Stooges. But Abbott and Costello, I think I saw them all. 

Gary: I just thought The Three Stooges was really stupid. 

Judy: Yeah. We saw the Marx brothers, too, right, Gary? 

Gary: Yeah. 

Did you always go to the Theater?

Judy: We had a television early, because my father liked gadgets. I don’t know how much stuff I remember from seeing in theaters or at home. I was just telling Grandpa that there was, on CBS at 11 o’clock every night, something called The Late Show. They would have a movie, too. On the weekend, I was allowed to watch The Late Show. I saw lots of movies. 

Gary: I believe that was the only station with movies. The Early Show was at about 5:30.

Judy: I remember, they had a certain foursome where one was Myrna Loy, one was David Niven, one was Charles Boyer, and the other was… I can’t remember the other woman.

Gary: In the 50s, there were a lot of drive-ins, too.

Judy: The first drive-in I actually saw was —well, I don’t think I went with you— Dr. No.

Gary: Oh yeah, James Bond.

Judy: You and I only went once or twice. We just didn’t really like them; we didn’t see the point when you could go to the theater; we always preferred the theater.

Gary: You would sit in your car and put a speaker in there for the acoustics.

Judy: It was very primitive, you know, when you could just go to the theater! But people did it so they could escape their parents; that was the big thing.

Gary: Every generation thinks they invented sex!

Judy: That didn’t change once we got to college. There were four theaters at Cornell. It was funny because no one could remember their names, so people called them the Near Near, the Near Far, the Far Near, and the Far Far, depending on how far they were from campus.

Gary: Oh yeah! *Chuckles* Oh yeah, that’s right, Judy!

Judy and Gary Baum are my paternal grandparents. They currently live in Hewlett,  New York, with their two cats, Jem and Scout.