1942 Pleasantville, New York / Saybrook, Connecticut
Hunter and Pricilla Temple
Born 1936
Pleasantville, New York and Saybrook, Connecticut
Interviewed on January 28th, 2019
by Logan Sullivan
The first movie I remember seeing, boy I don’t think I can answer that. My earliest recollection of movies was when I first was dating Cilla, because I remember some of the movies we went to. Doris Day Movies. That was in Connecticut, Saybrook, Connecticut. We would go to the old theater, now I believe it’s a store. It was a wonderful movie theater. State of the art for the time.
You know those are the first movies I can think of, is when I went to see the movies with her. That would have been about 1948 or 49, so we were 13. I ought to have seen movies with my sister and mother when I was younger, I just don’t recall. However, I do remember we adored Doris Day of course! When Cilla was young, she looked just like Doris Day.
I don’t remember the movies I saw, but when I was in the 8th grade I saved up my money, my allowance, so I could take the Burter Reed to the movies and have a soda afterwards, and that was in New York. Once I got older, my sister and I shared a little Morris Minor which is a tiny car. That’s when I first started dating Cilla, I had that car.
*In enters my grandmother, Pricilla Temple* Oh Cilla! I’m on the phone with Logan and he asked me, and he asked you, about the first movie we remember seeing. The first one I could remember was when you and I went to the movies in Saybrook. *Pricilla*. Oh, I can remember the first movie I saw, it was Cinderella! No, it was Bambi! And my mother actually picked me up because I was so scared! It was the fire, the forest fire I was terrified! It was the first picture of Bambi. They’ve had recreations, you know. But I was terrified, and I’ve been terrified of fire since then. They kicked me out of the theater because I was crying and disturbing people. I don’t remember much about the theater, but I remember it was quite hot. We would see movies in the summer when we had time off from school.
I would have been probably 6 or 7 so that would’ve put me in Westchester County in New York City. Well I was six, that would have been 1942. One of the key things in Walt Disney movies, and my mother learned to keep me away from them, was this element of fear or impending tragedy or something bad was going to happen. The Wicked Witch and Cinderella all those things.
We got there by car… The theater probably was in Mount Kisco or Pleasantville. Oh, I know, it was Pleasantville. I remember that because that’s where the church my family went to was. I thought it was beautiful!
