Movies and Me

My odyssey through film began on weekend afternoons at home, when the local stations filled the time--cheaply--with old films. Movies have been with me since, they are with me still.

Actually, my first memory comes from much earlier. I recall going to a movie when I was about five. I walked down a ruby red velvet aisle with gold accoutrements shining with my mom and, perhaps, my dad. The crowd was murmuring. At least it seemed so to me, and I thought: This is what one does in theater: one murmurs. So I must have uttered my version of a gentle murmur. The movie? I think it was a Western. But, who knows.

Later, my mother would take my brother and me to movies in downtown Newport. It was a Navy town then, and my father was captain of a destroyer. Saturday nights would be movie nights for the sailors and for us. There were two theaters, I think, the Paramount was one, but I don't recall the name of the other. We saw a number of war movies, new and old, which suited me. Among them: Paratrooper, Bombardier, and Sink the Bismarck (with a stirring Johnny Horton anthem).

Later still, we would go to movies at the Bethesda Theater and the Baronet. The former had science fiction Saturday double features, some of which scared me to death and left and gave me nightmares for days after. My friend Andy Katz and I got into deep trouble one afternoon when we walked home after being dropped off by his mom. She was late picking us up. I argued that we should walk home. We did. She was frantic and called the cops. We may have even stopped at the home of our teacher, Mrs. Lash, on the way. Andy paid the penalty once got home.

My parents used the theater and the Hot Shoppes nearby to take up time so the house could be shown to prospective new renters. That was when I saw Barabbas.

Sometimes we would go to one of the movie palaces downtown. I saw Mutiny on the Bounty at the Warner when it came out in 1962. Movies often inspired me at the time. Oblivious to Brando's excruciatingly fay English accent, I pored over the book about the movie that we bought at the theater, bought and built plastic models of the Bounty and the Constitution, and created a fake country with Andy Katz. Voorkatia was a major power located somewhere near Tahiti. Another film of the era, El Cid, inspired me to make siege towers from the popcorn cups we got at the theater. My birthday was celebrated with friends by seeing Lawrence of Arabia at the MacArthur, a theater now long gone. I should also mention The Guns of Navarone. I don't recall that it inspired me to undertake any boyish activity, but it made a strong impression; the musical theme has echoed ever since.

Like Bethesda, Kalamazoo had two theaters. One was a smaller version of the old movie palaces and quite spectacular. It had a balcony, in which I rarely sat. However, to this day I have not seen the end of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea because my close friend Alan Kinney threw popcorn off the balcony onto the audience below. The management found that much less amusing than Alan did.

I had my 12th birthday party in that theater in 1964. I had wanted to see Dr. Strangelove, but the mother of one of my friends saw a review in a Catholic magazine for parents. It said the movie was not suitable for kids. So we settled for Advance to the Rear, a silly Civil War comedy starring Glenn Ford and featuring the New Christy Minstrels. Barry McQuire's gravelly voice made an impression. I suspect that we understood more about that film than we would have had seen Strangelove.

Culver Military Academy had movies every Saturday night. These were recent movies, but never first run. For those, the corps of cadets went en masse into town on Saturday afternoons. I never did, but I was usually in the Eppley Auditorium that evening. The most significant evening that I recall was one in which I walked out. Doctor Faustus was promised. My English teacher, Mr. Hartley, a retired British officer who looked the epitome of a British sergeant major, came, too. He settled in, got comfortable, ready to enjoy Christopher Marlowe's mighty line. Instead, we were confronted with Rex Harrison, the pushmi-pullyu, and Dr. Dolittle. He stood up and left. Quickly. I tried to make the best of it, but the film got the best of me. I left, too.

College was spent close to the Circle Theater and the Inner Circle, right next door on Pennsylvania Avenue. Shortly after college, I moved into an apartment at 2025 Eye Street, which happened to be across the street from the liquor store next to the Circle. This was heaven. One could get a book of 10 tickets for $10.00. They got you admission to a host of double features that included European art films--Fellini, Bergman, Truffaut, and the rest--and all but the most recent American films (I saw Gilda and Platinum Blonde together and have never forgotten it). As you might expect, I went there often. I even spent one New Year's Eve with two Bergman films and could not complain.

After college, I bombed as a bank teller but was able to stay with Riggs Bank, getting the worst job I have held. Among other things, it started at 4:00 in the afternoon and ended when the work was done. That was often late, but a good friend, Stu Gorenstein, helped me survive. So did the late movies shown on Channel 20. These were often old films from the 30s and 40s. Just the thing a tired general ledger settlement clerk needed.

Those nights on Channel 20 were important. They introduced me to classics like The Roaring Twenties and Libeled Lady. But the best experience was one evening when the channel ran Casablanca with no commercials. It never did this, but it was atoning for some snafu that had made it go dark. I watched it on my small black and white TV with all the lights out. I was transfixed for the 102 minutes it was on. I had seen it at the Circle some time before, but never like that. Partly because of that experience, it remains my favorite.

Of course that does not end my enchantment with film. But it may explain where it comes from.