What's the first movie you were taken to see as a kid?

[CBHagman]

No, boys and girls, videos don't count. And if anyone here says the first movie he/she saw was on DVD, I'm going to go bang my head against the wall.

What I'm looking for is a trip to the cinema, the movie house, the drive-in (for those of us in the baby boomer range), etc.

As for myself, I think the earliest movie I went to see is "Bambi," though the memory is sketchy now.

The first movie I have a very clear memory of seeing is "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm." I recall that we kids got into our pajamas, grabbed our pillows and blankets, and piled into the station wagon with our parents. Dad drove us to the drive-in (arriving late, as I recall; the cartoons were already showing), and we settled in.

I fell asleep during the movie but woke up by the time of the Buddy Hackett/dragon sequence towards the end.

Years later AMC showed the movie, and I was astonished to discover that Russ Tamblyn was in it! I guess that was the part I slept through.

What memories do other DUers have?

[Rowdyboy]

1. Old Yeller

I was 4 and still remember it

[CO Liberal]

2. I Remember Seeing "Bambi" As a Kid

I was about 4 or 5, so it must have been around 1956 or 1957. At the old Park Treatre in Morristown NJ (long since demolished).

I remmebr crying when Bambi's mother died........

[Karenina]

56. Yup. Bambi

and BOY was I traumatized and bent out of shape for DAYS. To this day I don't do much big screen watching...

[StaggerLee]

3. The Thing with Two Heads (drive-in)

I must have been 5, maybe 4.

[XNASA]

4. Robinson Crusoe on Mars

At the local drive-in.

I also remember seeing "Robin and the Seven Hoods" and "The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao" around the same time. Must've been around '64.

[BigMcLargehuge]

20. Oh man Robinson Crusoe on Mars

what a great film!

[Richardo]

41. I saw that in the theater too -

was one of my favorites for a long time...

[jos]

5. West Side Story

Saw it on the big screen at Radio City in Manhattan.:-)

[peekaloo]

6. The Three Lives of Thomasina

at a drive in.

[rabid_nerd]

7. Crocodile Dundee II

or was it Back to The Future Part II?

Either way, it was one of those rare times my father and I did things on our own besides league sports.

[buddhamama]

8. Cinderella ,Pink Panther

at the drive-in.

it was also my first glimpse at porn. where my mother ended up parking the car by looking out the back window we kids could see the adult movie screen.

[trof]

9. Birth of a Nation

Naw...not really.
I'm not quite that old.
The Jolson Story is the first movie I have any rememberance of.
Larry Parks played the title part.
http://www.jolson.org/works/film/movies/jolstory/ajr-tjs.html
When I we walked out I told my mom that I wanted to be Al Jolson.
I would have been 5 or 6.

[dolo amber]

10. I'm not in the baby boomer range

However, I do recall my first movie experience was at the drive-in, with the 'rents. We saw The Sting and I fell asleep approximately 0.932 seconds into it. The next one I remember seeing, I fell asleep but was awakened by some poor demonic-possessed child screaming and growling at the top of her voice, cursing some dude in a black dress and spewing green shit all over the place. :D

[blue agave]

11. Around The World In 80 Days

My grandmother took me.

[DemExpat]

14. Mine too, Robert!

I was totally overwhelmed by it too...fantastic.

:hi:
DemEx

[usual_suspect]

39. Me three

I remember the colors. Rich Tecnacolors. It was only after seeing it later that I realized that there were so many cameo roles by classic preformers. Makes it kind of like a game to watch it now.

[onehandle]

12. Either Peter Pan or Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang...

This was in the late 1960s. I also have fond memories of seeing many of the Pink Panther films with my father into the seventies.

What's a Video? ;)

[HFishbine]

13. Mine was Bambi

I remember it well. My one-year younger brother walked down to the screen to try to turn down the volume.

[BigMcLargehuge]

15. Zebra in the Kitchen

The first movie I was taken to, the first movie I wanted to see.

I think I was three.

[DemNoir]

16. Mary Poppins

[asjr]

17. movies

Let's take a trip back--probably the Shirley Temple movies, Snow White, Our Gang Comedies, etc. I hadn't thought about those in years. I even remember Fantasia.

[eyesroll]

18. Star Wars ep. 4

I was two. Don't remember a damn thing.

I'm sure I saw a few others in the interim, the first movie I remember my reaction to was E.T. (I bawled at the end).

[zekeson]

19. Pretty sure it was Bambi

though I have a better memory of being in the lobby because I was disruptive than I do of seeing the movie. Oddity is that years later I worked in that same theatre. I would have flashes of being 3 or 4 everytime I walked through that lobby...

[SheepyMcSheepster]

26. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

was my first movie, don't rember actually going. the first movie i rember is Flash (ahh ahhhhhhhhhhh *bang) Gordan, and that rocked!

edit: i hate how i always end up replying to some random posted instead of the original post. i need to work on my correct 'reply' identification skills.

[Shakeydave]

21. First Walk-In movie...............

was "The Sound of Music". The first drive-in movie was "Paper Moon" with Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. I have a vague memory of being

freaked out by the witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

[StrongBad]

23. A Clockwork Orange

n/t :)

[searchingforlight]

24. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

I remember the witch like it was yesterday. Bad start.

[Soloflecks]

29. Snow White was my first also.

That I can remember. We lived in a garage apartment and as my mother and I were going down the steps to get in the car I slipped and got a couple of boo boo's. I was sore and scraped but enjoyed the movie anyway.

[Pepper]

45. Add me to the list

Snow White was the first movie I ever saw in the theater. I remember shaking with fright during the witch scenes!

[ScreamingMeemie]

25. It was a double feature drive in. "Gus" and "The Apple Dumpling Gang"

[On the Road]

27. I Have Dim Memories of "The Ten Commandments"

[HERVEPA]

28. Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 1956

[BurtWorm]

30. Call me Bwana

at a drive-in. I was probaly three or four years old. I remember the tarantula scene vividly, but the rest is a blank.

[StrongBad]

33. Whatever happened to drive-ins?

I hate to threadjack, but I went to a drive-in for the first time in my life this weekend (visiting my gf in NYstate), and it was so much fun! We had one in my hometown but it was shut down when I was like 3 so I have no memory of it.

These things should make a comeback because imo, they are more fun than a traditional cinema!

[CBHagman]

37. Drive-in are welcome on this thread.

I draw the line at reminiscing about lunch counters in drugstores, though. :-)

[BurtWorm]

51. I think they are making a comeback.

There was an article about them in the NY Times earlier this summer.

[mac56]

31. Disney's "Pinocchio" (warning - spoiler alert)

Monstro the whale scared the hell out of me, but I was very glad when the Blue Fairy made Pinocchio into a boy and gave Jiminy Cricket his medal.

[CanuckAmok]

32. Dumbo, at a drive-in! n/t

[jmm]

34. 101 Dalmations

I went to the drive in alot as a kid, but 101 Dalmations was the first film I saw in a theater.

[Bucky]

35. Day of the Dolphin

The words "Pha love Pa, Pha love Ma. Pha, Bee leave now" still bring a tear to my eye. Probably why I still give money to Greenpeace.

"Pha vote Gore; but Pha live in Florida. Pha vote not count."

[WoodrowFan]

58. My First Date Movie was Your First Movie??

I think I'll go renew my AARP membership now....

[GOPisEvil]

36. This isn't the first, but the first I remember vividly: JAWS!

:scared:

I begged my mom to take me, though, so she wouldn't listen to me whine about how scary it was.

:scared:

[SCDem]

38. ET

That was the first movie that my whole family went together to see.

[Sophree]

60. ET was my first movie, too.

I went with my brothers and my Dad.

[Nikia]

73. That one was the first I remember

I think that I saw a couple other movies before that but that is my first conscious memory of watching a movie in a movie theater. I got scared when ET turned white. My parents were embarassed because my little sister who was only about two at the time shouted "penis breath" and laughed about it for several minutes after it was said in the movie.

[mark0rama]

40. Yours, Mine and Ours

I just remember my dad saying "we're going to see Lucy." I had no idea who he was talking about (I was expecting a Peanuts cartoon) until we got there and saw it was Lucille Ball.

I have no real recollection of the film; I figured out which one it was when Lucy died and they ran her filmography in the paper.

The first movie I have any real recollection of is Disney's "Pinocchio".

[Breezy du Nord]

42. I don't remember, but my parents to me to a Star Trek when I was

only about a few months. Which one would it be, does anyone know? I was born in the summer of 89.

ON EDIT: I suppose they should, since they named me after some girl from the show.

[Richardo]

43. "Babes in Toyland" (and no, not the 1934 Laurel and Hardy version)

...the 1961 Disney version with Annette Funicello. :loveya:

It was around Christmas time (duh!) so I would have just turned 5.

[Lady President]

44. Herbie the Lovebug

My dad and I went to the movies together a couple times a year, whenever my mom hosted her bridge group, so I saw all the Disney movies. I'm pretty sure Herbie was the first.

[Divernan]

46. Birth of a Nation!

Just Kidding, for those of you who don't know, that film by D.W. Griffiths was made in 1915! Even I am not that old. I remember the Disney films - Cinderella, Snow White and Song of the South (Uncle Remus & Brer Rabbit). We went to downtown Louisville to this wonderful old movie theatre that looked like the Arabian Nights inside, with "stars" twinkling all over the ceiling, and minarets and towers on the sides and top of the huge movie screen. One afternoon, during the annual summer polio scare, we left the theatre and my Mom noticed I was chewing gum. Mom: "Where did you get the gum?"
Me (age 4): "Under the movie seat."

My Mom and I have been going to the movies together for over 50 years now.

[HEyHEY]

47. Starman!

I was four I think

[rock]

48. Probably a Roy Rogers or Dead End Kids movie

Possibly an Abbot and Costello. We're talking early 50's here, so these would have been the latest releases.

[LanternWaste]

49. Escape from Witch Mountain

Escape From (To?) Witch Mountain & Chariot of the Gods. A bizarre double feature at the drive in, and though the second feature boreed me to tears at the time, I did get the opportunity to satiate my 8 year old curiousity re: all the fogged windows I saw when I went to get popcorn and soda.


Jeez, I had a crush on the girl who played the female lead in Witch Mountain for years afterwards....

[MaineDem]

50. Something Disney

I remember "Old Yeller", "cinderella" (bibbity boppity boo), and "Bambi" but I don't know which was first.

[myrna minx]

52. The Apple Dumpling Gang.

They rocked!

[skypilot]

53. "Flareup"...

...with Raquel Welch. She plays a stripper who is hunted down by the boyfriend of one of her stripper friends. The boyfriend doesn't approve of them. I think he might have been a fundie. Anyway, he kills his girlfriend and one other stripper and then comes after Raquel. I'm gay but I remember developing a crush on Raquel after seeing this movie.

[Iris]

54. Song of the South

We even had the record.

I think Bill Cosby bought the rights so it couldn't be shown ever again because he thinks it is racially insensitive.

[WoodrowFan]

57. Bill Cosby-Urban Legend.

From Snopes...http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/sots.htm

BTW< Disney owns the rights still...

Although some Blacks have always been uneasy about the minstrel tradition of the Uncle Remus stories, the major objections to Song of the South had to do with the live action portions. The film has been criticized both for "making slavery appear pleasant" and "pretending slavery didn't exist", even though the film (like Harris' original collection of stories) is set after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

Perhaps lost in all the controversy over the film is the fact that James Baskett, a Black man, was the very first live actor ever hired by Disney. Allegedly, though, Baskett was unable to attend the film's premiere in Atlanta because no hotel would give him a room.

The NAACP acknowledged "the remarkable artistic merit" of the film when it was first released, but decried "the impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship". Disney re-released the film in 1956, but then kept it out of circulation all throughout the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960s. In 1970 Disney announced in Variety that Song of the South had been "permanently" retired, but the studio eventually changed its mind and re-released the film in 1972, 1981, and again in 1986 for a fortieth anniversary celebration. Although the film has only been released to the home video market in various European and Asian countries, Disney's reluctance to market it in the USA is not a reaction to an alleged threat by the NAACP to boycott Disney products. The NAACP fielded objections to Song of the South when it premiered, but it has no current position on the movie.

[WoodrowFan]

55. Lillie sof the Field?

Sidney Portier (SP) and some nuns. I fell asleep in the back seat of my Dad's car...

[a_random_joel]

59. Benji

I think I was about 4 or 5.

Course my parents saw the Exorcist at the drive-in when I was an infant, and they say they brought me, although I'm sure they had me aimed away from the screen.

[salmonhorse]

61. Svengali (John Barrymore) ~ 1931

And a documentary of The Fawcett Expedition of Amazonia. I was just a little guy maybe some 4 or 5; seems like Svengali first; but I'd seen them around the same time ~

http://www.rickrichards.com/ac/ac3aFawcett.html

[CBHagman]

62. Wow!

That's a unique entry on this thread.

[cmf]

63. Fantasia

The most memorable part is that I wore this little Mickey Mouse pin and at one point in the movie, it fell off. After the movie, my father had to look up and down the rows until he could find it. I refused to leave w/o that pin. Fortunately he found it. :)

[rppper]

64. bambi....with my father

:kick:

[SiobhanClancy]

65. Sleeping Beauty

and I had terrible nightmares about that witch,Maleficent..she was really scary!

:scared:

[CBHagman]

66. I think we're all agreed that...

...Disney villains scared the hell out of us. :-)

[Jokerman]

67. Lady & The Tramp

At a long-gone, downtown movie house right after watching the annual Christmas parade.

[Coffee Coyote]

68. Lady and The Tramp

That, and Song Of The South. I had the soundtracks too, on 33 1/3, mono on my kiddie turntable!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

69. Pollyanna

When I was 2 or 3...I vaguely remember Hayley Mills dressed in an American flag and falling off a roof. I think I fell asleep.

The first movie I actually sat and watched all the way through was Mary Poppins. :-)

[NeonLX]

74. Still Love Pollyanna!

I probably didn't see it in the theater though.

First one I actually remember seeing was The Sound of Music. It really blew me away. I was in kindergarten at the time it was first released. The scenery was fabulous and the songs were cool too. Fortunately, my 8-year-old daughter loves that movie now--she's almost worn out the videotape...

[THUNDER HANDS]

70. The Goonies

Man, what a cool movie to make your first one.

I think the second one I saw was E.T. - or vice versa depending on which came out first.

:)

[RebelOne]

71. Okay, this goes way, way back.

Black Beauty with Elizabeth Taylor. Guess I'm really dating myself.
But Elizabeth Taylor is a lot older than me.

[NightTrain]

72. The Poseidon (sp?) Adventure

It was 1972. I saw it with my parents at a drive-in theater, no less!

[Spirochete]

75. Earliest one I can remember...

was a Disney movie called Summer Magic or something like that. I think Hayley Mills was in it. I remember it scared my little sister, for some reason. I don't remember anything else about it.

[Cheswick2.0]

76. Bambi

I cried which set a precedent for me and movies for the next 40 years

[Crowdance]

77. Pinocchio

and I recall being very confused by the whole thing.

[HawkerHurricane]

78. The Jungle Book

I KNOW I'd seen movies before that, but that's the one I remembered.
It was also the day my Mother found out she was pregnant with my little sister, so I must have been 5.

[kutastha]

79. Mouse and his Child

An animated feature about a two toy mice wanting to become 'self-winding' and it's a father mouse bonding with his son. I was four and I saw it with my dad. One of my best memories. Still chokes me up thinking about it. Kind of like that one song.. anyone help me with the title - where it's a son reflecting on his father through the years? A real tearjerker...

edit: "Cat's in the Cradle"

[TrogL]

80. Pinocchio

I think, might have been Bambi

[shirlden]

81. A Shirley Temple movie

For whom I was named.......Drats...............and double drats.

Don't remember which movie, I was only 3.

[arwalden]

82. The Sound Of Music... (ah-HA! It's all making sense now!)

-- Allen

[GAspnes]

83. Windjammer!

I was *tiny*, 5 or 6, and went with my older brothers.

It was Disney film made on-board a sailing ship, and filmed in 70 mm. Pre-dated OmniMax, but when they were hitting the 20 foot swells and the camera view forward made it seem like the whole theater was rocking up and down.

[SPICYHOT]

84. I remember the name of the movie

but i didn't remember the story that much, was Pinocchio.
And beacause of not enjoing the movie, my mom decided not to take me to the cinema again, so then when i was 5 i went with my older sisters, and i do remember the whole movie a lot, Indiana Jones the first one.