Of course, knowing me, you know it couldn't have gone smoothly. The location of the disaster is shown above. The wonderful Loews Theater right across from City Hall in Mount Vernon, New York. Well, that's where it used to be. It's nothing but a dumpy parking lot now and just another sterling example of how my hometown has turned into nothing but a toxic waste dump raped and pillaged by a conga line of inept and crooked politicians over the past three decades. A hamlet that used to have two beautiful movie palaces now has none. As soon as my one friend still residing there moves out, the whole city can easily be blown off the Google map.
But I digress...
Back to the movies, I can remember that they were a big part of my mom's life. She was always reading the fan magazines. Photoplay. Modern Screen. TV/Radio Mirror. At least one night a week and with my dad working evenings, she was off to the theater with her girlfriend, Ronnie, who was a dead ringer for Susan Hayward herself. I always knew they had been to the movies if I found a box of Pom Poms or Milk Duds on the kitchen table. The breakfast of four-year-old champions.
If my mother and Ronnie weren't at the movies, they were on the phone talking about what they had just seen or what they were planning to check out the next week. And they'd gossip about some of the screen stars as if they knew them.
"Maurice Chevalier looked a little bloated in Gigi."
"Did you see how bloodshot Eleanor Parker's eyes were in Home From the Hill?"
"Do you think Kirk Douglas dyed his hair for Spartacus?"
I can only imagine how catty they were with people they actually knew.
Nevertheless, I guess my mom couldn't wait to include me in her movie going world. I couldn't have been more than four years old when I was considered cinema ready.
And, from my vivid recollection, my very first movie would be...
So, on one warm weekday afternoon, Mom walked me down Stevens Avenue to Loews for the first of what would be thousands of motion picture experiences for yours truly.
Except...
I remember the huge and glorious edifice being empty. It was the first show of the day and apparently even a colorsome movie like Tom Thumb wasn't packing them in just yet. We made the long climb to the balcony, which was my mother's prime viewing location. Why? It was the smoking section.
I probably was in awe of my surroundings. It was so eerily quiet. But the hall was very pretty. And the velvet curtain that faced us all.
Moments later, the lights began to dim.
Uh oh, what's happening?
The curtain slowly started to inch its way apart to reveal a huge white wall.
Suddenly, this all didn't look so inviting. I had no clue what was happening. But none of it looked good. And I reacted the way any well-adjusted child would.
I started to scream.
'WHHHHAAAAAAAA! WHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!"
My mom was so off-put that she probably had to douse her cigarette. What the hell was wrong with me?
"WHHHHHAAAAAAA! WHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!"
If there was anybody else in the theater at that moment, I am sure they were complaining to the manager. Can you shut that freakin' kid up?
Mom had no luck with me. This freakin' kid wouldn't shut up. I sounded like Lucy Ricardo on the umpteenth time that Ricky wouldn't let her be in the show down at the Tropicana.
There would be no Tom Thumb for me that afternoon.
I think I stopped the histrionics several blocks away. And re-ignited them anew when Mom had her say.
"You've wasted my money, today, young man."
Young man? Okay, I was four.
With a great flourish, my mother ripped apart the two movie tickets. Wasted money, indeed. The tickets were probably no more than fifty cents each. Needless to say, the rest of my afternoon was spent in my room. A just punishment for having squandered my family's fortune.
Not wanting to repeat the scream fest ever again, my mother got smart at how to get around my "dimming lights/curtain parting" phobia. For the next two years whenever I was taken to the movies, we arrived ten minutes into the first feature. I clearly recall one afternoon while we hung around Hartley Park just up the street from the RKO Proctors theater. The show had started at 1PM. My mom looked at her watch.
"1:15PM. I guess we can go in now."
Now, this late arrival trend was admittedly a little strange. And it couldn't have gotten more bizarre on the occasion where I first remembered ever going to the movies with not one, but both of my parents. And I previously told this particular saga when I wrote about my Top 25 Favorite Films. The movie that came in at # 2....
"Some Like It Hot" holds a very special place in my own personal film history, as it was the very first time I heard a movie theater audience laugh. Out loud. I was very, very, very young, but I distinctly remember going to Loews' Mount Vernon theater to see it. It was even more noteworthy since it was probably the only time I ever went to an indoor theater with both my parents in tow. Back in those days, your neighborhood movie house ran two pictures and you frequently didn't pay attention to start times. You just showed up when you wanted to. There were many times when we would show up and see the final 20 minutes of one movie, see the next one, and then leave at the exact spot where we came in. Very weird and I would never even fathom doing that today.
We inexplicably arrived to see "Some Like It Hot" about ten minutes from the end. I remember very little except that it was the big chase scene through the hotel. And the audience was roaring with laughter. I did not know what to make of it all. Many years later, I truly understood.
There is not one single wasted moment or line of dialogue in this whole movie. Every word has a purpose and a function. And, more importantly, it gets you to where Billy Wilder wants you. In the palm of his hand. Laughing hysterically till it hurt. I've read the screenplay several times and it is a master course in film comedy. It should be used as a textbook in film schools all over the country.
I've seen "Some Like It Hot" probably 30 or 40 times in my life. It never gets old or repetitive. I've seen it on TV and on the big screen. It never gets any less funnier than it was the very first time. When I walked into that Loews theater across from City Hall in Mount Vernon.
And heard all those people enjoying a truly phenomenal movie.
Oddly enough, there are days now where I crave to see a curtain open up to reveal a movie screen. Nothing excites me more. You sadly see it done any more. The Alex Theater in Glendale does it. The Bruin and the Fox Westwood Theaters do it. But, otherwise, it is a lost art.
And just when I got over that screaming thing...
Dinner last night: Beer brat, German potato salad, and pickled beets.
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