You never forget your first time … watching a movie you know you shouldn’t be watching.
The ew.com PopWatch blog raised this topic recently, and it brought back some of my earliest movie theater memories.
My parents took me to a grand total of maybe 20 movies growing up, and that might be a stretch. So each time was a special moment, an Event in our family.
But for some reason my parents, circa 1978, decided we should all go see “Midnight Express.”
A Turkish prison picture? What 10-year-old wouldn’t want to see that?
My parents weren’t overly permissive. For a while we weren’t allowed to watch “Welcome Back, Kotter,” and it took some heavy pleading to get to see “Soap,” a mildly adult comedy from that era.
But the Totos went off to see “Midnight Express” all the same.
I’ll assume we were all vigorously entertained. Frankly, I don’t remember much about the experience … except for that last prison scene when Billy Hayes (the late Brad Davis) gets a visitor.
My 10-year-old eyes nearly popped out of my head when Billy’s old flame took off her blouse to show him what he’s been missing.
My Mom squirmed in her seat. I think my Dad was too, ahem, distracted to register his lack of parental skills.
I watched the film again, as an adult, and it became one of my all time favorites. Even grew up listening to the creepy soundtrack, which further embedded the movie in my mind.
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I don’t remember the first R-rated film I ever watched, but I do remember the first one I was allowed to see in theaters — the final Dirty Harry installment, “The Dead Pool.”
Sadly, I think I liked it at the time.
When I was 14, my friends and I went to see Cactus Flower. At the time, I think you had to be 16 to get into and R rated movie. My boyfriend was 6′2″ so we werent questioned. I don’t really think the folks at the local rinky-dink theater cared at the time. I’ve always loved the film just for the presumed daring of our little outing.
To the best of my memory, the first R flick I saw was “The Terminator.” I don’t remember much other than that my mother required me to shield my eyes when the machine cut itself open to examine its gunshot wounds. I believe I was 5-years-old at the time.
The first movie I snuck into was The Exorcist, it scared the pants off me.
I grew up going to the ‘Bryn Mawr’ theater, where movies were 60cents, and double features were 90cents. A really big movie was seen at the Nortown on Western (a bus ride and 4 block walk). I lived at the movie theater in my teens. Some of my favorite times.
“Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” which went beyond being a good-bad movie. It was a great-awful movie. Really ineffective scenes interspersed with some of the greatest scenes I’ve ever encountered.
I saw it at the Webb in Gastonia NC. I had been so honestabout the ratings I didn’t even know the age was 18; I thought it was seventeen. And I was 3 days short of my 18th birthday. The clerk studied my driver’s license as I noticed and started to stammer about the age; she smiled and said, “Happy birthday,” and handed me the ticket.
Thanks for sharing your memories, all. Sounds like my folks were the most negligent! And Carlos wins for being the most mindful of the ratings board regulations.
My parents dropped me off for a double feature. Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange. I’ve never been the same.
i the first i remember at home was watching ‘Porky’s’ i was arount 10 at the time. in the theatre the first i remember seeing was ‘Platoon’ i was probably 11 at the time i remember liking it but at the time did not fully understand the impact my dad was in vietnam and he thought it was the most accurate that he had seen.
Ah, but I remember “M” rated films, like the first Connery Bond films, or “Dr. Strangelove.”
My first “R” film was “The Wild Bunch.” It was at the Castro, in San Francisco, 1969. The Castro had it on a double-bill with 1965’s “The Great Race,” rated “G.” The G film let us 14-year-olds walk in to see the R film.
I don’t remember much about “The Great Race,” but “The Wild Bunch” was seared into my psyche. Who knew that blood could fly like that, and in slow-motion, too? Ray and I left the theater in silence, afraid to talk lest we hurl. Nonetheless, “The Wild Bunch” remains one of my favorite films, my favorite Peckinpah film by far, and is, for me, THE standard on cinematic violence and mayhem.
I don’t remember much about it and I think it was R rated, a movie called Night Call Nurses….lol.
The first R movie I really have a strong memory of is The Exoricist and I couldn’t even sit through the whole thing. My favorite horror movie of all time now, but I was freaked for a couple weeks after seeing it originally.
Heck, I remember my first PG film, “Day of the Dolphin.” … first R would have been Conan the Barbarbian … it was a small theater, two screens. Me and some friends bought tickets to the other movie, a PG film, then went in to see Conan … good times.
“The French Connection”…I started off with a good ‘un…
First one in a theatre was See No Evil,Hear No Evil. Snuck in and lied about seeing Field of Dreams.
First two (same night) on Betamax was First Blood and Kentucky Fried Movie. My babysitter was mortified. My friends were cool for bringing it over but not by inviting my dad’s employee to join the viewing.