At the Movies with the Parents

Lying about in ortho rehab, I find a lot of random thoughts running through my head. This is one of them. 

As I grow older and older and older, I realize that in many ways my upbringing was not standard. The realization hit me recently when I could only recall seeing one Disney movie. Not that I actually remember the movie. My memory is a badly distorted recollection of being terrified by a crocodile at the Philadelphia Zoo. I say distorted because I suspect they did not keep a croc in an unfenced two-foot deep cement hole three-feet in diameter that allowed visitors to walk right up to the edge. Safety standards were looser when I was a kid, but even back then zoo officials would have provided more protection for the animal if not the customers. At any rate, I recall trying to climb up my mother with images of Captain Hook crowding my brain. So, I must have seen "Peter Pan." And maybe "Lady and the Tramp." Or do I only remember the classic spaghetti scene that is part of popular culture?

My parents must have taken me to other kid movies but none of them made an impression. The only reason I think we did go is family lore that when asked if I wanted to see some film I replied, "Okay, but not if I have to watch 'Bear Country' again." Bear Country was a documentary short about, spoiler alert, bears in the country. 

What strikes me as unusual is the list of movies I did see with my parents in the theater, not accidentally on the early or late show. 

Love in the Afternoon 1957 

I think we saw this at Radio City Music Hall. The story involved an affair (implied - it was the fifties) between Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn. I have no idea what I thought was going on as a seven-year-old. I remember the ending clearly. Well I know there was a train. I don't think I ever saw the movie as an adult.

Girl on the Red Velvet Swing 1955

No idea where we saw this movie loosely based on a sensational crime of the early 1900s. Harry Thaw (Farley Granger) kills Sanford White (Ray Milland) over Evelyn Nesbit ( Joan Collins). I kind of remember Farley Granger looking nuts but basically what I took away from the movie was the need for an indoor swing in our home. It wasn't red velvet but a nice wooden one hung in our basement for years.

Funny Face 1957

I suspect in today's world this would be a G-rated romance. Not sure since I last saw it in 1957. What I took from this film was a love of shocking pink and a desire to move to Paris. It's probably the reason I started college as a French major. 

Rains of Ranchipur 1955

Sometimes I wonder if I only saw the coming attractions. They alone were enough to scare a five-year-old to death. An earthquake and flooding in India. All I remember is the flooding.

Also important are the movies they saw without me. I really only know of one for sure, a French mystery called "Diabolique" in which Simone Signore and an accomplice murder Simone's husband. My mother really loved that movie. Couldn't stop talking about it. I wonder what my father thought.

I was the baby in the family and my two teen-aged siblings were probably not into babysitting, so I got to do a lot of age inappropriate activities.  Ask me about my cocktail umbrella collection. 

Just a random memory while doing knee exercises. 

© Jane Kelly 2026