15 Film Firsts

A Lifeline of First-Times at the Movies: From Beneath the Planet of the Apes to The Bride

You never forget your first time at the movies. Or doing stuff that you can associate with going to the movies. Or thinking about all the times you’ve gone to the movies.

Well, if you’re normal, you do. And pretty much right away, too.

But if you’re like me, you remember it all; so much so that you can - and, in fact, often must - rattle off a list of such occasions, no matter how obscure or fecactuh (not for nothing does Fiddler on the Roof figure big in what follows), and no matter who cares or who doesn’t.

Stuff like:

First PG-13 Movie I Saw: Red Dawn (which was the first PG-13 movie to hit theaters, period, although not the first movie to be rated PG-13. That would be The Zoo Gang, which I never saw. But I’d like to at least try to see it. Still).

So please read my round-up of personal movie firsts, and then leave a list of yours in my comments section.

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1. FIRST DRIVE-IN MOVIE
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Upstate New York
1970

At the diaper-ripening age of about 18 months, I was loaded into the back of a station wagon with some cousins and, I am told, proceeded to through the entire movie - even when Chuck Heston sets off the Big One - plus a co-feature that my father can’t recall.

My brain has produced a fuzzy memory of this occasion but, in reality, I may have to chalk that up to wishful thinking.

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2. FIRST MOVIE IN A THEATER
Walt Disney’s Pinocchio (1940)
Colonial Theater
Keansburg, New Jersey
1972

This event I do possess some recollection of, which I believe to be accurate.

By all accounts,  movie-going blew my mind - immediately and irrevocably.

The 37 subsequent years leading up to the launch of this site all attest to the validity of that notion.

Plus there was how excited I became, a few years later, by another film’s prospect of “It’s not his nose that grows!” upon reading The Golden Turkey Awards.

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3. FIRST - AND LAST - TIME I WAS SHUSHED AT A MOVIE
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Colonial Theater
Keansburg, New Jersey
1972

Look, I’m from Brooklyn and of a certain age. Plus I’m pretty gay.

This means that, before my third birthday, I could sing “Tradition”, “Sunrise, Sunset”, and “If I Were a Rich Man” backward and forward. And I did, all the time.

So how could I help it if I felt compelled to belt along with the movie once it started?

A noble usher flashed the upward-pointing-index-finger-against-the-lips sign - universal for “Shhhhh!”- and I was cured.

From that moment on, I remain utterly silent in theaters. When the lights go down, the mouth goes shut.

The lone exception I’ll make is to vociferously enforce the Rule of Holy Quiet should any of my fellow film patrons attempt to violate it.

Lechaim!

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4. FIRST MOVIE THEATER EXPERIENCE I REMEMBER ALL THE WAY THROUGH
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Kings Plaza Twin
Brooklyn, New York
1974

Pops McBeardo took me after first-grade let out one Friday.

He laughed hardest at Gene Wilder looking at the giant door fixtures while oblivious to Teri Garr’s cleavage and saying: “What knockers!”

I didn’t get it.

But I loved - and still love - everything about Young Frankenstein.

Eventually, I also got the joke.

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5. FIRST CABLE MOVIE
Convoy (1978)
Aunt Patty and Uncle Tommy’s House
Middletown, New York
1979

Previously, I had only heard tell of this “Home Box” device that put movies with boobs and cursing fresh out of theaters right there on your TV.

My eyes lit upon being presented with actual evidence of this concoction (which would not be available in Brooklyn until 1986!) courtesy of Sam Peckinpah, Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw starting to go simian, and my generous aunt and uncle, who were also the only people in the world I knew who could get Cracker Jack ice cream.

They also had a male dog named Pretty Boy, who drank beer and was awesome.

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6. FIRST R-RATED MOVIE
Alien (1979)
Colonial Theater
Keansburg, New Jersey
October, 1979

After heavy negotiation with Moms McBeardo, Uncles Angelo and Bonko escorted me up the street from my grandparents’ home on the broken-glass-laden banks of Raritan Bay to the $1.50-at-all-times Colonial theater.

It was Columbus Day weekend, and I was allowed to go in exchange for helping my grandfather shut down the beach house for winter, which consisted mostly of my soaping up screws for the windows.

It was worth it - every bit of it I could see from ducking down and hiding behind the seat in front of me (which was equipped, at that time, with an ashtray. Do I even need to report that it was full?).

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7. FIRST UNRATED MOVIE
Dawn of the Dead (1980)
Colonial Theater
Keansburg, New Jersey
June 1980

The age-admissions policy at Keansburg’s Colonial was simple: If you were old enough to hand over a buck-and-a-half, you were old enough to come inside.

It didn’t even matter if the movie was, say, Dawn of the Dead.

In 1980, Dawn of the Dead had been running for a record number of weeks at the Colonial, which normally changed its third and fourth-run attractions every Friday.

My local buddy Mickey Cosgrove had been seeing it regularly when I joined him for another summer with my grandmother that June.

I lucked into Dawn’s final few days, and told my mother Mickey and I were going to the Belvedere Pool. But you know where we went.

And for almost all of the good parts, I kept my eyes shut. But just that first time. I swear.

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8. FIRST DRIVE-IN MOVIES I REMEMBER
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Jaws 2 (1979)
Route 35 Drive-In
Hazlet, New Jersey
July 1980

Again, school was out; again, the McBeardo clan made its way to the Jersey shore; and, again, Mickey Cosgrove helped me sneak into a movie I wasn’t allowed to see.

The Parents McBeardo maintained a strict “nothing rated R” policy until I was about 13. You can see how well this attempt to instill within me some kind of taste and decorum when it comes to entertainment worked out.

One afternoon, Mickey’s older sister announced plans to see the (R-rated) Blues Brothers at the drive-in. Mickey was going, and I wanted in. The bottom half of the bill was the shit-brick known as Jaws 2.

Somehow, I convinced Moms McBeardo that, at the kick-off of a new summer blockbuster season, the Route 35 Drive-In would be showing a double feature of the year-old Jaws 2, followed immediately by a second showing of … Jaws 2.

We went. We saw. We kept our mouths shut.

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9. FIRST MIDNIGHT MOVIE
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
8^th Street Playhouse
August 1981

Here we have another epic wool-pulling session over Moms McBeardo’s apparently none-too-eagle-like peepers, powered by a fortuitous misprint in The Asbury Park Press.

My semi-obsession with Rocky Horror dated from an article on the emerging cult in The New York Daily News, likely sometime in 1976, carried on through Dr. Demento’s repeated playing of songs from the movie, and culminated with my receiving the soundtrack album for my tenth birthday in 1978.

By 1981, Rocky Horror was running each weekend in literally dozens upon dozens of theaters in New Jersey.

The ad for one such showing in the Press was unmistakably - albeit incorrectly - stamped with an official PG rating from the MPAA.

I rushed to Moms with the page in hand, saying: “Look! Rocky Horror is PG! I can go! I’m allowed! I’m allowed to see any PG movie! This is all I want for my birthday! Well, okay, that plus one of those oversized foam-rubber cowboy hats.”

Moms said she would concede Rocky Horror, if I would give in on the novelty headwear.

It was a deal.

And not only did I see Rocky Horror for my birthday, a very groovy handful of aunts and an uncle carted me into Manhattan to see it at its worldwide headquaters, The 8^th Street Playhouse.

The girl who portrayed Janet sat in my newly 13-year-old lap at one point and, during “Rose-Tint My World”, she obeyed the audience’s chanting for her to “SHOW! YOUR! TITS!”

The profound effect of this night out upon Youngman McBeardo could be fairly estimated as in-fucking-calculable.

Ever tuned in to what my real issues were not, Pops McBeardo hit the ceiling once he heard I’d seen Rocky Horror.

“HE COULDA GOTTEN A CONTACT HIGH!” my old man raged. “IN FACT, HE PROBABLY DID, GOD-DAMMIT!”

And, of course, I did. But not in the way that control-freak, Green Beret nutbar was thinking.

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10. FIRST NON-ROCKY-HORROR MIDNIGHT MOVIE
Bloopers!
Marboro Theater
Brooklyn, NY
November 26, 1982

This collection of celebrity fuck-ups and and just plain fucked oddities proved to be a solidly popular midnight attraction in the New York area throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s.

It was promoted heavily on FM rock stations, with the same hyper-helium voice that pitched “Oh-ho-ho-ho-HO-ho-ho! Raaaaaace-way Park” blaring, “BLOOOOOOOOPERS!”

The program contained Bambi Meets Godzilla, the now-familiar Star Trek and Laugh-In flubs, a hygiene film edited to show President Nixon taking a piss, and what I though was Lou Costello pulling his dick out of the front of his pants and dancing around but which, years later, proved to be Lou just using his shirt to pretend to be his dick.

I can’t unearth evidence of this particular Bloopers collection anywhere.

A dozen people have contacted me to say they caught Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video in a theater, but nobody I’ve ever met has told me they say Bloopers.

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11. FIRST MOVIES I RENTED
Caveman (1981)
Summer Lovers (1982)
Video Stop
Brooklyn, New York
December 1982

The Family McBeardo got a VCR for Christmas meaning, in reality, that I got a VCR for Christmas.

Caveman looked funny, and I thought it “zug-zuggin’” was.

Summer Lovers taught me how to pronounce ménage-a-trois.

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12. FIRST 42^nd STREET DOUBLE FEATURE
The Beast Within (1982)
Humongous (1982)
Lyric Theater
New York, NY
June 1982

Following a family party for my 8^th grade graduation (which was a squeaker, so they were right to celebrate), I ventured into Manhattan with an older cousin to pick up his sister at Grand Central Station.

We arrived to see that her train from D.C. would be four hours late.

So what to do?

I had some grad gelt in my khakis, so I suggested a movie.

We walked up 42^nd Street and decided to try the Lyric. The Beast Within was starting soon.

We were speechless, almost breathless, as I gave him the dough and we went inside. I was 13 and he was 20 and there was no mistaking the “Abandon All Catholic Outer Borough Hope Ye Who Enter Here” vibe at the box office.

My cousin happened to be a monster-muscled amateur boxer, so I felt physically secure. The mental and spiritual threats proved more daunting - and infinitely more attractive.
We watched all of The Beast Within and a healthy (?) chunk of Humongous before having to split back to Grand Central.

The rough-and-tumble crowd yelled and oozed and did what they did back then, but left us alone.

I loved it. Every second. The movies. The trash-pit surroundings. The freakshow in the aisles. The adrenaline mix of terror and glee. Everything. I wanted  stay - not just for the rest of the second feature, but forever.

And, in my way, … well, here I am. Hi.

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13. FIRST R-RATED MOVIE I SNUCK A KID INTO
Easy Money (1983)
Middletown Cinema
Middletown, New Jersey
September 1983

Charged with carting my nine-year-old brother to a movie one weekend, I bought tickets to the literary biopic Cross Creek (1983) with Mary Steenburgen as the author of The Yearling.

Peee-YUW!

Once inside, I spied a 30-ish married couple heading for the Rodney Dangerfield meistewürk, Easy Money, and instructed my bro: “Okay, we’re going to follow those two people and sit next to them, make it look like we’re all together. We’re not getting popcorn or sodas and you can’t go to the bathroom. You in?”

He was and, to this day, he thanks me.

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14. FIRST MOVIE-RELATED INJURY
Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Kingsway Multiplex
Brooklyn, New York
December 1984

The moment that sets up the climax of the original Nightmare on Elm Street is a doozy.

It occurs after Heather Langenkamp has pulled Freddy Kreuger out of her dream and we just wait for him pop up from behind the bed she’s sitting on in the real world.

And then - AIEEEEE!!!! - he does.

Freddy so scared the everything out of me that I leaped up from my chair, yelled, and then crashed back down the wrong way on my foot, twisting my ankle - kind of seriously.

For a long, long time after that, Nightmare on Elm Street remained my favorite horror movie.

The only other theater-wound I can claim was a slight laceration to my face from flying glass.

The movie was Blind Fury (1989) with Rutger Hauer - which is freakin’ awesome - and one of the patrons in the balcony of 42^nd Street’s Harris theater deigned to express his enthusiasm for the film by hurling his  40-ounce malt-liquor bottle toward the screen.

The mostly empty container bounced off Rutger’s giant projected kisser and shattered on the little stage area below, showering me with flying glass.

A minute sliver left me with a tiny slice on the cheek, just enough to draw a scratch of blood.

How I wish it had left a (visible) scar.

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15. FIRST DATE MOVIE
The Bride (1985)
Newton Twin Cinema
Newton, New Jersey
August 20, 1985

Sting. Jennifer Beals.

My first kiss.

Jennifer Beals. Sting.

My first nipple tug (not my own).

Fer. Stingibeals Jen.

And then I got laid.

But that happened after the movie,  on the bonny banks of Lake Mohawk, not at the theater.

You can read more about the laid part here.

That turned out to be worse than The Bride.

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