When I was a kid, it was before color television was common in most households. So we had a black and white TV. However, my grandma had a color TV from as long as I remember (like early 60’s), so when something special was to be on TV, like Santa Claus parade, we would simply go to grandma.
The Wizard of Oz
When I was about 10, my mom heard that The Wizard of Oz was to air on TV. She knew it was a colorful movie that had won awards. Since they advertised it has having grandiose images, we had to watch it in color! Since grandma had a color TV (and we didn’t), my mom decided we could go watch it there.
Saturday afternoon
The movie was to air on Saturday afternoon. Usually, we would go every Saturday night to visit my grandma, but this time, we would go early, to watch that movie.
Award winning movie
I remember getting all excited about that movie, just from listening to the adults talk about it. Not only I had never seen it, but I had never read the story either. I guess it is not part of the French literature!
Ready for movie
They set me downstairs, while my mom and grandparents stayed upstairs (I am not sure they watched it at all). My brother was probably there too, but he was much younger and probably not that interested anyways. I was on my little rocking chair, right in the middle of the room, right in front of the TV.
No color?
Then, the movie started. I stared at the screen, waiting for those fantastic colors to appear, but the movie was… in black and white! I was shocked. I thought the TV was broken, or had to be adjusted.
Still no color!
I had remembered seeing adults adjust the three different wheels for red, green and blue, but turning those wheels didn’t do anything to give any fantastic colors.
It will be black and white
I went upstairs asking grandma to fix the TV. She tried, obviously, it was still in black and white. What a disappointment! Everyone concluded that it was not going to be shown in color that day. But it was still supposed to be a fun story, so I sat to watch anyways.
The TV is fixed!
As you probably know, just waiting for a while was the solution as the movie WAS in color, except for the first few minutes. I was so happy that “the TV got fixed”!
Now, whenever I watched the movie with my kids or on my own, I always remember that time when I thought the color was missing when the movie started.
Do you remember a special movie you watched when you were young, that impressed you in any particular way? What movie was that? What impressed you? What was special about that movie, or you watching it? Share your story with us.
1 thought on “Remember when…? – Movie”
This isn’t the first movie I saw but it made a great impression on me. There used to be an old theater downtown that had a balcony. My mother took me to see “101 Dalamatians” and I was thrilled to be able to sit in the front of the balcony row…at last, no one tall could block my view of the screen! I had my little stuffed Dalmatian puppy (of course I did; marketing works) which I lifted up so it too could see the screen (but not the scary parts). The screen seemed huge and I felt very grown up (I probably was ten years old at the time) because we were sitting in such an elegant space. I can’t say why that movie was more memorable than the others I saw (“Dumbo,” “Bambi”) that were certainly more emotionally touching–I think it had nothing to do with the movie and everything to do with that wonderful theater with its elaborate decor that had once been the venue for musicals and plays and was now showing children’s films, and later fell into sad disrepair as the fashion for single screen movie theaters faded away.