Alice in Wonderland and Other Movies

This past weekend when we went to see Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" movie, I remembered well the very first movie that I ever saw, which was the Disney cartoon movie version of "Alice in Wonderland." My babysitter Connie Guilfoyle, who was the daughter of my father's supervisor at school, took me to see it, and she also took me to see other movies, mostly Disney cartoons. Connie took me to the movies because my brother and sister were too young to go to the movies and I was just barely old enough, about 3 1/2 years old. I was a very well- behaved child, so people never minded taking me places. But "Alice" was my very first movie. I was a little scared of the Red Queen, of course; who wouldn't be scared of her!? But I loved the cartoon movie; I wished that I was Alice and could have such an adventure as she did. My little life seemed quite mundane, compared to what Alice experienced, even if some of her adventures were a bit frightening. 

I also had a little plastic raincoat, a see-through plastic cape with pictures of Alice and the White Rabbit on it, as well as some of the scenes from the cartoon.  It also came with a rainbonnet and a little umbrella. These also had pictures from the cartoon on them and were made of see-through plastic. I dearly loved my "Alice" raingear and actually looked forward to rain so that I could wear them if we went out. Unfortunately, we didn't go out and about all that often, except to church and to my grandparents' home, but I do remember wearing my outfit to my grandparents' home. It must have been the first time my grandparents had seen it, because I recall my grandmother oohhing and aahhing over how lovely I looked in my raingear. I think I was with my father at that time, and it seems in my memory that Pat and Joanne were not around, so they must have been home with my mother. My father probably was taking a loan payment to my grandparents who had loaned my parents money with which to build our house.

Connie also took me to see the Disney cartoon "Peter Pan." I distinctly remember being very scared at that movie. Captain Hook was a nightmarish character for me, and I was as deathly afraid of the crocodile as Captain Hook was. I remember Connie telling me that I could put my hands over eyes and not look at the scary parts, and she promised to tell me when the scary parts were about to happen. But for the most part, I loved going to the movies with Connie. I felt so grown-up to be going out without my parents and the babies. And Connie always bought me pop-corn, which I loved and still love to this day. Pop-corn is one of my favorite things, and a movie just doesn't feel right unless I have some pop-corn to eat while watching it.

Later when we were older, my mother generally took us to the movies. First, though, she had to make sure that they were on the approved list from the Catholic Church. There was a listing of the movies that were playing and the Church rated the movies as to their acceptability, based on the values of the church. And they were quite strict. If there was any extra-marital sex, for example, the movie was "Condemned" by the Church. So the movie "Tom Jones," a classic book and movie produced in the 1960s, was condemned by the Church. However, I was about 15 when that movie came out and my friend Bridget and I snuck out to see the movie because we had read the book and were curious 15-year-olds. Did we ever tell our parents that we had seen it? Not on your life! Not even when I was older did I ever let on to my parents that I had seen a "Condemned" movie because that was a sin!

When we were in grammar school, I remember some of the movies we saw were "The Ten Commandments," "The Sound of Music," "Johnny Tremayne," and "A Nun's Story." The latter was probably not appropriate for young children such as we were because it had a lot of violence in it--it was about a nun serving as a missionary in Africa during the turbulent times when African nations were attempting to gain their independence from European countries. I did have nightmares after that movie, and decided that I would NOT be a missionary because it was just too dangerous.

But most of the movies we saw were happy-ending, sugar-coated movies. Lots of Disney movies, of course. What would be "G" rated movies today. There were certainly more of them when I was growing up than there are today. It seems as if today even the children's movies have double entendres and show disrespect to parents or other authority figures. And parents today tend to let their children see movies that are beyond their intellectual abilities, movies that they can't (or shouldn't) understand at very young ages. But movies today are so heavily promoted and marketed to audiences of young people, who attend many movies. And parents don't seem to check out a movie or even discuss the values of the movie with their children. There are teachable moments in some of those movies, but the vast majority of parents miss those moments and concentrate on entertainment value for themselves.