Throughout my childhood and on I went to the movies. In the 1950’s the movies I watched were often dramatic and upsetting. From the death in Bambi to the shooting of the rabid dog in 1957’s Old Yeller, no one seemed intent on keeping me from some of the hard truths of life. Even fantasy could be quite scary. I remember being haunted by the endless reproduction of brooms in Walt Disney’s Fantasia. My little brother went screaming out of the theater when the flying monkeys appeared in The Wizard of Oz. My father, brother and I went to see The Guns of Navarone in 1961, so I know I had seen some war scenes.
Still nothing could have prepared me for the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. For the first time violence was graphically and chillingly portrayed. At that moment I realized how much I had been protected from such scenes in movies until then. It sickened me in a way that movie goers since, hardened by endless scenes of graphic violence, probably never are.
At the same time television began to broadcast chilling scenes of racial violence. The evening news showed body bags returning from Viet Nam. Seemingly at once I was jolted, in the middle 60’s, out of the cocoon my culture had provided until then. It was a rough awakening to be sure.
Saved By Words 
And now, it seems, anything goes!
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Sadly.
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I avoided graphic movies and TV. Guess I wanted to live in fairyland.
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I occasionally stumbled onto them as with “Bonnie and Clyde.” I have avoided them when I have been alerted beforehand.
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Very poignant and I agree completely with Peter. Where’s the adult in the room to say, ‘Enough is enough!’?
By the way, , I think ‘Ol Yeller’ was my first crying movie.
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I cried every time I read this book to my class, Steve.
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Oh, Pere, im a bawler for emotional stories. Let me count the times. As to your story, I had a 7th gr teacher, Miss Sullivan, who cried when she read ‘Evangeline’, a long poem by Longfellow (I had to look up the author). That’s all I remember about the poem, that she cried.
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I only saw one teacher cry. That was when JFK was killed.
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I had already cried at “Bambi.” “Old Yeller” made me very mad.
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I loved Old Yeller. I still have the theme song on a 75rpm disc. I remember having nightmares of little people invading my bed after being taken to see the Wixard of Oz, and my youngest daughter burst into loud tears at the death of Bambi’s mother. (Since I had the other three with me, 3, 5 and 7 years old, I couldn’t take her out of the cinema.)
I can’t watch really graphic stuff. I like detective series, but usually turn away when it gets nasty.
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Sadly when my brother went screaming out my mother took me with her! I think the movie only came around every few years so I had to wait a while to see the whole film.
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And there is more violence nowadays…for real😟
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Absolutely.
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Your memories prompt me to send you this post link containing an early visit to the cinema: https://derrickjknight.com/2012/09/15/shane/
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I loved it reading about little you. I also never knew it was anything but the name of that film.
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Thank you very much, Elizabeth
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‘Where the Red Fern Grows” was another heartbreaker. I was not prepared for what I saw when I went to see “Bonnie and Clyde” as a young teenager. Now everything seems to include some level of violence.
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Too much violence seems to have made us hardened I think.
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I agree. We are strangely oblivious to the daily violence. It is shocking to me.
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I learned that some gunshot victims are amazed that they are badly hurt. Too many scenes of violence without the actual experience.
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That seems crazy to me.
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I know, but the medical person says it happens.
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I remember how horrified I was, also a young teenager, when I saw Bonnie and Clyde. It stuck with me always, and I’ve never seen the movie as an adult.
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Me neither, though I suspect we wouldn’t be nearly as shocked now after all we have had to be exposed to on screen.
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I think part of it was the music was upbeat, and images saturated magazines,the culture in general, etc., and fashion was influenced greatly as well. I remember my sister having a floaty ‘Bonnie’ 30s-style dress and strappy shoes! Then, even though we knew how the story would end, we saw the movie and Bam!
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After looking at the Hayes Code for today’s post I realize that Bonnie and Clyde violated them by glorifying criminals.
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My parents took me to the cinema twice every week, from a very young age. It was an escape from our poor quality housing and urban lifestyle. I saw every ‘big’ film that was going, and most of the ‘B’ films too.
When Bonnie and Clyde was released here, I went to see it with my cousin. I was 15, and she was 17. We thought it was an amazing film, so much so that we went to see it again, 4 days later. Two days after that, I went to see it again, with my best friend from school. It is still the only film I have seen 3 times in the same week.
Best wishes, Pete.
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It was certainly different from anything most of us had seen up until then.
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These days the warnings we get before films and TV begin to put the responsibility on the watcher though some eg ‘some cases of smoking and nose pickings may upset the viewer’ are getting farcical. And the serial violence is getting less graphic thankfully – Straw Dogs still me shudder in memory. The thing that most disturbs me is the willingness to cut (soz) to a forensic dissection with no warning. No one warns you that ‘the removal and weighing of a brain might upset some viewers’.
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To say nothing about watching strangers going at it hot and heavy!
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That indeed is one of the most unnecessary pieces of cinematography; do they think we have no imaginations?
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I find it pretty cringeworthy.
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It was. All the WWII newsreels and movies never showed bloody bodies. The evening news is often sickening. Yet, I still question how relevant it is to most people.
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Since it appears to be all about ratings rather than news I guess sensationalism sells.
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Unfortunately, yes.
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Hi Elizabeth, my childhood was very sheltered too and I never heard the term rape until I was 16. It’s quite weird, the authorities want to rewrite Ronald Dajl’s books to remove references to fat and ugly but the violence and sex in movies and on TV is graphic and chilling. It makes no sense to me.
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I am with you on that. I had never heard that word either. I will get to the sex on screen in a future post.
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I cried all the way through Peter Pan because I felt so sorry for all the little boys that didn’t have Mommy’s. I don’t think I saw violent movies until I was much older (still avoid them).
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I avoid them using the current ratings. They have help steer me away from extreme violence.
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I don’t often watch movies. Molly and I watched one on a Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. It was really more about the popcorn. 🙄
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I think for me movies are always first about the popcorn!
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I agree. 😂
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