Movies

As a child growing up in New York City, Carol frequented the downtown movie theater with her two siblings. The movie theater was on Dyckman Street right next to a grocery store with fresh produce. Carol and her two siblings would often times steal some sort of produce and run into the movie theater. "We didn't count it as stealing back then. We were kids," said Carol. She also recalled that Dyckman Theatre was much bigger than theaters today because it only had one large screen. The theater had almost 1500 seats. 

This is the movie theater Carol frequented as a child.
Her siblings would steal produce from the grocery store to the right of the theater.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/27049/photos/34791

Back then, it only cost Carol five or ten cents to see two movies back-to-back. Compared to the price of seeing a movie today, I definitely would have gone to the movies constantly if movies were that cheap. Carol and her siblings always went to see matinees. As kids, they were not allowed to see evening shows. There were no movies that her parents forbade them to see. The only things that would have stopped them from seeing a movie were if they did not have the money or if the movie was an evening show. Going to the movies for Carol was for pure enjoyment. Any time that Carol had money, which was seldom, she spent it on black licorice. Even today, black licorice is her go-to movie concession snack.

Movies never played a role in Carol's courtship and friendships. When she lived in New York, she only saw movies with her older brother and younger sister. None of them ever went alone. This was a way for them to keep out of harm's way. Even later in life, Carol did not go to the movies with her friends or with dates. She never went to the movies with her late husband until after they were married.

Aside from movie theaters, Carol did experience drive-in movies. However, it wasn't until she had moved to Missouri that she actually went to a drive-in movie, putting her around the age of thirty. At this time, she had her own family along with her. They would park their car somewhere in the middle of the drive-in. She and her husband brought lounge chairs to sit outside in, blankets for the kids to sit on the ground, and their own snacks and refreshments.

Carol has a broad variety of movie genres that she thoroughly enjoys. Her interests include musicals, westerns, action, and comedies. Her favorite musicals are "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Showboat." William Warfield singing "Ol' Man River" really stood out to her in "Showboat." She said, "I could listen to him sing that song all day long. No one can sing it like him." As for action, she liked the "The French Connection" because it was different from other movies she had seen. It was the first movie with profanity. Lastly, her favorite comedy was the "Long, Long Trailer," which featured Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

One of Carol's favorite musicals.
http://jacketmagazine.com/11/seven-brides-info.html

Growing up, I always remembered Carol having lots of John Wayne western movies. In fact, my older brothers enjoyed watching those movies with her. When it came to westerns, John Wayne was her absolute favorite. She has quite a few of his movies stored in her basement. In fact, she once went on vacation with her late husband and friends in which they passed through Monument Valley. She told everyone that they would have to stop and spend a few days there because she had to see where John Wayne filmed most of his movies. While she stood there looking out at Monument Valley, she could almost see the Indians, John Wayne, and the cavalry. "Imagination is really good, and I got it!"

Here are some John Wayne movies from Carol's collection.
This is a personal photograph I took. 

Here are more movies from Carol's collection.
This is a personal photograph I took.

As for the influential qualities of films, Carol has never felt that a film has been influential in her life. She has definitely enjoyed films, but they have not changed her. The only thing close to influential she could think of were the newsreels shown before each movie. This was how Carol got her news about what was going on in the world during World War II. "I hated seeing the killing. Even today I hate killing."

In regards to convergence, Carol has little experience. She has never rented a movie before. She has only ever watched movies in a theater or on television. "I guess I had better things to do in life than rent movies," she laughed. Just as with t.v. shows, Carol does not watch movies online. That is too complicated for her. It seems as though media convergence with movies is something that Carol will not dabble too much into.

Television

While it may seem like a time before television was ages ago, television is still fairly new compared to other mass mediums such as radio and print. Many of us today take for granted having a television, or more than one, readily available for recreational use. In fact, most of us have never considered the idea of not having a t.v. in our homes. That would be absurd. However, for Carol, this was a completely different story.

Carol's family did not purchase their first television until she was about 20 years old. (Carol was the middle of three children in her family.) Her family's first television was an RCA model with a 10" screen. One of the things she could clearly remember was the size of the television screen. Carol also was able to recall what the viewing experience of their first t.v. was like. The quality was not very good according to her memory. "We kept getting zig-zag lines, which we referred to as 'snow.' In order to fix this, we had to move the antennae, or bunny ears as we liked to call them, around." At first, she remembered being disappointed in it and preferring to listen to radio instead.

Carol's first family television was something similar to this model with a 10" screen.
https://antiqueradio.org/RCA630TSTelevision.htm

This is the 1951 version of CBS's logo that Carol would've seen.
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-evolution-of-the-cbs-eye/

While Carol wasn't very impressed at first, she eventually came round. The t.v. was placed in the family room where there was one couch and two seats for her family of five. Seating was first come, first serve. Like clockwork, she and her family gathered around that small screen every evening to watch their programs on either NBC and CBS. In order to fix the picture quality problem, Carol recalled her brother putting Reynolds aluminum foil around the "ears." Even though the television was new and exciting, Carol said that it did not change her home life much. The children still had to finish their homework before being able to enjoy the television.

Before television had color, Carol remembered something her family had to make the black and white t.v. "colored." There was a plastic sheet that was placed in front of the t.v. to give it color. "If I remember correctly, all it did was make a colorful blob. It was not that clear." It wasn't until about 1965 that Carol and her late husband purchased their first color television. Since color televisions were still expensive at that time, they purchased a used one. She recalled that the color t.v. was able to get more channels than the t.v. her family originally had. She and her husband were able to get channels 2, 4, 5, 11, and 30.

Duz detergent advertisement from the 1950s.
https://hiveminer.com/Tags/1950s,detergent/Interesting

Along with television came lots of advertisements. Some prominent advertisements that Carol watched were Chevrolet, Speedy Alka-seltzer, Texaco gas, Duz detergent, and 20 Mule Team Borax. Back then there were also lots of cereal and cigarette commercials on television.

Speedy Alka-Seltzer from the 1950s.
https://wn.com/speedy_alka_seltzer

Aside from watching television for recreational use, Carol also watched major news events. She said that she always watched major news events on television. The one news event that she vividly remembered was the first space trip to the moon in 1969. "The first trip to the moon blew my mind! It was more exciting to me than earlier space endeavors."

This image is the one that Carol would have seen in July of 1969 during the first moon landing.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/1969-moonlanding-vin

Since Carol's first experience with television, the medium has rapidly changed. Televisions have gotten larger, quality has gotten better, and channel selection has gotten broader. In fact, Carol's television experiences today vastly differ from those of the 1950s and 1960s. Carol said that the picture has radically changed. "With every new t.v., we got a bigger screen, and with each bigger screen, we liked it a lot more." Carol went from a mere 10" screen television to a 65" screen television. Talk about a better picture. Additionally, there are now DVRs that can record shows and movies for viewers to watch later, a process known as time-shifting. Carol currently has a DVR and uses it. She said that the device is convenient, but she doesn't mind it either way. Furthermore, Carol has satellite television. There are times when she really doesn't enjoy satellite. "With the exception of sports and a few movie channels, I could be satisfied with only the cable channels 2, 4, 5, 11, and 30." However, she did admit that satellite television has a better picture than cable.

With all of these vast changes in roughly sixty years, Carol has drawn the line at the newest trend of online television programming. This is one change that I believe Carol will not jump on board with. She made it very clear that she only watches t.v. on the television.