Thursday, October 31, 2013

Memory--Old Yeller

Memory--Old Yeller

In 1957, when I was 10 years old, my mother and I went to see the movie Old Yeller. It was supposed to be a movie for children. I was so happy to go to the movies for that was quite a treat and didn't happen often.  We had good seats in the center section, not quite half way back. We may have had a bag of popcorn and a small CocaCola in a cup from the vending machine, I'm not sure, but we probably did.

 I loved the movie up to the point where the family dog gets rabies and has to be killed. To say I was stunned is an understatement. To this day I remember how horrified I was. I cried all the way out of the movie, all the way home, and much of the afternoon. My poor mother would never have taken me if she had any idea how it would affect me. Slowly she was able to help me calm down and get over the shock but I have never been able to watch a movie or read a book with any type of animal cruelty involved. 

56 years later and I still remember it clearly. 

1 comment:

Hattie said...

Yes. I remember being scared out of my wits by Walt Disney's Pinocchio. And watching it later I found it creepy and claustrophobic and perverted, even.
I never saw Bambi, though, because the warning was out that it was too scary for kids.
And my sister had to be carried out screaming from a showing of The Wizard of Oz after seeing the green face of the Wicked Witch on the big screen!