Yeah, my Dad and Mom took me with them to see it. Dad had just received his B. Div. fom Colgate-Rochester Divinity School that year, and after the graduation being ordained an Elder in the Methodist Church, the Bishop because of it advanced my Dad to a newer bigger church in Angelica, New York, in the eastern part of the state, a town of population about 500. Wow! Big (for us and for Dad's career)!
The nearest theater was in Belmont, the County Seat, about 10 miles away. I'm guessing that we went as my 8th birthday treat on November 1.
You will recall that we were in the middle of the really hot part of WWII, with battles in the Pacific islands and advances in Europe toward the Rhine--The Battles of the Bulge and Iwo Jima yet to come. Because of the war rationing, We were limited in travel by the "A" gas rationing ticket, that--IIRC--only gave us only five gallons a week, so traveling to and from Belmont, whilst paying the 50 cents each for he movie ticket, was a pretty big thing on a minister's pay and ability to use the car for visiting parishioners.
I remember but little of the movie except the two seemingly "innocent" well-mannered elder ladies, and Cary Grant. He seemed to be always in a fix. It was so hard for me to believe that the nice ladies were actually poisoners with their tea parties. That was not comedy to me, but rather pretty scary, considering from the viewpoint of a preacher's kid that with a lot of the village men going off to war, and the young women starting to behave more worldly, most of our supporting church congregation was nice old ladies and men far too aged (more than age 45) to be drafted.
Maybe I'll try to find this movie in the DVD archives of the Delaware Library system, where I now live. I'm glad to find a few folks on FR as old as us guys. Thinking of this movie brings up a lot of memories from long ago. What an age that we have lived in, and seen the whole culture be changed!
How many people alive today can imagine a very active bustling society, a Radio-soaked society but without the distracting TV option, let alone the overwhelming internet or smartphone involvements that have so mightily consumed peoples' attention away from each other.
Too much for me!
How come no one mentions Peter Lorre?
Hey FRiend! I’m sorry but I didn’t see it in the theater when it was released. I saw it on a local channel, one of the Movie time slots - remember Popcorn Movies? The Late Late Show? Or the Saturday Afternoon Movies? It was one of them or another one, sometime around 1968.
That said, I just loved reading your reply and how descriptive your words are! Rationing during war time must have been difficult, yet Patriotic. “All pull together”. THAT is a nation.
Things I miss from my own childhood include being hot in the summer with the shades all pulled down, and the house dark and mysterious, and the living room fan blowing the only breeze. And at night all the neighbors come out to the front stoops, and everyone’s windows open so you could hear what they were watching on television.