Were YOU also an 8 y/o(or close in age) in 1960?

[Dargo2]

Like me?

 

Okay, I'll explain why I'm askin' this here...

 

In 1960, when George Pal's The Time Machine(which was shown again last night on TCM) was initially released, Mom, Pop and I drove to one of the glorious Deco-styled downtown L.A.'s first-run movie houses to watch it, as in those days the majority of the first-run theaters in the L.A. area were situated in that area and not in the surrounding suburbs, such as the South Bay beach area where we lived.

 

Well ANYWAY, watching that movie last night again reminded me of the part in the film where Rod Taylor's character stops his time-traveling in the year 1966, and when a nuclear war was supposed to have taken place.

 

Now we get to why I've asked the question in the thread title up there.

 

Does anyone else on the boards here who was about that age when they first watched this movie that year think to themselves somethin' like: "Holy Crap! I've only got 6 more years to live!" ???

 

I suppose I don't need to remind you the Cold War was nearing its height in 1960, and in MY case especially, word was to us kids that all the SoCal-based defense plants where Target No.1 on the Ruskies' list.

 

(...OR, was I just an overly imaginative and MUCH too impressionable little squirt at the time?)

[Hibi]

LOL. So it was 1966? I wonder if it was like that in the novel?

[willbefree25]

Raising hand, raising hand, holding up raised hand with other arm!

 

10 years old in 1960 and proud of it, I wouldn't want to be young today for all the tea in China.

 

Sadly, for reasons best not shared, our family never went to a movie together, and so I only saw this movie later on.

 

But being a cynical so and so at a very early age - yes, I was truly, I got in trouble in a Roman Catholic grammar school in a suburb of New Yawk that required punishment (not that kind, thankfully) from a priest, so it skipped the usual corporal punishment from the frustrated nuns (yes, I got that often too), and I WISH I could remember what I did! - I was subjected to the 'duck and cover' often and frequently in grammar school, and never once worried about surviving a nuclear war without having a desk at home. I don't know if I knew at an early age that all politicians were liars or didn't care about being wiped out.

 

And so, boys and girls, all of this and more has made me what I am today.

 

(...OR, was I just an overly imaginative and MUCH too impressionable little squirt at the time?)

 

*Posolutely, absotively NOT!*

 

Dargo, I love your reminiscences, and in hindsight, would you choose to be any other age today?

[Dargo2]

Don't know, Hibi. Remember, I SAID I grew up in the L.A. area, and thus was student in the L.A. City Unified School District.

 

And SO...Do ya think I can READ or somethin'????

 

 

(...nah, just kiddin', of course...back then the dropout rate was VERY low in that district)

 

But to answer your question here...I've never read the H.G. Wells book, but I have a feelin' it doesn't specifically reference "1966". I would guess that that was a concoction of the movie's screenwriter(s).

[Jezebelle]

Ouch, I'm young in the world of today. 18 actually, but I'm not that proud of it. I would love to be 18 in 1950, 60 or, really any decade other than this one, just so long as it's classy, (that counts out the 70s in my opinion.) But I think I would've thought that I only had six years to live in 1960 (not that I've seen that movie). I was and possibly still am very gullable and if you gave me no reason not to trust you, I trusted you.

[willbefree25]

Book, what book? There was a book before there was Rod Taylor and the time machine that showed up in SHeldon's house in Big Bang Theory?

 

Next you'll be telling me there was a book before there was Dr. Zhivago with the lovely Omar Shariff, lovely that is before I knew he was a misogynist.

[Dargo2]

Nope, willbe. Whenever someone starts one of those "Which era would you like to live in?" threads, I've said it innumreble...inummereble...a WHOLE bunch o' times around here that I wouldn't want to be any other age than what I am, or live in any other era, as I think we "Baby Boomers" have had it the best of ANY American generation before OR since.

 

(...nope, no complaints here...well, other than I didn't win that big ol' lottery last night!)

[Sepiatone]

 

I was nine years old in 1960, but didn't see the movie until somewhere in BETWEEN then and '66. Didn't really think about how long I had to live, as by then I realized movies didn't really predict the future well. Funny, but one thing that DID run across my mind was, "Gee, the guy from MR. ED isn't really Scottish, is he?"

 

 

And as with willbe, I wouldn't care to be a kid these days, either!

 

 

Sepiatone

 

 

[Dargo2]

So Jezebelle, then in THAT case, you MIGHT be interested in a certain bridge I have for sale which spans two boroughs of New York!

 

(...or of course, as willbe and the rest of the locals there call it, "New Yawk")

[Lori3]

Dargo2, sorry I was around in 1960 but I was to busy play "Barbie" to worry about a nuclear war.

 

I do remember that in 2nd grade the morning after President Kennedy made the Cuba missile crisis speech that our teacher told us we (USA) came very close to war last night.

 

Again, me in my make believe world world all I could think of was, "I wonder if I will get the Ken doll for Christmas." I mean please, Barbie was getting old and needed to get married.

 

I don't even remember learning the "duck and cover" information, although my sister who is 10 years older than me remembers that famous saying.

 

Yeah, like ducking and covering is going to protect you from a nuclear attack.

Damn Commies.

 

Lori

[Sepiatone]

 

The elementary school I went to didn't have lockers, our coats hung on hooks fastened to the hall walls. OUR drills had us shuffle into the hall, face those walls then crouch down where the wall meets the floor. In thinking back, it makes me wonder what they were thinking. It really wouldn't have made any difference if we did THAT, or just stayed seated.

 

 

Sepiatone

 

 

[clore]

What bothered me more about that end of the world date was that it was to occur on my mother's birthday.

 

I first saw THE TIME MACHINE on the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, for that reason I associate it more with that holiday than with New Year's Eve.

[Jezebelle]

Hmm, sounds promising lol. But I don't think my budget can support a sale like that, give me ten years, then we'll talk.

[Dargo2]

Okay, in ten years then.

 

(...in the meantime, how about a rousing game of Three Card Monte???)

 

[brackenhe]

> {quote:title=Jezebelle wrote:}{quote}Ouch, I'm young in the world of today. 18 actually, but I'm not that proud of it. I would love to be 18 in 1950, 60 or, really any decade other than this one, just so long as it's classy, (that counts out the 70s in my opinion.) But I think I would've thought that I only had six years to live in 1960 (not that I've seen that movie). I was and possibly still am very gullable and if you gave me no reason not to trust you, I trusted you.

 

Oh, jezebelle, the seventies may not have been "classy" by your standards but boy did I have a great time being in my late teens/early twenties during that decade. I won't go into details, but let's just say it was fun, mostly.

 

Back to the OP, even though I remember the things that were happening then, I always felt that the nuclear threats were all bluffing. I just could not fathom, in my innocent way, that we were going to be destroyed by the Soviets nor would we retaliate. For some reason, I had faith that our leaders & theirs would never do something so stupid. I'm not so assured today, especially with some of the nutjobs out there today, like North Korea or any other leaders I could list but won't.

[Dargo2]

Well Lori, I'm thinkin' fate was just on your side here.

 

Yep! The Fates just destined you to grow old enough to discover a certain actor who specialized and was VERY good at playin' guys with chips on their shoulders, THAT all!

[Hibi]

Yeah, something tells me you are correct about that (1966)........

[Dargo2]

Don't know of too many elementary schools that ever did have lockers, Sepia.

 

But yeah, I think I remember doin' that same thing in my elementary school.

 

(...and I think I ALSO remember purposely pushing the other kids out of my way in that cloakroom so I could "duck and cover" next to that hot little Linda Sorenson, TOO!)

[dpompper]

Hey, Dargo2 . . . I was born in 1960, so I suppose the answer to your question is "no." When I saw TM in like 1970 or so on local Philly channel, the 4:30 p.m. daily movie, I LOVED it!

 

I suppose the closest experience to the one you described is when I watched and then read "1984." I've been a George Orwell fan for nearly all of my life. I wondered if we'd live in a police state by the time I graduated college (1982). In the end, that was a "no." (However, I won't go into politics, but it was a bad economic time for me when I graduated and had a very hard time paying back student loans).

[Dargo2]

"I suppose the closest experience to the one you described is when I watched and then read "1984." I've been a George Orwell fan for nearly all of my life. I wondered if we'd live in a police state by the time I graduated college (1982). In the end, that was a "no."

 

Yep dpompper, I'd say that that would be a very good analogical comparison to what I'm takin' about here. Good point!

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

" (However, I won't go into politics, but it was a bad economic time for me when I graduated and had a very hard time paying back student loans)."

 

So, you're sayin' you were "on the cutting edge" of this phenomenon we see all the kids goin' through TODAY, huh?!

 

(..yep, like I said earlier, I suuuuure wouldn't want to be not even ONE DAY younger than I am here, alright)

[johnpressman]

Yes, I was 8 in 1960 and saw "The Time Machine" and was terrified at the prospect of nuclear war in 1966.

 

What terrified me MORE, however, was 1964's "Fail Safe" with it's realistic depiction of a nuclear strike by accident. The end of the movie with (SPOILER ALERT) the Empire State Building as ground zero and the scenes of New York City life flashing on the screen, then a blank screen and silence. I lived 2 miles north of the Empire State Building and the images haunted me for years.

[SansFin]

> {quote:title=Dargo2 wrote:}{quote}

> Does anyone else on the boards here who was about that age when they first watched this movie that year think to themselves somethin' like: "Holy Crap! I've only got 6 more years to live!" ???

 

I am within a generous frame of that age. I do not know when I watched that movie first. It was likely two or three years after its release.

 

I hope you can understand that I viewed such things from a perspective different from those shared by many people here. I knew at a very young age that I was going to die. Life is what it is and then it ends. I am sure I would have cared little about a date being attached to death because I was cynical also at a young age and I knew to not believe promises or threats beyond what would happen that day.

 

> I suppose I don't need to remind you the Cold War was nearing its height in 1960, and in MY case especially, word was to us kids that all the SoCal-based defense plants where Target No.1 on the Ruskies' list.

 

My perspective on this was different also. I have in my files a thing which I wrote to respond to a similar topic in a forum. I apologize for repeating it if it was in these forums where I posted it and I apologize for not writing it anew as I believe it is the best that I can do. This happened when we had to move to Russia for a year:

I had no friends in one place because I was the new one in school. I spent my after-school time exploring. I found a place in the woods where there were long trenches cut into the side of a hill. There were piles of dirt between them. It was easy to walk into one end. Their sides were very steep. They were so wide I could not touch both sides no matter how much I stretched my arms. They were so tall I remember thinking I would not be able to see over the top even if I stood on my own shoulders. It was a place of wonder. They were cool and the sun played tricks with shadows. Vines draped over the edges and wildflowers grew where they could. One day a soldier found me there and took me home and he told my mother where I had been. She told me not to play there again because that was where the dead would be buried when America bombed the city.

 

We knew my home-city was a primary target because it is a major port and there were naval, army and air defense bases.

[Dargo2]

Thank you for posting your own perspective on this, Sans.

 

As I know a bit of your own life experiences after having read your wonderful "Who We Are" thread, I was kinda hopin' you'd see my thread here and respond to it in your always beautifully written prose.

 

I DO have to say however that the thought you expressed about even as a child resigning yourself to the idea of dying young, sure reinforces that old stereotype of the Russian culture being one of Fatalism, and an almost "Eeh...what's the use in tryin'!" mentality. No offense, of course.

 

(...and as I'm sure you know by now, somewhat the opposite of that ol' American "blithely optimistic" mentality)

 

Edited by: Dargo2 on Nov 29, 2012 3:05 PM

[Dargo2]

Oh yeah John, I can see how Fail Safe could effect ya in the same manner, alright! Yep, that's another good analogy to my story here.

 

(...though of course, I always preferred that "other" film featuring that same scenario...well, that is once I was old enough for some of the jokes to register inside my little teenage brain around '67 or '68, and when I think I first caught THAT one on the old ABC Sunday Night Movie)

[EugeniaH]

I was born in 1968, but for people in my age group the (TV) movie that really scared us was 1983's "The Day After", also about nuclear war. :0

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/