Seeing ‘Pinocchio’ at 3, in a theater, changed my life forever. What film did it for you?

A scene from the 1940 movie “Pinocchio,” which was re-released to theaters in 1962.

You never forget your first time.

I remember I didn’t know what to expect. I was a little excited, even a little nervous. Then the lights went down.

And there, on a big shining screen, was “Pinocchio.”

It was 1962, and I was 3, seeing my first movie in an actual theater. The experience was alternately terrific (“Hi-diddle-dee-dee! An actor’s life for me!”) and traumatizing (Pleasure Island! Monstro the Whale!).

Afterwards, under the marquee, I cried — but only because it was over. My mother got me to stop by promising me we would come back after dinner to see it again.

That was a lie, but it only revealed a greater truth: Then and there, my movie addiction had taken hold.

Yet for many of my fellow addicts, that habit seems to be fading.

According to the-numbers.com, U.S. movie theaters sold over 770 million tickets last year. That is impressive, perhaps, until you realize as recently as 2019, they sold more than 1.2 billion tickets — and had, for decades.

What happened in 2020, of course, was the pandemic. What changed was everything.

More than a third of your loyal audience just, suddenly, gone? Probably forever? That’s the kind of scary statistic I haven’t seen since my newspaper days.

Not surprisingly, the complaints I hear from former moviegoers aren’t that different from the ones I used to hear from former subscribers. The product isn’t as good. The prices are too high. I can go online and get similar stuff faster, and free.

But whatever the primary reason, it has led to a drastic changes in behavior. Like the Sunday paper, a Saturday night movie used to be a hard-to-break habit. And now it’s not.

Which is a shame because there is absolutely nothing like seeing a movie in an actual movie theater — which is probably why I remember so many from my childhood.

Audrey Hepburn in “Charade.”

There was my first grown-up movie, when I was 4: “Charade,” with some Hitchcock-lite thrills and an impossibly chic Audrey Hepburn. There was my first truly age-inappropriate movie when I was 5: “Goldfinger” — and at a drive-in, no less. (My parents were Depression Era kids, and it showed. Why would you spend money on a babysitter?)

Then there were all the movies I saw at Radio City Music Hall, usually as a reward after a long shopping trip with my mother and grandmother. “The Thrill of It All.” “The Glass Bottom Boat.” “How to Steal a Million.” Typically, none of them were kiddie movies. Also typically, I still love all of them — mostly because of where I saw them. How I saw them.

There is something magical about going to a movie theater. You are in an enormous dark room with a loved one or two, and several hundred strangers. The film starts and — suddenly, it’s a little like that first uphill jerk of a roller coaster. Like it or not, you’re in for a ride! And all the strangers around you quickly turn into a community — laughing together, screaming together, crying together.

You don’t get that at home watching TV, with texts pinging your phone and your dog whining to go out.

I still enjoy the experience of going out to the movies. I know plenty of people who share that joy (it was great news recently to see tentative plans to reopen The Maplewood Theater, for example). I program a film series in Westchester, at the local theater I went to as a kid, and there is a core of 200 or so cinephiles who show up regularly for sneak peaks at upcoming films.

But we are, admitted, a largely older crowd, most of us the children of movie-mad parents. We became next-generation fans, spending our teen years exploring the films of Scorsese and Coppola, our 30s taking in (and taking apart, endlessly, afterwards) the latest Coen Brothers flick or Spike Lee joint. We didn’t just love the movies. We lived the movies.

A scene from the 1996 film, “Flipper.”

So how are we going to pass that love along to future generations?

Cleaning out a drawer recently, I found a faded ticket stub from 30 years ago. Why on earth was I saving a scrap of paper from a nondescript multiplex? But it only took a second to realize why — it was for “Flipper,” the first movie we ever took our daughter to see.

Lousy movie, of course. At least, so I assume. Because, honestly, I never really saw the picture. I sat there for an hour and a half watching my daughter’s tiny face — upturned, shining with reflected light, enraptured by the shadows moving across the screen in front of her.

That’s an experience — a gift — that movie theaters gave both of us. And it’s one I still remember years after I forgot what television show we first watched together, or what tape she first asked me to stick in the VCR.

And I worry that the chance to share that special experience may be disappearing. Certainly there are fewer neighborhood movie theaters today. The ones that remain seem to be filled with gruesome horror pictures or overdone, over-loud superhero flicks. What are you going to take your 3-year-old to? When my parents wanted to introduce me to cinema, they had a whole world of films to pick from. Now months go by without even a dull Disney sequel. How’s a new generation going to discover the true thrill of a dark room and a silver screen?

I’m not optimistic.

But whenever I need a break from worrying about the future, I think about the past. I wonder if you do, too. What was the first film you saw in a movie theater? Is the theater still there? What was the first film you took a child to? Do write back in the “Leave a Comment” section, below, and let me know.

Because the harder the movie business makes it to create new memories, the more we need to share the ones we still have.

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