“THE MOVING PICTURES.”

“THE MOVING PICTURES.” Inspired by the history of dogs as narrators, I have looked up and confirmed that BLACK BEAUTY, which was published in 1907, had a horse as a narrator. In fact, the full title is BLACK BEAUTY: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HORSE. BLACK BEAUTY has a special meaning for me because I recall it as the first movie that I ever saw. It must have been the 1946 version, which came out when I was four. A fire scene haunted my childhood dreams from time to time, and I have always connected the dreams to the movie, although I don’t remember enough about the movie to be sure. In looking for information, I came across this quote from HOW MOVIES WORK by Bruce F. Kawin: “Ingmar Bergman was six years old when he saw his first movie. It was BLACK BEAUTY and the fire scene scared him so badly that, according to one account, he hid under the seat.” This would have been in 1924 so it was a different movie than the one I saw. Bergman “bought the book” and “learned the fire scene by heart.” I have dealt with my fears by avoiding scary movies. What I most remember about the movie was that my father, who was born in 1903, said he was going to take us to “the moving pictures”, not “the movies.” This was before I had seen television, and I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I expected to see framed pictures that moved in some strange way.