War of the Worlds (1953)

My Real Memoir

Horror! Devastation! Pee! It was late summer, shortly before second grade began, and Dad wanted to see a movie. Imagine that — Dad wanted to see a movie! It was normally Mom who initiated trips to the big screen, and me who cheered her on. But there were two categories that whetted Dad’s thirst for celluloid: war movies and science-fiction. The year before, he’d taken us to see Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and it had instantly become my favorite film. Yes, I’d inherited the sci-fi gene. But this movie, this movie was different. It was pee-your-pants-scary sci-fi!

War of the Worlds…

…had originally been released a few years before, and Dad had loved it. So, when he spotted it on the bill at a cheap re-run theatre in L.A. (“cheap” often being the deciding factor in those days), he said, “Let’s go!”

To which Mom replied, “Honey, Mitch is only six. Do you really think he’s ready?”

“Sure!” Dad willed me to be.

When I was five, I’d seen Dracula. Alone. In a tiny den, lit only by the glow of a black-and-white TV, behind which were sliding glass doors revealing the evil darkness beyond. I knew that hideous vampire would immediately descend upon me and suck my blood if I left the couch. So I’d had no choice but to pee in my jammies while my parents played pee-nuckle (pinochle) with their friends in the next room. Revenge is sweet.

And now, here we were, on a smoggy late-summer night in Los Angeles, watching War of the Worlds, a movie considered the most frightening science-fiction movie ever made. I was utterly terrified. And I was also in love! With being scared, that is. It was a big-budget sci-fi thriller (rare for that time) with state-of-the-art special effects–especially the Martian spaceships with their creepy, snakelike grabber-thingies that reached down into buildings, nabbing unsuspecting humans!

Horror!

Devastation!

Pee!

Mom Often Talked About Jimmy…

…a skinny, high-strung guy who’d previously worked with her at the crumbling old Litchenberger building in L.A. One morning after seeing War of the Worlds, Jimmy was ranting about those creepy grabber-thingies! “I almost peed my pants!” he admitted. And then, as he raved (this actually happened), a plumber’s snake, controlled by a workman two floors above, suddenly broke through an ancient drain pipe and burst out of the wall in front of Jimmy, its menacing rooter-claws still awhirl!

Jimmy screamed in a key hitherto unknown to man and clocked the nine floors to the street below, setting a new land speed record, peeing all the way. Mom said she felt guilty about laughing. Uncontrollably. For half an hour. But she couldn’t help herself.

Sure the Movie Scared Me

But I didn’t pee. As it neared it’s dramatic conclusion there in muggy Los Angeles, the alien spaceships began dying, crashing one by one to the ground. “What happened?” I wondered aloud. And just as the star Gene Barry was about to explain, some guy in the row behind us shouted, “The smog got ’em!” The audience roared.

And then I peed.