Did you ever get to watch "real" movies in school?

Did you guys ever get to watch a "real" (non-educational) film in school for some reason?

I'm thinking along the lines of Kindergarten thru 6th grade here.

When I was in... I want to say 2nd or 3rd Grade for some reason we had a big school assembly with a bunch of grades all gathered in the gym. I think we might have even gotten bags of popcorn (!).

The school rented a 16mm film projector (which was cool in retrospect because they could have just gotten them on VHS at the time) and we watched 16mm prints of Davey Crockett or Daniel Boone (I can't remember which- one of those live action Disney movies from the 60's) and the original 1976 film adaptation of Freaky Friday. I guess they wanted to stick to things that were rated G so we weren't going to get Star Wars or something really awesome like that.

I still don't know why they did this- I don't think it was a reward for doing anything in particular. I remember being bored to tears by Davey (or Daniel if that's what it was) and thinking Freaky Friday was kind of hokey and boring.

But us kids were much happier watching a couple of movies than being in class.

 

I never did going to school in the 60's and 70's , but my son told me in a class in high school , the whole class got to watch the godfather. Wow !

 

I saw the movies based on books we were reading: Old Yeller, Shane, Ordinary People. And once we watched Ghandi when we were studying him. That one ate up a lot of class time.

 

In 5th grade they showed the movie 1776 in class[we were learning about that period in history at the time] and in high school I got to see Cool Hand Luke in class[we had to write a paper on the movie after seeing it].

 

I remember being in the gym in elementary school with all the other kids and watching some version of babes in Toyland. Or I think it was something with Danny Kaye. Maybe it was both at separate times. Clearly not memorable but it was exciting to go to the gym and watch.

As a sidebar my mom worked in the cafeteria of Simon Fraser University in 1968. Because of this I was allowed to go to the University at night and watch Disney's Alice in Wonderland. MUCH more memorable. I still remember the two Norman Maclaren shorts that came before it - Neighbours and Pas De Deux. My parents we quite old school and I am certain they didn't understand why SFU was showing these films. Cause if they did....

 

Only one I can recall is: in grade 11 or 12, after studying Macbeth in English class we watched the Roman Polanski adaptation.

 

In the 70s in my school: No such luck. I think they rolled in a projector and we watched a Janus Films version of "Medea." Not exactly horse's head in the bed stuff.

 

Not in school, but in 6th grade at my catholic school we took at least two "field trips" to see movies at the theatre. We saw "The greatest story ever told" and "Sounder"

 

interesting. this must be a pre-video generational thing. I can't tell you how many movies (on VHS, then DVD) I've watched in school from K-12, both for recreation and as part of a class--a hundred, maybe more.

 

If we're cutting this off at 6th grade as the original post says, no. Video cassettes hadn't hit the mass market yet.

I still remember those 'films' with record players that beeped as a cue for someone to advance to the the next slide.

 

Same here. My high school even offered a History of Film class as an elective.

 

Yes, we saw "real" movies in grade school from time to time, mostly Disney movies. I remember seeing "Song Of The South", "Johnny Tremaine" "Lassie Come Home", "Bristle Face" among others.

 

One of my school classes (Art?) rented a 16mm film print of "Yellow Submarine" through the school board, turns out this was the edited film, no Hey Bulldog sequence to speak of!

 

I saw Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in HS English. It's still one of my very favorite films (and books).

We saw many other classic films during my school years but they escape my memory for the most part. I do remember we saw Animal Farm one year.

 

that's a filmstrip. and I collect them (more or less).

as long as I brought it up: if somebody here knows anyone or institution with some they're looking to unload, I'm absolutely interested. please PM me.

 

Kinder through sixth? Never. In high school I saw Nosferatu, but that's about it.

 

I have seen The Sound Of Music at least 20 times (no exaggeration) because of a music teacher, who was my music teacher at all but one grade. She was at every school I went to. It's like she was stalking me just to show me that movie over and over again...

 

Not in class, but in 1968, our English teacher at Fremont HS took us on a night field trip to see Far from the Madding Crowd at the Dundee in Omaha.

Dunno if it was a sanctioned outing or just the teacher's idea, but I enjoyed the movie.

 

I remember watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, I guess on 16mm. The school set up a makeshift cinema in the gym and we watched that on a big screen. We were all pretty excited about that. There others but I only recall one, Homeward Bound (1963 version).

Most of the movies we watched though were in class via VHS and generally related to a book we were reading.

However, one of the most memorable movie watching experiences was Kramer v Kramer in Mr. Toffoletti's English class. We couldn't figure out how that movie related to anything we were studying at the time but we were quite happy to watch it anyway as it meant two classes of no work. Anyway, when the movie finished he asked us how many of us thought that the wife was crazy. We later found out he was going through a divorce which put the whole experience into perspective.

 

You just jogged my memory. We had a high school field trip to see Romeo and Juliet with Olivia Hussey. Forgot all about that.

 

Probably the next year, 1969?

 

Same here. We never saw a "regular" movie in school, but we did listen to George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" in bible literature class. Before he played it, he allowed anyone who objected to leave the classroom. Only one girl did.

 

Nah, it was probably 78 or 79. I don't know why it was showing in theaters, it was likely a cheap matinee or something.

 

Went to catholic school in late 70s early 80s. They'd occasionally bring us all into the gym/cafeteria for a movie like that, on the reels. I just remember Disney stuff like Pollyanna, apple dumpling gang, hot lead and cold feet, love bug.... Wow, hadn't thought of those in ages.

 

None that I specifically recall through 6th grade, but that doesn't mean for sure we didn't. I only remember going into the school "multi-purpose room" which was the gym that happened to have a stage built into the one side of the room, for showings of the multitude of black and white films that started off by showing a huge ringing bell for the studio that made it.

Once I moved buildings into 7th grade though, and there was a dedicated theater-like auditorium (since it was originally built as the previous high school), then we sometimes had real movies shown in there during lunch times. They would be split up over how many days it took for that time limit to get through the full film. The main one I recall going to see was an old black and white Vincent Price horror film, though now looking at his filmography I can't figure out which one it was...I was thinking House of Wax, or House of Usher (seems like it was House something) but those both were apparently done in color. This would have been 1971-72 range when I was in 7th. Sometime in high school time they showed 2001: A Space Odyssey in our brand new auditorium there, which was the first time I'd seen that film.