Local History/Personal History - Jurassic Park & Spielberg

When my daughter was growing up, we were both caught up, SPELLBOUND is the right word, by the Jurassic Park film phenomena. We watched the film over and over, we visited the Jurassic Park exhibition at the Philadelphia Natural History Museum and at the Franklin Science Museum. We had all the stuff - the action figures, the dinosaurs, the dinosaur books, the T-shirts. And to this day, every summer, I have my summer movie line-up which begins with Jurassic Park and all the Spin-offs and goes through Star Wars and Jaws and my own youthful favorites: Endless Summer, and all the surfing movies.

In my e-mail this morning, I was surprised to find a connection between my local neighboring town and Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park (NO not the dinosaur in Haddonfield, 'Hadrosaurus' although I have a connection to that too!) Here is the e-mail news item:

"HADDON TOWNSHIP, NJ - Steven Spielberg paid tribute to the town where he watched his first movie in “The Fabelmans,” his 2022 semi-autobiographical film up for several Academy Awards this year. Now, he’s set to pay tribute to his hometown in-person “very soon.”

In a letter to the Camden County Board of Commissioners dated March 8, the seminal director behind “Jurassic Park,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “Jaws” admitted he was “surprised” and “honored” to learn of a historical marker commemorating the place where he saw his first movie at the age of six: the former Westmont Theater. Read more: Steven Spielberg's Camden County Childhood Featured In Oscar-Nominated film.

The historical placard was unveiled at a ceremony Tuesday at the site of the old theater, located just about four blocks from his elementary school, Thomas Edison Elementary.

During his time in Camden County from 1952 to 1957, Spielberg’s family resided at 267 Crystal Lake Terrace and were members of the Beth El congregation in Haddon Heights. The budding director was an avid cub scout, and made “large donations” to the scouts later in life based on his experience in Haddon Township, county officials said.

“The Westmont Theater is an iconic location here in Camden County that has played a part in so many of our childhoods, including that of Steven Spielberg,” said Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. in a statement. “We wanted to honor Spielberg and his connection to South Jersey by installing a commemorative placard at the site where the Westmont Theater once stood.”

I am often reminded of a line from a short story which was later used in an Loudon Wainright song, "The Movies were a mother to me." The movies weren't a mother to me but they were another neighborhood, a place to enter that was full of magic and adventure. I had a most wonderful mother and nothing could match her, but the movies were an education and a place of magic: Spartacus, The Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind - I grew up in the age of epics, and our home was always entertained by the musicals of the period: Singing in the Rain, Easter Parade, and the holidays inextricably connected to the movies of the season: White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, or at Halloween: Frankenstein, The Wolfman, Dracula.

My parents' and grandparents' generations had movies in the theater, but my generation and the ones that followed had movies in our homes, like a member of the family.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

(as always, please avoid the comments function as it is polluted by robo-spam. Use my e-mail if you wish to converse! Thanks!)