Breaking Training

Josh Wilker explains his love for

BB: Where did you see “Breaking Training?”

JW: I saw it at the Playhouse Theater in Randolph, Vermont. In piecing together my personal experience of the summer of 1977, I came to the conclusion that my brother and I would have seen the movie during our yearly two-week summer visit to see our dad in Manhattan, but we lost a couple of movie-going days due to the blackout. It was god to see it back home, because I saw it in a theater packed with all the kids I played little league with, which could not have been a more receptive audience. It’s the most alive, enthusiastic movie audience I’ve ever been a part of.

BB: Was going to the movies a special occasion for you as a kid?

JW: Yes, I didn’t get to a lot of movies because I lived out in the boonies. For this reason, movies were the focal point for my brother and me in our trips to New York to see our dad. We swarmed to the movies during those two weeks.

BB: Did you sit through it more than once?

JW: I saw “Breaking Training” for the first time at night in a small town, and I think there might not have been any showings afterward. I remember we all cheered at the end, and probably after that we all burst out of the theater all charged up. I was staying over at the house of a friend who lived in town, near the theater, and I’d like to think that as we walked back to his house with the other kids who lived near there we were all chanting “Let them play.”