I was 29 when I saw Apocalypse Now! It premiered on August 15th, 1979 at the Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan, tickets had to be bought in advance through the New York Post. I always found the music of The Doors to be hypnotic and as much as I had read in advance of seeing Apocalypse Now, I was surprised that The End was used in the movie.
The opening scene and the song put me in a trance for the entire movie, the effect stuck with me for a long time. Its one of my favorite films. It was a few days before my wedding and my wife-to-be was not as enthusiastic, less than halfway through the movie she went to the lobby and waited, along with several other women, for it to end.
I remember a TV newscast where a guy leaving a theater in Cannes was asked what he thought of the movie, "that's like asking me how I felt after my mothers funeral".