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Looking Back

July 1931

Step back in time to see what our movie palaces were presenting in July 1931. Also included is interesting history about other area movie theaters. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

When the 1930/31 Academy Awards were announced on Nov. 10, 1931, the lead acting winners were familiar to visitors to the Michigan Theater on Monday, July 13, 1931. That evening, Lionel Barrymore starred in the drama A Free Soul, while Marie Dressler lit up the screen in the Guest Night bonus movie Min and Bill.

Also appearing at the Michigan was James Cagney in The Public Enemy, "a picture so startling in its reality, so devastating in its truth—it will leave you breathless." Ten years before Humphrey Bogart appeared in the classic The Maltese Falcon, an earlier version of the film screened at the Michigan, starring Bebe Daniels and Ricardo Cortez.

At the Redford, 14 different feature films appeared in 31 days. Enjoying "long" runs (three days) at the Redford were The Secret Six, with Wallace Beery; Laughing Sinners (which reunited Joan Crawford and Clark Gable); Seed (with operetta singer John Boles and Bette Davis in her second movie); and Five and Ten (Marion Davies and Leslie Howard).

The Redford was part of the Publix Greater Talkie Theatres chain, which also included the Annex (Grand River near Joy), Birmingham (Old Woodward near Maple), Royal Oak (4th St. and Washington Ave.), Alhambra (Woodward and Kenilworth), Century (14th St. and W. Grand Blvd.); Tuxedo (Hamilton and Tuxedo); Riviera (Grand River and Joy); and Ramona (Gratiot and Six Mile).

These neighborhood movie houses showed films that often screened first at the larger downtown Publix Shows theaters: the Fisher (Grand Boulevard at Second); Paramount (Broadway at Grand Circus Park); Michigan (Bagley near Grand Circus Park); United Artists (Bagley at Grand Circus Park); and State (Woodward near Grand Circus Park).

(For more historical information about Detroit-area movie theaters, visit these web sites: Cinema Treasures and Water Winter Wonderland.)

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