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| From Here to Eternity returns February 14 to the Michigan, where it first played September 24, 1953. |
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The acclaimed 2011 Iranian film A Separation screens at the DFT on February 24-26 and March 4. |
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Billy Wilder directs the Oscar-winning The Apartment at the Redford on February 17-18. Video courtesy of Turner Classic Movies |
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Step back in time to see what area movie theaters were presenting in November 1931. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.
For more information about these theaters, see Cinema Treasures or Water Winter Wonderland.
Michigan Theater visitors saw Clark Gable in his first starring role,
in Sporting
Blood. Gable, who began 1931 in lower-billed roles, later
teamed up with Greta Garbo in Susan
Lenox (Her Fall and Rise). Jimmy Durante was promoted as the "Idol
of Broadway" in New
Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford (with William Haines)
and as "Schnozzle Durante" in The
Cuban Love Song (with Lawrence Tibbett).
Other
popular movies at the Michigan included the Eddie Cantor comedy Palmy
Days and the drama Once
a Lady, in which Ruth Chatterton played "a woman who becomes
a social outcast in one scandalous moment - and who regains glorious renown
in a life of Love-atonement." Also at the Michigan were highlights
of the University of Michigan's Nov. 21 6-0 win over the University of
Minnesota in front of a homecoming crowd of about 50,000.
Current
visitors to the inner walkway of the Redford balcony can admire a large
theater photo that shows George O'Brien and Noah Beery starring in Riders
of the Purple Sage, along with promos for a bunch of Mickeys:
Mickey Mouse cartoons and Mickey McGuire (Mickey Rooney) in Mickey's
Thrill Hunters. That Nov. 13-14, 1931 lineup was followed on Nov.
15 with the live appearance of bandleader Del Delbridge. Laughter echoed
throughout the Redford at the antics of Laurel and Hardy (in Pardon
Us, their first full-length feature), Buster Keaton (Sidewalks
of New York) and the Marx Brothers (Monkey
Business).
"Members
of the Allied Theater Owners of Michigan, representing 350 theaters throughout
the state, will donate two per cent of their gross receipts for November
as their contribution to President Hoover's campaign for unemployment
relief," read an article in the Nov. 3 Detroit News. Highly
publicized films in Detroit included Possessed
(with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable), which opened at the United Artists
on Nov. 12; Frankenstein
(RKO Downtown, Nov. 19); and The
Champ (Paramount, Nov. 21). Also popular was The
Sin of Madelon Claudet.