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Looking Back

July 1932

Step back in time to see what our movie palaces were presenting in July 1932. Also included is interesting history about other area movie theaters. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

"Wednesday is Bargain Day at Ann Arbor movie theaters, too," read a July 19, 1932 article in The Ann Arbor Daily News. "Swinging into line with the purveyors of dry goods, groceries, hardware, men's suits and babies' bottles, the sellers of entertainment and relaxation at the Majestic, Michigan and Wuerth theaters have been instructed to dispose of admission tickets for the afternoon performances for one dime each."

For this price, Michigan moviegoers could see Million Dollar Legs (Jack Oakie and W.C. Fields) or Jean Harlow's latest, Red-Headed Woman. Also showing this month were What Price Hollywood? (starring Constance Bennett and directed by George Cukor), Winner Take All (James Cagney), and Fast Companions, with Tom Brown, James Gleason, Maureen O'Sullivan ("That Tarzan Girl") and a young Mickey Rooney. The Saturday morning Children's Show on July 30 included Destry Rides Again (with Tom Mix) and a "5¢ Ann Arbor Dairy Frostbite for every child!"

Like some other Detroit movie theaters, the Redford closed down for part of the summer. The month started with the drama Man About Town (Warner Baxter and Karen Morley). Then came the mystery The Woman in Room 13, with Elissa Landi, who was "beautiful, capable and charming," but not a box office attraction (The Great Movie Stars, David Shipman). On July 6 and 7, George Bancroft and Miriam Hopkins headlined World and the Flesh, a drama about the 1917 Russian revolution. Then the Redford went dark until Oct. 7, when it re-opened with The First Year.

Other highlights of the Detroit movie month included the opening of the real life adventure Frank Buck's Bring 'Em Back Alive at the "Carefully Cooled" RKO Downtown. At the Fox, Marian Nixon starred as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. At the Majestic in Ann Arbor, all seats were reserved for the three-day run of the heavily publicized Grand Hotel, featuring "the greatest aggregation of screen luminaries ever assembled before a motion picture camera as a picture cast." (Allison Ind, The Ann Arbor Daily News, July 8, 1932)

"A film that is expected by that portion of Hollywood who have seen portions of it, to prove one the season's hits, is 'Kong', " wrote George Schaffer in The Detroit Free Press on July 18, 1932. "It's a fanciful mystery thriller showing what happened to New York when a giant gorilla of antedeluvian size—25 feel tall—and other prehistoric beasts ran loose in Manhattan." So went the advance buzz for King Kong, which you can see at the Redford on July 20 and 21, 2007.

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