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Looking Back

June 1957

Step back in time to see what our movie palaces were presenting in June 1957. Also included is interesting history about other area movie theaters. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

Fifty years before Andy Griffith's delightful performance in Waitress, he made his film debut in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (with Patricia Neal). Also at the Michigan was Gun for a Coward, with Fred MacMurray, who in the mid-1950s "emulated Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea and kept his career going with budget-price actioners, mostly Westerns" (The Great Movie Stars, David Shipman).

Also popular at the Michigan were The Iron Petticoat (Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn) and The D.I., starring Jack Webb (Joe Friday on the television show Dragnet). Making their film debuts were Anthony Franciosa in This Could Be the Night (with Jean Simmons and Paul Douglas), and James MacArthur in The Young Stranger. Sci-fi fans enjoyed a twin bill of 20 Million Miles to Earth and The 27th Day. Cartoons included To Catch a Woodpecker (Woody Woodpecker) and Piker's Peak (Bugs Bunny).

At the Redford's screening of Oklahoma! (1955), moviegoers could "Enjoy This Great Musical With The Benefit of Full Stereophonic Sound". Other Redford highlights included The Wings of Eagles (John Wayne); Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum); and The Rainmaker (Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn). Second features included The Halliday Brand (Joseph Cotten) and The Tall T (Randolph Scott, Maureen O'Sullivan). Children enjoyed a double bill of Cinderella (1950) and The Brave One.

For art film fans, the Studio and World in Detroit cashed in on the success of Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954) with that director's earlier film The Young and Passionate (1953), which played as I Vitelloni at the Detroit Film Theatre in Jan. 2004. Also showing Italian movies was the Temple Art Cinema—The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Paisan (1946). At the Krim, Invitation to the Dance followed Funny Face. In Ann Arbor, the Campus showed The Most Noble Lady (Yang Kwei Fei), starring Machiko Kyo, "the Japanese Enchantress of Gate of Hell and Rashomon".

In downtown Detroit, the Grand Circus Park underground parking garage opened, which made it easier for visitors to the Madison, Adams, Fox, United Artists and other downtown theaters. At the Michigan in Detroit, Debbie Reynolds sang her hit song "Tammy" in Tammy and the Bachelor, which Helen Bower of the Detroit Free Press called "hot weather entertainment for the family trade." (June 27, 1957)

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