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Looking Back

July 1957

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

In Detroit movie theaters, two famous screen beauties rode a high wave of popularity. "What a transformation has taken place in the girl who came to Detroit eight or nine years ago!" wrote Helen Bower of the Detroit Free Press about Marilyn Monroe, starring in The Prince and the Showgirl at the Michigan. "She was colorless and inarticulate, the cocoon from which this brilliant butterfly has emerged." (July 5, 1957)

Sophia Loren seemed to be everywhere in Detroit. At the art film houses World and Studio, she starred with Vittoria De Sica in The Gold of Naples (1954). The Michigan premiered The Pride and the Passion (co-starring Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra). And the Redford screened Boy on a Dolphin, also with Alan Ladd and Clifton Webb (on a double bill with Funny Face, starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire).

Other popular movies at the Redford were Three Violent People (Charlton Heston, Anne Baxter); Designing Woman (Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall); The Spirit of St. Louis (James Stewart, Murray Hamilton); and Gunfight at the O.K. Corrall (Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas). The Children's Matinee on July 20 included Stormy, the Thoroughbred (1954); Ben and Me (1953); Challenge to Lassie (1949); and a "Popeye Cartoon Jamboree".

"How to win wives and influence sweethearts!" read the July 1, 1957 Ann Arbor News advertisement for the Campus, State and Michigan theaters. "Butterfield Theatres' Summertime Hit Parade—Wonderful Pictures! Big Screen Thrills. Nothing like a good movie to 'Sweeten' a romance!!!"

The Michigan gave patrons Something of Value, with Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter and Sidney Poitier. In Man on Fire, ads said that "Bing Crosby performs as he did in The Country Girl—Brilliantly, Feelingly, Memorably!" Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis breathed in the Sweet Smell of Success. Other big hits were Fire Down Below (Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon) and Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon, with Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn and Maurice Chevalier.

At the Music Hall in Detroit, the Cinerama feature Seven Wonders of the World entered its twelfth month. Other movies continuing their 1957-long runs in Detroit were Around the World in 80 Days (United Artists) and The Ten Commandments (Madison). At the Fox in Detroit, pop singer Pat Boone's first movie, Bernardine, was followed by Elvis Presley's latest, Loving You. On July 24, Detroit moviegoers picked between the openings of The Delicate Delinquent (Jerry Lewis) at the Fox and Silk Stockings (Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse) at the Krim.

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