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Looking Back

February 1982

Step back in time to see what our movie palaces were presenting in February 1982. Also included is interesting history about other area movie theaters. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

The Detroit Film Theatre presented the 1981 Brazilian film Pixote, which DFT curator Elliot Wilhelm has described (in his 1999 book VideoHound's World Cinema) as "one of the most grueling, powerful, and disturbing films of the last quarter-century." Another highlight of the month was The Boat is Full (1981, Switzerland/West Germany/Austria), a drama about limits on Jewish immigration from Germany to Switzerland during World War II.

Also at the DFT was Soldier Girls, a 1981 documentary about women in basic training in the United States Army, and Ticket to Heaven, a 1981 Canadian film about religious cults. Older films at the DFT included Camille (1936), with Greta Garbo. Also on screen was the French Elevator to the Gallows (1958), which returned to the DFT in Sept. 2005 as part of a tribute to director Louis Malle. The Afternoon Film Theatre at the Detroit Institute of Arts presented a rich selection of Ernst Lubitsch films, including Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), and Heaven Can Wait (1943).

On Feb. 5 and 6 at the Redford, Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy starred in Bombshell (1933), "a hilarious satire about a poor little rich movie star longing to live a 'normal' life." (David Shipman, The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years). Two weeks later, audiences enjoyed Don Haller's organ music and laughed at the 1963 musical comedy Bye Bye Birdie (Janet Leigh, Dick Van Dyke, and Ann-Margret). Lively Caribbean music warmed up winter-chilled patrons on Feb. 27, courtesy of the 21st Century Steel Band.

"Radio City at the Michigan" on Feb. 19 included an organ overture by Rupert Otto; a stage show by the Ann Arbor Ballet Theatre; and the 1956 film The King and I. Double features at the Michigan included Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946); the comedy dramas King of Hearts (1966) and A Thousand Clowns (1965); and the humorous Take the Money and Run (1969) and And Now for Something Completely Different (1971).

On Feb. 3-6 at the Michigan, The Comic Opera Guild presented La Vie Parisienne, by Jacques Offenbach. On Feb. 21, the Travel and Adventure Series of the Ann Arbor Western Kiwanis presented Welcome, New Zealand, with Robert O'Reilly.

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