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The Film Programs of the Detroit Film Theatre, Michigan Theater and Redford Theatre

Your Guide to Classic Movie Theater Fun!

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Looking Back

May 1932/1957/1982

Step back in time to see what our movie palaces were presenting in May 1932, 1957, and 1982. Also included is some interesting history about other area movie theaters. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

* 1932 * 1957 * 1982 *

1932

"Of all the fools fooling these days, few fools can fool like these fools fool," wrote Allison Ind of The Ann Arbor Daily News about the Michigan Theater appearance of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey in Girl Crazy. Also at the Michigan was Tarzan the Ape Man, which Ind said was "all right for anyone whose sensitivities are not overly jolted by gore and primitive living and equally primitive death, whether he be a small child, an adolescent or an adult." (video courtesy of TCM)

Michigan visitors on Monday, May 23 enjoyed the feature attraction Letty Lynton, starring Joan Crawford, and the Guest Night bonus picture, Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise), with Greta Garbo. At a Saturday morning children's show, kids were treated to Jackie Cooper in the movie Sooky and live entertainment by young tap dancing pupils from Ypsilanti. Adults saw Ricardo Cortez and Irene Dunne in Symphony of Six Million ("Fannie Hurst's mightiest story of the mad metropolis").

Also in Ann Arbor, the Whitney experimented with art films, including G.W. Pabst's Comrades of 1918, shown in co-operation with Little Cinema in Detroit, where this film had a successful run (The Ann Arbor Daily News, May 5, 1932). And the new "Happy Quarter" policy at the Michigan, Majestic and Wuerth theaters allowed patrons to enter for 25 cents each day before 2 p.m.

At the Redford, Laurel and Hardy starred in the Oscar-winning short subject The Music Box, which opened for the feature Dancers in the Dark, with Jack Oakie. Clark Gable pulled crowds in for Polly of the Circus (with Marion Davies). Other popular films included Strangers in Love (Frederic March and Stuart Erwin); The Miracle Man (Sylvia Sidney and Chester Morris); and Ernst Lubitsch's One Hour with You (Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald).

In downtown Detroit, Grand Hotel opened on May 8 at the Wilson Theatre to packed houses paying up to $1.50 for reserved seats. Two days earlier, the cult classic Freaks opened at the Paramount. "Those who are not too particular about the manner in which they get their thrills may find 'Freaks' interesting," wrote James S. Pooler in The Detroit Free Press (May 9, 1932).

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1957

For kids, the Redford was the place to be on Saturday afternoons. The Children's Matinee included Here Come the Marines, with the Bowery Boys (May 4); the Three Stooges and a "Big Tom and Jerry Cartoon Jamboree" (May 11); and the Little Rascals and Aladdin and His Lamp (May 25). Young fans also enjoyed a Walt Disney package of Westward Ho the Wagons! (with Fess Parker); Disneyland, U.S.A.; and Secrets of Life.

Adults flocked to the Redford for The Teahouse of the August Moon (Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford), on double bills with Gun for a Coward (Fred MacMurray and Jeffrey Hunter) and The Iron Petticoat (Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn). John Wayne, John Ford and Maureen O'Hara teamed up in The Wings of Eagles. The Korean War, only four years in the past, was the setting for Men in War (Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray). And the walls shook for a double feature of Don't Knock the Rock (Bill Haley and the Comets) and Rumble on the Docks (James Darren).

Friday, May 10, brought a unique variety of films to the Butterfield Theatres in Ann Arbor. At the Michigan, Ben Gazzara ("The New Rage of the Teen-Agers") starred in The Strange One. The State hosted a science fiction double bill of Attack of the Crab Monsters and Not of this Earth (both directed by Roger Corman). The Campus presented an English language version of the Oscar-winning Italian film La Strada.

Also at the Michigan were both of the famous Hepburn ladies. Audrey and Fred Astaire appeared in the musical comedy/romance Funny Face, while Katharine and Spencer Tracy made their latest appearance together in Desk Set. Another crowdpleaser was The Bachelor Party (Don Murray). Cartoon fun came from Barbecue Brawl (Tom and Jerry), Boyhood Daze, Red Riding Hoodlum (Woody Woodpecker), and Matador Magoo.

Several now-classic movies opened in Detroit, including: Funny Face (Krim), 12 Angry Men (Michigan), Richard III (World and Studio), Desk Set (Fox), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (Palms) and A Face in the Crowd (Michigan).

Art film lovers flocked to the Coronet and Surf for "Detroit's Own and First" Internationale Film Fair, where the movies included double bills of The Bed (1954) and House of Pleasure (Le Plaisir) (1952); The Trouble with Harry (1955) and Trouble in Store (1953); Doctor in the House (1954) and Doctor at Sea (1955); and I Am a Camera (1955) and Sextette (1948).

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1982

The final month of the Detroit Film Theatre's 1981-82 season included The Witness (1969), which Detroit News movie reviewer Susan Stark called "an airy, literate, exquisitely orchestrated comedy about life for the ordinary guy in Stalinist Hungary..." (May 13, 1982) The Detroit Institute of Arts and the French Embassy teamed up for a May 9-18 festival of new French films that included The Little Siren, whose director (Roger Andrieux) talked with the festival audience.

Other DFT foreign language films were Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf (1968, Sweden) and Jean Cocteau's Les Enfants Terribles (1950, France). Recent movies included This is Elvis (1981) and The Dark End of the Street (1981, U.S.). The Alfred Hitchcock tribute moved into the 1950s with The Paradine Case (1947), Stage Fright (1950), Strangers on a Train (1951), I Confess (1953) and Dial M for Murder (1954). The Afternoon Film Theatre's survey of post-World War II Japanese film included The Face of Another (1966), which came to the DFT on October 15, 2006.

Woody Allen was the Guest of Honor on the Michigan Theatre screen, with a weeklong tribute to his film career, from Casino Royale (1967) to Annie Hall (1977). The Leonardo da Vinci Film Festival included short historical films and complemented a da Vinci exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Bruce Lee fans got their kicks with a triple bill of Fists of Fury (1971), The Chinese Connection (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). And summer kicked off with a Memorial Day showing of The Sound of Music (1965).

It Happened One Night on May 1 at the Redford Theatre, as Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert battled their way to married happiness. On May 14 and 15, graceful melodies echoed through the auditorium in The Great Waltz (1938), starring two-time Oscar winner Luise Rainer and Fernand Gravet as Johann Strauss II. On May 22, Father Jim Miller blessed the Redford audience with his skillful playing of the Barton Theatre Organ.

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