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Movie stars often look bigger than life, but like the rest of us, each day they wake up with the challenge to manage their career and survive the competitive rigors of our economy. Recent movies at the three Detroit Movie Palaces showed significant career moves by some very famous stars of the screen.
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How is this for a solid and varied lineup of old movies for your local art/repertory film theater:
Each of these films was shown at more than one Detroit Movie Palace in 2010.
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Introductions to silent films at the Detroit Movie Palaces often include the comment that silent movies weren’t really meant to be silent. That fact came through loud and clear in two recent showings of the restored 1927 Fritz Lang epic Metropolis at the Detroit Film Theatre and the Michigan Theater.
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If you showed up early for the Redford Theatre’s Laurel and Hardy Film Festival on Friday, August 27, 2010, you might have found yourself dodging a flying creme pie. The theater enlisted the help of two local L&H groups to re-enact a famous scene from The Battle of the Century (1927).
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On March 20, 2010, I had the privilege and pleasure to attend the opening session of the Detroit Film Theatre’s new series on significant films in the long history of that art form—DFT 101. This Saturday afternoon series premiered with a screening of the famous 1924 German silent film, The Last Laugh. It included opening remarks by Elliott Wilhelm, the curator of film for the Detroit Institute of Arts who also gives commentary on classic films for public television.
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As the 2009 calendar turned the gentle corner from the warm days of summer to the crisp evenings of fall, the Detroit Movie Palaces rolled out their autumn offerings on the weekend of September 11-13.
Detroit Movie Palaces Home Page
A few years ago, I started to regularly watch The Lawrence Welk Show, at 6 p.m. on Saturdays on Channel 56. Something about it really appealed to me, and I was curious where this new enthusiasm came from.
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The Detroit Film Theatre has forged such a strong identity for itself that it’s easy to forget that it’s also one of many activities presented by the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DFT screens films in the DIA auditorium, which was part of the original 1927 construction of the building and which also hosts activities like the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit.
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Towards the end of the Redford Theatre’s showing of Sunset Boulevard (1950) on Feb. 7, 2009, the images and the atmosphere combined to give me a deeper feeling for the significance of both the theater and the movie. Sunset Boulevard is a strange tribute to the silent movie era, thanks in part to the performances of two people who helped make the history of that era (Gloria Swanson and Erich Von Stroheim).
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The year 1928 was an amazing year for motion picture theater construction in the Detroit and Ann Arbor areas. Movie palaces that opened that year include the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit, the Michigan Theater in downtown Ann Arbor, and two other still-existing theaters that I visited on July 26, 2008—the Redford Theatre and the Royal Oak Music Theatre. (Motor City Marquees, Stuart Galbraith IV)
