Detroit Movie Palaces Home Page
“Get your ice cream! Get your tootsie frootsie ice cream!” shouts Chico Marx in the 1937 Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races, as he pushes an ice cream cart that actually holds some betting information for horse races.
Detroit Movie Palaces Home Page
In almost 20 years of trips to the Detroit Film Theatre, I have discovered many fascinating things about the world of cinema. It started in 1988, when my good friend John Petersen invited me to a screening of the German film Wings of Desire. The beauty and preservation of the theater impressed me, and then I was entranced by the hypnotic rhythm and evocative camerawork of this meditation on life in Cold War Berlin. After hundreds of trips to the theater, I still reserve a special place in my DFT memories for this first visit.
Detroit Movie Palaces Home Page
Every month, when I write the Looking Back feature, I pleasurably suffer through many decisions about what to include from my notes. It’s also difficult to pick facts from the fascinating daily history of each Detroit Movie Palace when I scan microfilm records of old Ann Arbor and Detroit newspapers.
Detroit Movie Palaces Home Page
Twenty-five years ago this week, the Detroit Film Theatre began its ninth season on August 7, 1981 with François Truffaut’s The Last Metro. The first half of that season finished on December 20 with the documentary From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. A glance at the fall 1981 schedule reveals interesting insights into how art film programming has changed in the Detroit area.
