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My general interest in the Detroit Film Theatre, Michigan Theater and Redford Theatre began ten years ago this month, when I saw the most remarkable film I have ever had the privilege of viewing.
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Watching the Three Stooges at the Redford Theatre can be a real workout. There’s the hearty belly laughs that make you throw your head back, giving you a quick glimpse of the starlit blue ceiling. Then there’s the powerfully enthusiastic applause that follows each of the six Stooges short comedies that are shown at the Redford twice a year.
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It was one of the most exciting moments I’ve ever experienced in a movie theater. Already, the audience at the Redford Theatre on March 10, 2007 had enjoyed organist Lance Luce’s musical accompaniment to the delightful 1924 silent film Peter Pan.
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For moviegoers, the early months of a new year can be a tough time. Theaters are filled with year-end releases that you’ve already seen, and many new films get only one or two stars from the critics.
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In the fascinating new book Detroit’s Downtown Movie Palaces (2006, Arcadia Publishing), authors Michael Hauser and Marianne Weldon write:
“When reviewing the history of how downtown Detroit’s movie palaces evolved, one word certainly comes to mind, and that is visionary.”
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The Redford Theatre recently lost one of its strongest supporters. Ethel O’Leary, familiar to many Redford visitors as an attendant of the ladies’ restroom, passed away in mid-January at the extraordinary age of 101.
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When I first visited Los Angeles in 1991, I enjoyed many of the attractions that draw people to Southern California—the beaches, Disneyland, Hollywood, Dodger Stadium.
It was all fun, but one thing emotionally touched me more than these superficially pleasant entertainments. Universal Studios was hosting a poignant exhibit for Lucille Ball, who had died two years earlier. This wasn’t Mickey Mouse, this wasn’t a surfer hanging ten, this wasn’t the Jaws shark leaping out of the water.
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Two young children, all dressed in red, bounced happily on their feet. They anxiously awaited the arrival of the model train through a snow-covered tunnel in a miniature town set up at the front of the Redford Theatre auditorium.
At the Michigan Theater, gleeful children with Santa Claus caps bounded up the elegant staircase of the Grand Foyer, excited about seeing a movie from the balcony.
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The histories of the Michigan Theater and the Redford Theatre are tightly intertwined with those of Ann Arbor, Detroit, theater design, organ music, and other people, places and things. These theaters also have boosted the careers of many famous movie stars, who in turn helped draw crowds to these film palaces.
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As I drove home from the Redford Theatre last night, oldies station WOMC-FM was playing “Ballad of the Green Berets”, a 1966 salute to soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War. That popular song honored U.S. troops during a war that, like the current Iraq War, divided the country, provoked many protests, and shook up the political power structure in the United States.
