Detroit
Movie Palaces
The
Film Programs of the Detroit Film Theatre, Michigan Theater, and
Redford Theatre
The Film Programs of the Detroit Film Theatre, Michigan Theater, and Redford Theatre
Your Guide to Classic Movie Theater Filmgoing!
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Read
about recent events
in the Detroit Movie Palaces blog! |
Explore
theater history Gaylord Carter Plays at Redford (May 1981) |
Look What's Coming!
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Get
a world of laughs at the Alliance
Francaise Comedy Film Shorts Series at the DFT
May 31.
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Learn more about the grieving process in the documentary Transforming
Loss at the Michigan
May 30.
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The renovated Redford re-opens with Julie Andrews flying high as Mary Poppins July 12-13. |
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Looking Back
November 1931
Step back in time to see what area movie theaters were presenting in November 1931. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.
For more information about these theaters, see Cinema Treasures or Water Winter Wonderland.
Michigan Theater visitors saw Clark Gable in his first starring role,
in Sporting
Blood. Gable, who began 1931 in lower-billed roles, later
teamed up with Greta Garbo in Susan
Lenox (Her Fall and Rise). Jimmy Durante was promoted as the "Idol
of Broadway" in New
Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford (with William Haines)
and as "Schnozzle Durante" in The
Cuban Love Song (with Lawrence Tibbett).
Other
popular movies at the Michigan included the Eddie Cantor comedy Palmy
Days and the drama Once
a Lady, in which Ruth Chatterton played "a woman who becomes
a social outcast in one scandalous moment - and who regains glorious renown
in a life of Love-atonement." Also at the Michigan were highlights
of the University of Michigan's Nov. 21 6-0 win over the University of
Minnesota in front of a homecoming crowd of about 50,000.
Current
visitors to the front lobby of the Redford admire a large "Photo
of the Original Marquee," which shows George O'Brien and Noah Beery
starring in Riders
of the Purple Sage, along with promos for a bunch of Mickeys:
Mickey Mouse cartoons and Mickey McGuire (Mickey Rooney) in Mickey's
Thrill Hunters. That Nov. 13-14 lineup was followed on Nov. 15
with the live appearance of bandleader Del Delbridge. Laughter echoed
throughout the Redford at the antics of Laurel and Hardy (in Pardon
Us, their first full-length feature), Buster Keaton (Sidewalks
of New York) and the Marx Brothers (Monkey
Business).
"Members
of the Allied Theater Owners of Michigan, representing 350 theaters throughout
the state, will donate two per cent of their gross receipts for November
as their contribution to President Hoover's campaign for unemployment
relief," read an article in the Nov. 3 Detroit News. Highly
publicized films in Detroit included Possessed
(with Joan Crawford and Clark Gable), which opened at the United Artists
on Nov. 12; Frankenstein
(RKO Downtown, Nov. 19); and The
Champ (Paramount, Nov. 21). Also popular was The
Sin of Madelon Claudet.
