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Looking Back

July 1982

Step back in time to see what area movie theaters were presenting in July 1982. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

For more information about these theaters, see Cinema Treasures or Water Winter Wonderland.

Like in 2007, science fiction movies from the 1950s were shown in the afternoon at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The Afternoon Film Theatre launched a four-month tribute to sci-fi flicks with Destination Moon (1950) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Later films in the series included two movies shown in the summer of 2007 as part of the Saturday afternoon film series of the Detroit Film Theatre—20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956).

Visitors to the 1982 Ann Arbor Art Fair found relief from the crowds at a continuous showing of short comedies at the Michigan Theatre (from noon to 11 p.m.). On Friday, July 23, the Three Stooges yukked it up, followed on Saturday by Warner Brothers cartoons starring Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. Howard Hawks directed Michigan double bills of Only Angel Have Wings (1939) / Sergeant York (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946) / To Have and Have Not (1944). Foreign film fans enjoyed Children of Paradise (1945), which returned to the Michigan on Sept. 2 and 4, 2007.

At the Redford on July 16 and 17, moviegoers rode "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", as Judy Garland, Ray Bolger and Virginia O'Brien starred in The Harvey Girls (1946). On July 30 and 31, a Laurel and Hardy Festival showcased this comedic duo in the silent movie From Soup to Nuts (1928) and the talkie Way Out West (1937).

The Redford's owner, the Motor City Theatre Organ Society, sponsored a July 9 Fox Theatre showing of the Douglas Fairbanks silent film Robin Hood (1922). The screening was accompanied by a 36-piece version of the Ann Arbor Chamber Orchestra and was part of the American Theatre Organ Society convention.

Along with the blockbuster E.T., summer movies included several sequels (Rocky III, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Grease 2 and Death Wish II). Other enduring favorites made their debut, like Diner, Blade Runner and Poltergeist.

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