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Looking Back

December 1957

Step back in time to see what area movie theaters were presenting in December 1957. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

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

Les Girls visited the Michigan Theater for a Christmas week run of this Cole Porter M-G-M musical starring Gene Kelly, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg. On December 20, the Merchant's Christmas Show featured Gun Glory (Stewart Granger, Rhonda Fleming, Chill Wills). Patrons picked up free tickets for this movie at local businesses, in a promotion like the free Christmas movies at the Michigan in the early 21st century that are sponsored by area merchants.

Other big openings this month included Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Pursuit of the Graf Spee (John Gregson, Anthony Quayle, Finch) and Legend of the Lost (John Wayne, Sophia Loren, Rossano Brazzi). On December 31, the Michigan held its "Great Annual Kiddie's New Year's Eve Matinee Party." This 1-3 p.m. event let children "celebrate the New Year just like Mom & Dad!" with cartoons and the 1955 movie The Seven Little Foys (Bob Hope), along with free hats, noisemakers and candy.

"Special Limited Engagement - Starts Today at These Theatres - Greatest Motion Event in Motion Picture History," read a December 18 ad in the Detroit Free Press for The Ten Commandments, which was opening at the Redford, Woods, Bloomfield, Wyandotte and Avalon. This Cecil B. DeMille epic continued through the end of the year at prices of 90 cents for matinees, $1.50 for Sundays, holidays and evenings, and 60 cents always for children.

The Redford also hosted The Pajama Game (Doris Day, John Raitt), which played on twin bills with Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Richard Egan, Jan Sterling) and Time Limit (Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart). The Joker is Wild (Frank Sinatra, Mitzi Gaynor) led double features with Omar Khayyam (Cornel Wilde, Debra Paget) and The Hired Gun (Rory Calhoun, Anne Francis). A midnight show on December 13 included Dracula, "the materialization of James Dean," and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in Scared Stiff (1953).

While the Detroit Lions marched to their most recent NFL championship, new movies included Legend of the Lost (John Wayne, Sophia Loren) at the Palms and The Enemy Below (Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens) at the Fox. The Surf hosted a Japanese film festival that included Gate of Hell (1953), Ugetsu (1953), and Rashomon (1950). And two movies that opened in 1956 finished playing at their debut theaters through all of 1957—the Cinerama Seven Wonders of the World at the Music Hall and Around the World in 80 Days at the United Artists Theatre.

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