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Looking Back

August 1981

Step back in time to see what area movie theaters were presenting in August 1981. Film titles are linked to the Internet Movie Database.

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

Francois Truffaut's World War II drama The Last Metro opened the ninth season of the Detroit Film Theatre on Friday, August 7, 1981. This French film ran for two weekends before giving way to two other movies in the DFT's season-opening Festival of New Masterworks—Federico Fellini's City of Women and Alain Resnais' Mon Oncle D'Amerique. This series overlapped with the ongoing film noir series of the Afternoon Film Theatre that was running in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

"The Masterworks Festival is a bell-ringing send-off to one of the DFT's best series," wrote Detroit Free Press movie writer Jack Mathews on August 2. "In addition to a high-protein blend of Friday night specials and Saturday night classics, DFT launches the first part of a three-season Alfred Hitchcock retrospective on Sundays." The series ended on December 18-20 with the 1980 documentary, From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. For more about the fall 1981 DFT schedule, see the blog entry, "25 Years Ago at the DFT".

The Classic Film Theatre of the Michigan continued to crank out creative double features, including an evening of Woody Allen's Bananas (1971) and Mel Brooks' The Twelve Chairs (1970). Paul Newman and Robert Redford starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). Akiro Kurosawa fans enjoyed Yojimbo (1961) and Rashomon (1950). Sci-fi buffs flocked to a double bill of THX 1138 (1971) and Dark Star (1974). On Sunday, August 9, the Motor City Theatre Organ Society gave a 10 a.m. concert at the Michigan.

The dog days of summer brought two famous musicals to the Redford. On August 7 and 8, the Oscar-winning best picture of 1968, Oliver!, was presented in 70 mm with 6-channel stereo sound. Two weeks later, James Cagney sang and danced his way to the Best Actor Oscar of 1942 in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

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