United Artists Theatre

That picture collection is something like a work of photographic art that illustrates not only the demise of a once grand movie palace but of the urban decay and ruin that accompanied it’s demise.

I’ve heard Detroit is bad but my God, it looks like a ghost town. Was/is the theater in a bad neighborhood now? The surrounding areas look completely abandoned. Could be used for a movie about a nuclear war or something.

Very, very sad indeed.

I am greatly saddened in reading about the current condition of the once magnificent United Artists Theatre in downtown Detroit. I spent hours and hours in my youth there enjoying many 70MM roadshow presentations with family and friends.
Each performance was breathtaking as the house lights would dim while the overture would play and finally, what seemed like miles of gold curtains would open wider and wider always giving a perfect presentation complete with intermission and exit music as we would leave the theatre. No previews of coming attractions, no commericals, just an entire evening (or matinee) of wonderful family entertainment in one of the finest movie palaces ever built. I live in Los Angeles now but some of my most precious memories are of that magnificant movie palace in the great city of Detroit. I only wish I had interior photos as I never did take any….they are all still in my head……but I can still see what a treature the United Artists was and will always be to me.
Douglas Hupp – Los Angeles

I finally got in to explore the United Artists yesterday,
the auditorium is in a state of ruin. Sadly the theater will be demolished, I’m 99% sure. The office tower is in great shape though.

KenRoe,
Ideed there is still the UA located in LA, but sadly Detroit’s was the best of the others including the LA.

My UA Page: http://www.snweb.org

The link to the United Artists Theatre pages on the Forgotten Detroit website is http://www.forgottendetroit.com/uat/index/html where there are many photos of the sad state this of this once magnificent theatre.

Thankfully, the very similar designed United Artists Theatre in downtown Los Angeles is kept in immaculate condition by the church which operates from it.

Mr. Illitch can no doubt afford many, many thousands of dollars in fines, as he awaits the propitious moment to stop paying property taxes if no buyer of the land has stepped forward, and then, like many tens of thousands of other landlords before him, he will abandon the property and let the taxpayers pay for emergency demolition. Hundreds of thousands of dollars will then be spent by the city for a safe demolition, and placed on the property tax bill as a lein upon the next buyer of the land. Then, years from now, when a new land broker is interested, he will seidel up to the politicians and offer to purchse the land from the city provided they give him tax moratoriums, credits for site improvements, waivers of environmental regulations, and forgiveness of any and all leins on the property — and the city will desperately and cravenly agree to all this, thus making the taxpayrs pay twice over for the sins of the previous owners! It’s all called Free Enterprise or what our grandfathers would have called Corruption.

I have seen interior pictures of this theater on a site called Forgotten Detroit. It is in ruins…and the term is not used lightly. I cannot believe that anyone will put forth the gigantic investment necessary to restore it.

Sad to say…I think this one is a lost cause.

That being the case, a city with something like the Fox Theater can only complain so much.

The “revival” you speak about in the 60’s wasn’t so short-lived. It went on from earlier than that until the very end of the roadshow business in the late 70’s early 80’s. The UA was always booked with a 70MM roadshow “event” movie on reserved seat basis. This was THE roadshow house in Detroit, even thought there were many others. The UA was where you saw Cleopatra, Judgment at Nuremberg, My Fair Lady, Becket, Doctor Zhivago, Ben-Hur, King of Kings, Sweet Charity, Doctor Doolittle, Goodbye Mr. Chips and many others. If it’s still standing, this is the place that should be next in line to be saved and restored. It would be an ideal place to be the American 70MM Motion Picture Museum, as it were, always showing the great roadshow epics.

I believe the statement that Detroit’s United Artists Theatre was the first to get CinemaScope is incorrect. The first Detroit house to install ‘scope equipment was the Fox, for the opening of the first film to be (not produced, but) released in the anamorphic process, “The Robe.” I was an usher at this very glamorous event, and had the opportunity of exploring backstage, and in the booth. I remember the screen was particularly large, in that the early C'scope features had an aspect ratio of 2.67:1, rather than the current 2.34:1. Up until that night, the only wide-screen house in Detroit was the Music Hall, showing “This is Cinerama.”

Correction to previous: the correct URL is: http://cinematreasures.org/news/11973_0_1_0_C/

This week the city painted all the boards on the first floor black…

The United Artist did not play “sound of Music”. (At least not the 1st run Road show version}.

“Music”, Played its first run at the Madison Theatre.