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.
Too bad one of Detroit’s great roadshow houses was razed for a bar that never will be completed. As well as the 2 year run of SOM, there were very long runs of West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia and the 70MM version of GWTW. Spartacus did not play here. It played at the Mercury in suburban Detroit, the first non downtown theatre to be a roadshow venue sowing movies in 70MM on a reserved seat basis. As well as Spartacus, the Mercury also had thje roadshow engagements of The Alamo, Patton and The Taming of the Shrew, with Burton & Taylor. phillster on Feb 09, 2005 at 2:30 PM
NOT SO about “Cinerama Russian Adventure” only playing here in 3-strip. IOt also had a successful run, in that format, at the Cinerama Music Hall in Detroit which, by the way, was the second Cinerama installation in the US after the first in NYC at the Broadway Theatre. The Music Hall was also the larget and most successful of the US CInerama theatre, often playing out to sold houses with bookings sometimes being extended for such a long time that a second Cinerama theatre was installed, called The Summit, which only played the single frame 70MM Cinerama movies. phillster on Feb 7,2005 at 4:25 pm
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.
Too bad one of Detroit’s great roadshow houses was razed for a bar that never will be completed. As well as the 2 year run of SOM, there were very long runs of West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia and the 70MM version of GWTW. Spartacus did not play here. It played at the Mercury in suburban Detroit, the first non downtown theatre to be a roadshow venue sowing movies in 70MM on a reserved seat basis. As well as Spartacus, the Mercury also had thje roadshow engagements of The Alamo, Patton and The Taming of the Shrew, with Burton & Taylor. phillster on Feb 09, 2005 at 2:30 PM
NOT SO about “Cinerama Russian Adventure” only playing here in 3-strip. IOt also had a successful run, in that format, at the Cinerama Music Hall in Detroit which, by the way, was the second Cinerama installation in the US after the first in NYC at the Broadway Theatre. The Music Hall was also the larget and most successful of the US CInerama theatre, often playing out to sold houses with bookings sometimes being extended for such a long time that a second Cinerama theatre was installed, called The Summit, which only played the single frame 70MM Cinerama movies. phillster on Feb 7,2005 at 4:25 pm