Michigan Radio & TV Buzzboard

They started tearing down the old United Artists theater in downtown Detroit last week.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/ ... 544712007/

It was sad to look at the pictures and the video, in particular the interior.

It opened in 1928, the same year that some still-existing theaters opened (Fox, Redford, Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor).

Although it initially featured movies distributed by United Artists, from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s it was the primary theater in Detroit for M-G-M movies, including The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Singin' in the Rain.

In the 1960s, as moviegoing spread to the suburbs, it held on with exclusive premieres of:

• Ben-Hur

• The Alamo

• The Guns of Navarone

• King of Kings

• Judgment at Nuremberg

• Mutiny on the Bounty

• Cleopatra

• Becket

• My Fair Lady

• That Darn Cat!

• Doctor Zhivago

Midland, MI UA theater is Secretary Of State building.

Fondest memory of the United Artists theater is seeing The Blue Max with my dad. Starring George Leppard, Ursula Andress, and a host of international stars; it's one of the more underrated war movies with some spectacular aerial photography utilizing genuine WWI era planes and with a most memorable score by Jerry Goldsmith.

I remember seeing Ben-Hur there when it first came out in 1959. And I used to park at the old Michigan Theater when going to Tiger games and it appeared that the owners, Illitch's maybe, were in the process of renovating it. Wonder what happened?