The 2nd Theater in the World to Feature Cinerama was in Michigan
The movie companies are famous for throwing out splashy names for some kind of viewing technology or other:
VISTAVISION
TECHNICOLOR
CINEMASCOPE
PANAVISION
SUPERSCOPE
CINEMIRACLE
TECHNIRAMA
CINECOLOR
FANTASOUND
KINEMACOLOR and more and more fancy, made-up terms to grasp your attention.
Here’s another: CINERAMA.
The second-ever theater in the U.S. to feature this latest in viewing pleasure was the Detroit Music Hall.
The hall opened on December 10, 1928 as a playhouse called the Wilson Theatre. The outside was typical Art Deco, while the inside had marble columns, iron railings, brass fixtures, mahogany paneling, and sculpted comedy/tragedy theatre masks
In 1941, the Wilson Theatre was one of fourteen theatres across the country to show Walt Disney’s Fantasia - four years later, the Wilson Theatre briefly closed until it was purchased by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Re-named the Music Hall, it shut down in 1949, but opened once again in 1953, when it was utilized as a place to show movies shot in ‘Cinerama’.
With a 66 foot-wide screen this was the second Cinerama theatre in the entire world, and played to full houses for a good number of years.
In 1964, 70mm equipment was installed for the debut of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Closing again in 1966, it re-reopened in 1970, with the loss of Cinerama. Now the theater featured second-run films. It closed again later that year.
In 1973, it became the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts after being purchased by the Kresge Foundation. The interior was returned to its original 1928 splendor and continues to be one of Detroit’s most magnificent theater venues.