Punch and Judy Theatre

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

The Punch and Judy Theater opened on January 29, 1930, on Kercheval Avenue in Grosse Pointe Farms, designed by architect Robert O. Derrick to resemble a Virginia country manor rather than a typical movie house, with roughly 740 seats and a theater organ. It was backed at its opening by a group of prominent local patrons, including Edsel Ford, who believed Grosse Pointe deserved its own cinema. In 1979, before a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the theater hosted the first public screening of Within the Woods, the short film that Detroit-area filmmakers Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell used to raise money for their debut feature, The Evil Dead. The Punch and Judy closed as a movie theater in 1977 and, after a proposed sale to a church fell through over zoning, was converted into office space in 1986. The building still stands, occupied by offices rather than a working cinema.

1. Opened January 29, 1930, in Colonial Revival style
2. Edsel Ford was among its opening patrons
3. Hosted the first public screening of Within the Woods in 1979, launching The Evil Dead
4. Closed as a cinema in 1977 and converted to offices in 1986