When I was a boy in the fifties, nothing was more dear to my heart than a Saturday matinee at The Birmingham. The theater’s very name, like those of so many similarly ornate movie palaces built in the twenties, conjured up images of taste, refinement, and wretched decorative excess. This particular example happened to be named for my hometown, Birmingham, a refuge for the patrician classes located safely north of Detroit. Those with long memories will recall that Detroit was once the Rome of the industrialized world, ruled by a triumvirate of the Big Three automakers. The economic health of the entire galaxy seemed to be pegged to how many cars the city fathers churned out, and The Birmingham accordingly styled itself as Circus Maximus.