- [Chris] On Detroit's East Side, the nonprofit Friends of the Alger Theater has worked to save their idle movie house for decades, which serves as a community billboard.

- We put on our marque messages weekly.

And we make enough money from that to pay our water bill and our electric bill.

- [Chris] Alger friend Jackie Grant says this movie house formally showed its last feature film nearly 40 years ago.

She found proof up in the projection booth.

- "Friday the 13th, Part 5" in 1985.

It's right there.

- [Chris] They didn't comeback to get the reel, huh?

- Apparently not.

- [Chris] The Alger opened in 1935.

In more recent years, the plan, create a community center and maybe show some movies again, but not likely with these projectors.

- We are in my favorite place.

This is the lobby of the Alger Theater.

I know you're thinking it's just a mess, but that's changing as we speak.

- Overhead, the lobby's getting a new roof, but there's so much more work to do.

Meanwhile, on Detroit's northwest side, the Redford, one of the few independent movie theaters in southeast Michigan, is also owned by a nonprofit, and has been since the late 1970s.

Here I'm meeting film writer and theater volunteer John Monaghan.

The fight always seems to be like, how do you get people to come to a theater instead of staying at home and watching Netflix?

- That's been a challenge about what to show.

And certainly our content has changed quite a bit in the last 20 years as our audiences kind of aged out.

- Thank you.

- Nobody is paid at the Redford Theater.

We're all volunteers.

It is a good business model.

The nonprofit business model is very good for a theater like ours because it's hard to make money in the theater business.

So it takes a lot of pressure off certainly when you don't have a big payroll.

We really do try to create an experience here as much as as we can going to the movies like you would've in the 1940s or '50s.

And part of that for a lot of us is the ability to show actual film on film, which we do quite regularly on our old late 1950s Norelco projectors that project both 70 millimeter and 35 millimeter with carbon rods that make a spark between them like they would've used back in the day.

- Is finding the carbon rods and sourcing those like a problem itself?

- That's a whole nother element, yeah.

There's only a finite amount of those around, and we're always trying to find somebody who's got a stash of them.

And sometimes when we do find the carbon rods, they're not exactly the right size.

So I've been stockpiling some of those for trades.

Maybe we'll find somebody who needs those and has the ones we need.

- [Announcer] Radio KSIK, you've been listening to music for old invalids.

- We of course, we don't just show 35 millimeter, we have real state-of-the-art digital projection, which looks quite good as much of a purist as I am on film, we have really, really nice digital projection here too.

- [Chris] When you enter the Redford, you'll encounter some ways it raises money to keep running.

- [John] Often people will come over here to the counter where Larry the T-shirt guy designed shirts for the different programs.

We have a 50/50 raffle counter over here where folks walk away with maybe a hundred dollars in cash prizes.

Over here is the wall where kind of paying tribute to the famous folks that have been through the theater.

Probably most famously, Bruce Campbell from "The Evil Dead," he was here.

- And one of the reasons why this theater is iconic to a lot of horror fans is this is of course where "The Evil Dead" premiered.

- Yeah.

We're really proud of that.

The fact that both the first two "Evil Deads" and the short film that they got seed money to make the feature with also premiered here.

- Right there.

- And we're also really proud that the more recent horror classic "It Follows" has its opening sequence that was filmed right here in the theater too.

And we're showing that this year for its 10th anniversary.

- What do you hear from other people who run independent theaters in the state?

Do you talk much with other theater owners?

- That's a good question.

I have great interest in the other theaters that are doing similar to what we're doing.

Certainly the Detroit Film Theater, which is still just so wonderful, and the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, and the Penn Theater and what they're doing, which is also on that volunteer model, that's a huge success story the way they were able to save that neighborhood theater and keep that going.

- Then there's the Senate Theater operating in Southwest Detroit, complete with an original organ that accompanied silent films just like the Redford.

When you're hearing those stories of other theaters and what they're doing, how many are continuing to make a go of it as a for-profit and how many are kind of embracing the nonprofit model that you guys are?

- The nonprofit model seems to be pretty predominant.

I mean, look at the profit model certainly didn't work for the Main Art Theater or the Maple Theater.

Both of those are gone, which is really sad.

So hopefully there'll be something that'll take, something's gotta take the place of those venues.

- The Howell Theater in Livingston County, another old movie house.

A couple of decades ago, it was split into two screens.

It became the Historic Howell Theater when Toledo native Tyler DePerro bought it 10 years ago.

Tell me a bit about the history of the theater.

You said it's 96 years old?

- Yeah, we turn 96 December 11th of this year.

So it was built in 1927.

It opened December 11th, 1928.

It was the first talkie theater of Livingston County.

The first one that played to was called "Show People" directed by King Vidor.

- "Show People," not a talkie, remains a cinema classic.

Were you scared or apprehensive buying like a small town independent movie theater in 2014?

- Yeah, I mean it was totally a big risk.

I moved to Howell, moved to Michigan for the theater.

I mean, I had done this research like making a list of like what makes a good downtown, if that's local shops, walkable downtown, different activities throughout the year, having people in the community wanting this movie theater space to reopen.

There isn't like a how to operate a movie theater guidebook and like there isn't a website where you can go and find that out.

This is Theater Two.

- [Chris] DePerro's finding ways to better engage the community, find revenue streams by hosting weddings, and other things.

- We've had concerts, improv comedy, we have church here every Sunday this theater.

The stage I put in in 2014, but the original stage that was here like in 1928, that's actually behind the screen here.

Those vaudeville acts had performed on when the theater first opened.

You can tap dance a little bit or do a little dance or something.

- I don't think I'll do either of those things.

DePerro is getting by in this for-profit enterprise by building a following.

Howell has become a destination for independent moviegoers from places like Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Detroit.

Yeah, well, I mean that's definitely how I discovered you guys when you were the only theater in Michigan showing "The Babadook" at first.

- Three sharp knocks.

- Babadook.

- [Tyler] Yeah, yeah, like that, "The Babadook."

- [Speaker] You'll see him if you look.

- After the movie was done, like when audiences kind of come out and they just talk to like other people in the theater about the movie, like that's kind of the other rewarding thing about it is like when I see a movie at like a chain theater, it's like you just like go in and see the movie and you like leave and there's not really any connection or appreciation or discussion after.

- [Chris] While the Historic Howell Theater has its community of film enthusiasts, Detroit's historic Alger Theater engages its community, but that has little to do with the movies.

- Right now, we are doing HOPE applications with the city for property tax exemption.

So we're doing that good work and we've been doing it for a number of years here.

We've probably put right now into this building, which the public doesn't really know, close to 500, half a million dollars.

It doesn't show because you don't see plumbing outside, you don't see electrical.

Those are not the sexy items in any of this.

- [Chris] More money needed, a few million dollars, Grant said, to keep restoring a place to serve the Morningside, East English Village, and Cornerstone Village Neighborhoods.

Volunteers here, like the Redford on the other side of town, just trying to hold onto their historic structures by bringing people together.

- Film especially is a real like a social art.

I think it's sad that people are watching "Casablanca" on their phones.

I think to see it in an auditorium, there's nothing like it.

- Oh, you must be kidding.

- So the event kind of is its own reward.

(tense music)