Getting a value to display once

[chrima]

Hi there,
Can anyone tell me how to display the "$order_date" value once.
At the moment it is successfully displaying all values but if the $order_date is the same for an order i want it to only show once (for the top row) and any subsequent rows with the same order_date to show everything but the $order_date.
I've tried GROUP BY but this only shows one row, not any others that may exist with the same $order_date.

Here's the code:

<table width="500" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="smallText">
  <tr> 
      <td width="100"><strong><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">&nbsp;&nbsp;ORDER 
        DATE</font></strong></td>
      <td width="76"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;ORDER 
        NO. </strong></font></td>
      <td width="199"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;TITLE 
        </strong></font></td>
      <td width="75"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRICE</strong></font></td>
      <td width="50"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;QTY</strong></font></td>
  </tr>
<?
include ("include/dbconnect.php");
$sql = "SELECT * FROM orders WHERE customer_id = '" . $_GET['id'] . "' ORDER BY order_date DESC";
$result = mysql_query($sql);

$alternate = "2";

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
$order_id = $row["order_id"];
$movie_title = $row["movie_title"];
$movie_current_price = $row["movie_current_price"];
$qty = $row["qty"];
$order_date = $row["order_date"];

if ($alternate == "1") { 

$color = "#ffffff"; 

$alternate = "2"; 

} 

else { 

$color = "#efefef"; 

$alternate = "1"; 
}
?>	
   <tr bgcolor="<? echo $color ?>">
      <td height="20">&nbsp;&nbsp;<? echo $order_date ?></td>
      <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;<? echo $order_id ?></td>
      <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;<? echo $movie_title ?></td>
      <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;<? echo $movie_current_price ?></td>
      <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;<? echo $qty ?></td>
  </tr>
<?
}
?>
</table>

Cheers,
chrima

[The_Chancer]

Instead of using

$order_date = $row["order_date"]; 

Use

if ($row["order_date"]==$order_date)
{
    $order_date=="";
}
else
{
   $order_date=$row["order_date"];
}

Should work all OK...