‘GREEN DOLPHIN STREET’: SEE IT FOR LANA TURNER

“Treasures From the Academy Film Archives” resumes at 8 tonight at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater with the screening of “Green Dolphin Street” (1947).

Why “Green Dolphin Street”? It was stodgy 40 years ago, and seems stodgier now and hopelessly dated to boot. The epitome of Metro backlot gloss at its most ponderous and obvious, this interminable, epic-scale, all-stops-out woman’s picture is best remembered for the jazz variations on composer Bronislau Kaper’s stormy theme. It’s a tedious tale of two sisters, one scheming and strong-willed (Lana Turner), the other demure and selfless (Donna Reed, who is affecting in her quiet sincerity), both in love with the same man (Richard Hart, handsome but passive). After countless challenges and adversities--not to mention an earthquake and a Maori uprising in the case of poor Lana--they at last find contentment.

The splendid original print does show off George Folsey’s beautifully modulated black-and-white cinematography, but the best reason for seeing this festooned turkey is Lana Turner. Director Curtis Harrington once remarked that Turner, for all her blonde, white ermine-and-diamonds glamour, is a true Method actress in that she must really believe in her roles. With a cast that includes Van Heflin, Frank Morgan, Edmund Gwenn, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Gladys Cooper (who has a radiant death scene) and Moyna MacGill, Turner may be surrounded by actors of more celebrated skill and talent, not to mention experience. They bring flawless, easy technique to their parts, but Turner, who is actually quite assured and every inch the star under Victor Saville’s academic direction, brings absolute conviction to her role. If you can believe in this phony-baloney at all, it’s because you can believe in Turner. Information: (213) 857-6010.

The USC School of Cinema-Television’s “A Tribute to a Legend: John Huston” continues this weekend in the Norris Cinema Theater with a screening at 7 p.m. Saturday of “The Bible” (1966), where only Huston’s own noble Noah escapes the pervasive ponderousness of the undertaking. Sunday’s program, starting at 6:30 p.m., is the most important in the series because it comprises Huston’s films on war, which are the least-known of his work. For the Signal Corps, Huston made “Report From the Aleutians” (1943), which was unavailable for preview; “The Battle of San Pietro” (1944) and “Let There Be Light” (1946), released only in 1981. With a you-are-there immediacy, Huston takes us into the trenches of the bitter, protracted struggle in December, 1943, for an ancient farming village in the mountains only 40 miles from Rome. It is an eloquent, unflinching yet humane portrait of war that culminates in the village’s triumphant liberation.

It’s lamentable that the military was afraid to release “Let There Be Light,” which Huston shot with Stanley Cortez, no less, because it makes understandable the nature and treatment of emotional and mental disorders in an era when such illnesses were largely regarded as signs of character weakness, and psychiatry regarded as little better than witchcraft. “Let There Be Light” affirms our remarkable powers of recuperation. Huston follows the rehabilitation of several “casualties of the spirit,” young men severely traumatized by war. One cannot speak, another can’t walk, yet another is an amnesiac. But firm, kindly treatment, utilizing drugs and hypnosis, performs miracles. Although positive, “Let There Be Light” makes clear that treatment is not simple or lasting--and we are indeed left to contemplate the fates of those we do not meet, those not responsive to treatment.

It’s tempting to view Huston’s 1951 film of Stephen Crane’s Civil War novel “The Red Badge of Courage” as an outgrowth of his Signal Corps experience. The film is famous for its front-office interference--it was made in the final days of Louis B. Mayer’s reign at MGM--but even cut to 69 minutes is a poignant experience, with the documentary look of Matthew Brady photographs. Audie Murphy, World War II’s most decorated hero, and Bill Mauldin, its most famous cartoonist, play fresh-faced soldiers, rural types who discover that they’re terrified in battle. At the outset of production Huston predicted that the film would have to be a masterpiece or nothing, when in fact it is neither.

Information: (213) 743-6071.