Classic film series leaves audiences ‘spellbound in darkness.’

Curt Wagner and Frank Brown don’t usually serve refreshments at their film programs at the Palos Verdes Art Center.

But tonight there will be an exception: a cake with the words, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” inscribed in frosting. As if that’s not clue enough, the film at 8 p.m. will be “Gone With the Wind.”

The 1939 Civil War epic, which has been called the most popular movie ever made, launches a 1990 series of 25 films that the Library of Congress considers the all-time favorite American movies.

“We always like to start off with a bang,” said Wagner, a confessed film buff who has been showing classic movies at various South Bay locations for 35 years. A decade ago, Wagner teamed up with Brown--who produced and directed U.S. Air Force films during the 1970s--and the two have been staging Friday night screenings at the art center ever since.

“We try to enlighten people and to make a cultural contribution as well as to be entertaining,” said Wagner, adding that for him and Brown, the venture “is just a kick. We like to do it.”

Every film is preceded by a short introduction by Brown, who credits Lanny Swallow, a librarian with the Palos Verdes Library District, with research assistance. Brown talks about what critics thought of the movie when it was released and how it has fared since. There are anecdotes about the actors, the writing and the production of the film, including some of those tales that become legends in themselves.

One story about “Gone With the Wind” concerns the powerful scene in which Scarlett O’Hara walks among thousands of wounded Confederate soldiers outside the Atlanta railroad station. “As it was being filmed, a plane flew over and they had to stop shooting,” Brown said. “One of the ‘wounded’ guys got up and shouted, ‘You damn Yankee.’ ”

Occasionally, celebrity guests are invited. Dana Andrews, Ray Milland and Ruby Keeler have been among those sharing stories about their movies. Last year, Buddy Ebsen--who also danced a bit--drew 120 people.

By now, Wagner and Brown have shown hundreds of movies. Their audiences have considered most of them “bangs,” but a few of them were surprising “bombs”--including the celebrated “Out of Africa.” They have built up a fairly regular crowd of viewers, most of them over 50, who remember many of the movies when they were new. “They’re faithful people,” Brown said.

The biggest audience favorite has been “Casablanca,” which will turn up again in the 1990 series. Musicals have gotten the best overall reception, especially those of Fred Astaire, Busby Berkeley and the team of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.

Their audience loved the wacky comedies of Jacques Tati and Alec Guinness, Brown said, but a series of animated films was a flop, coming off “too much like film school.”

And the men have learned that their audiences don’t like a steady diet of foreign-language pictures, preferring that they be interspersed with films in English. One woman complained that the subtitles made her doze off.

Wagner and Brown have brainstormed most of the past film series by trying to gauge what their audiences will want to see. But the current program--aptly called “The Best Films of Our Lives” in a parody of one of the classic film titles--jumped out of the newspaper last year.

They read about the 25 “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” films selected by the Library of Congress and decided it would make a perfect series. The films will be shown in five-week segments with breaks in between.

Aside from tonight’s “Gone With the Wind,” a few of the other coming immortals are “Casablanca,” “Dr. Strangelove,” “Citizen Kane,” “Best Years of Our Lives,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Sunset Boulevard” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”

The men already have shown 17 of the 25 pictures in past art center programs, but some of them will be new--including “Star Wars” and the silent classics “Intolerance” and “Nanook of the North,” a 1922 documentary.

Of the 25, “Citizen Kane” is Wagner’s favorite because of its technical achievements. “It’s an amazing picture,” he said.

Brown’s favorite is “Casablanca,” which he calls a well-told story that exemplifies the collaborative and often spontaneous art of film. “They wrote it as they went along and didn’t know how it would end,” Brown notes, “so two endings were filmed.” (In the discarded version, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman flew off together.)

With so many vintage movies available on cable television and on video, Brown and Wagner say they have lost some of their audience, which usually numbers about 50. But they don’t think that TV can do what they can in a room with people and a movie screen.

Said Brown: “It’s a shared experience. You feel the emotions running through. People are close; something goes on.”

Wagner calls it “spellbound in darkness.”

Barbara Shadle, a film program regular for three years, said “the conviviality of the small group . . . and the care they go to to select the film series” keep her and her husband coming back. She said they have made friends with other couples, something that doesn’t happen in front of the television set.

Said Ann Rubenstein, another frequent film viewer: “I laugh at the comedies and enjoy the old musicals. It’s a look back at our life and times.”

What: “The Best Films of Our Lives.”

When: Tonight, 8 p.m.; every Friday through March 2; resumes April 6.

Where: Palos Verdes Art Center, 5504 W. Crestridge Road, Rancho Palos Verdes.

Admission: $5; $20 for 5 films.

Information: 541-2479.