‘Goodbye, Boys’ to Open Soviet Series : Movies: Long Beach art museum will pay tribute to Andy Kaufman, and a rare Gloria Swanson silent unspools under the stars.

The UCLA Film Archive’s “Unknown Soviet Cinema” series begins tonight at 8 in Melnitz Theater with Mikhail Kalik’s “Goodbye, Boys,” a 1966 tale of three teen-agers who have enlisted in the armed services during the last summer of peace before the outbreak of World War II.

The film is tender, and its black-and-white photography is eloquent and beautiful, but it is shamelessly manipulative and sentimental in the manner of the Soviet cinema of the time. (For years it seemed that World War II was the only safe subject for serious Soviet filmmakers.)

It is accompanied by a 1934 animated short, Nikolai Khodataev’s “The Little Organ,” which is notable for its stylistic similarities to the celebrity caricatures of Al Hirschfeld--and for its Utopian projection of the future under communism. Information: (213) 206-FILM, (213) 206-8013.

As part of its “Laughing Matters” comedy festival, the Long Beach Museum of Art is presenting “Dank You Veddy Much: A Tribute to Andy Kaufman” Thursday at 8:30 p.m. A 92-minute compilation of clips of the late comedian’s TV guest appearances assembled by series curator Michael Nash, it offers an amusing and provocative portrait of the alternately sweet and scary Kaufman, who died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 36.

No question about it, Kaufman delighted in testing the limits of comedy, and the most disturbing (yet funny) sequence occurs on a David Letterman show when he guests with a beefy professional Memphis wrestler, Jerry Lawler, who five months earlier had mopped the floor with Kaufman.

In another sequence, Kaufman dons a tux and a fancy accent and starts reading “The Great Gatsby” out loud until the audience is on the verge of rioting in boredom.

The funniest moments occur when Kaufman is doing Tony Clifton, the world’s schlockiest lounge singer, with his terrible toupee, thick waistline, gaudy tuxedo--and a gloriously off-key rendition of “On the Street Where You Live.” We also get to see Kaufman’s Elvis--affectionate and eerily accurate because Kaufman caught the spirit of Presley instead of merely trying to impersonate him.

The evening will be hosted by Bob Zmuda, Kaufman’s friend and frequent collaborator, who assisted Nash, as did another Kaufman friend, George Shapiro. Information: (213) 439-2119.

“Silents Under the Stars,” a summer series of silent movies screening at the Paramount Ranch, continues Sunday at 8 p.m. with a virtually unknown Gloria Swanson film, the 1926 “Fine Manners.” A romantic shop-girl fantasy, it is a gem--fluid, lively and unpretentious, testament to Swanson’s talent as well as her incandescent star quality.

She’s Orchid Murphy (“of the East 12th Street Murphys”), a cartwheeling standout beauty in a burlesque beef-trust chorus line who crosses paths with a bored, middle-aged Park Avenue swell named Brian Alden (Eugene O’Brien) in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Orchid is neither a gold digger nor a roundheels, and Alden is a decent fellow with honorable intentions. How they bridge the social chasm between them becomes the heart of the matter.

“Fine Manners” marked the directorial debut of Richard Rosson, a former assistant to Allan Dwan, who two years earlier had directed Swanson in the similar “Manhandled.” (Rosson was the brother of the better-known director Arthur Rosson and the distinguished cinematographer Harold Rosson.) Filmed at Paramount’s Astoria Studios, “Fine Manners” has terrific period atmosphere, and its New Year’s Eve opening sequence is a visual tour de force.

“Son of the Sheik” screens Sept. 15 and again on Sept. 16 at 7:30.

The series is sponsored by the National Parks Service and the Silent Society of Hollywood Heritage Inc. Information: (818) 597-9192 or (213) 874-2276.