A Truly ‘King’-Size Screening : Film: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘The King and I’ will be shown at Hollywood Bowl this weekend on a 40x90-foot screen.

To those who cringe at the mere thought of moviegoing in a multiplex, the American Cinematheque has an event for you. On Friday and Saturday., the cultural organization is co-sponsoring a presentation of the 1956 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I” at the Hollywood Bowl, on one of the nation’s largest screens.

Produced in association with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, 20th Century Fox and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, the bill also features Cab Calloway and his orchestra, silent-film organist Gaylord Carter, the Bugs Bunny cartoon “Rhapsody Rabbit,” an excerpt from the comic “Dogway Melody” with costumed doggies and other novelty acts.

The program follows last year’s inaugural “Movies at the Bowl” showing of “Singin’ in the Rain” and a similar assortment of preludes. The concept, says American Cinematheque founder and artistic director Gary Essert, was inspired by the presentations of pioneering motion-picture exhibitor Sid Grauman, who successfully combined live stage presentations with movies in the ‘40s and ‘50s in Hollywood.

“We wanted to re-create a fun family evening of the past,” Essert says. “And the ties to the (Hollywood) community were an important aspect. The Los Angeles Philharmonic organization came in because they wanted another way for the Bowl to reach out to families.”

The complications of large-scale outdoor film projection had thwarted Bowl plans to host the world premieres of “Star Wars” in 1977 and “The Wiz” in 1978. But technological advances permitted the performance of two film-related concerts during the 1989 season: a screening of the silent film “Alexander Nevsky” and an evening of film music with film sequences, both accompanied by the orchestra. And further technical improvements have been made just in the year since “Singin’ in the Rain.”

For starters, the several screens that last summer were rented and joined together for viewing have been replaced by a custom-designed $14,000 apparatus measuring 40 feet high by 90 feet wide, and weighing more than 1,000 pounds. “We decided to build one because we wanted something permanent,” Essert says.

Stored and used only at the Bowl, during performances the screen is attached to two aluminum columns newly installed on either side of the shell--at an additional $25,000--and raised by motorized chains. “The audience will actually watch the screen go up,” Essert says.

Ironically, for an endeavor rooted in Hollywood, neither the screen nor projection equipment was provided locally.

“We used Harkness Screens in London because no manufacturer in the United States could do everything we needed,” Essert says. “Besides being large, the screen has to be reflective because otherwise things would look dark and dim, and it has to be strong because of winds. The projection system comes from Boston Light and Sound, which several years ago decided there was a special market for big-screen programs in outdoor venues, and invented incredibly good equipment.”

Also new are stereo surround speakers, added during the Bowl’s sound system upgrade with help from Cinematheque. And where “The King and I” itself is concerned, Fox struck a new print--or more precisely, two prints.

“Because the Hollywood Bowl is so large and there’s so much distance, the back two-thirds of the house would see the actors’ lips move but the sound wouldn’t reach them till later, so it seemed not in sync,” Essert says. “So Fox made a picture print and a sound print, which run separately. We can now run the sound a second early, so the entire Bowl can see it in sync. The front part of the house won’t notice the difference.”

Introducing the film will be composer Richard Rodgers’ daughter Mary and lyricist-librettist Oscar Hammerstein II’s son Jamie. Reached by phone in New York, both Mary Rodgers and Jamie Hammerstein said the film’s scope makes it an appropriate choice for the Bowl’s vast spaces. Says Hammerstein, who has directed several stage productions of the musical: “It’s on a grand scale. It takes you to an exotic place with opulent costumes and sets. It’s not a very intimate show, though there are intimate scenes.”