VIDEOS : Armchair Voyagers Can Pick From Full Itinerary

Summer and being on the move go together, but if you can’t get away, you can always cure some of your wanderlust through the movies.

Hollywood has always loved boats, planes, trains and automobiles . . . and attractive stars using them to make tracks. Here are several videos with trippin’ as a main theme. (And just remember as you hug that couch and it hugs back, fall can be a nice time to get away, too.)

* Bette Davis sees a cruise as a chance to turn her life around in “Now, Voyager,” the 1942 weep-orama co-starring Paul Henreid. She plays a spinster who, after undergoing a little fine-tuning by her psychiatrist (Claude Rains), books passage and runs into Henreid, a sophisticated nice guy.

It’s romance in an ocean fog, highly melodramatic. But Davis, as usual, brings a hint of jaggedness to her overly sensitive character. The movie also features a famous scene involving a couple of smokes, Davis’ big, searching eyes and Henreid’s steady hands. Max Steiner won an Oscar for his lush musical score.

* Judy Davis is on a mission of her own in “A Passage to India,” the 1984 adaptation of E. M. Forster’s novel. Eager to discover the true India, Davis leaves England and heads to Bombay by boat. Then it’s overland by train. Later, she tries a carriage and bike to get around. Wherever she’s going, it’s always hot, and there’s troubling sensuality in the air.

Davis finds much to like about India, especially its foreign, erotic side, and is liberated but then ruined by the experience. It’s a quietly suggestive performance that gets more primitive as the movie goes along. The earthy cinematography is often beautiful.

* Put Marilyn Monroe on a bus, and you might not have a long trip but you’ll at least have a scenic one. In “Bus Stop,” the 1956 adaptation of William Inge’s play, she’s the chanteuse who’s hounded by a bohunk cowboy (Don Murray) and then makes the mistake of boarding a Greyhound with him. She falls in love between the bumps.

* Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert do quite a bit of traveling in “It Happened One Night,” Frank Capra’s 1934 comedy gem. He’s a newspaperman on a big story. She’s the rich girl who turns out to mean more to him than the big story. While they squabble on their route to romance, the two go cross-country by bus, car and leg.

It may be Capra’s best movie, simply because he hadn’t given into more sentimental impulses at this point in his career. The much-loved but often florid style of populist films like “Meet John Doe” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” is nowhere to be seen in this one. “It Happened One Night” is a fast wisecracking kick.

* When Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon witness a gangland murder, they’re inspired to dress in drag and board a train filled with female musicians. “Some Like it Hot,” released in 1959, is Billy Wilder at his most agile. It’s also Curtis’ most entertaining performance, and probably Lemmon’s as well.

* Pee-wee Herman (a.k.a. Paul Reubens), a walking fetish of the pleasingly bizarre, goes on a woolly odyssey in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.” The 1985 flick follows Pee-wee in his search for a lost bike, perhaps the coolest bike ever. His journey, an amusingly mindless adventure by foot, truck and bus, takes him from the deserts of California to the basement of the Alamo.

* If a luxury cruise is more your style, book passage with Barbara Stanwyck in Preston Sturges’ “The Lady Eve.” She’s a crook, looking for rich guys to fleece at cards. When the naive Henry Fonda comes aboard, fresh from a tour of the Amazon, she’s found her mark. Sturges’ customary blithe wit graces this near-perfect 1941 screwball comedy.

* Then there’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” released in 1956. David Niven takes on a bet to float around the globe in a balloon. Not the greatest movie, but almost always colorful as Niven and a cast that includes Cantinflas, Marlene Dietrich and Buster Keaton moves from one country to the next.

A few other moving experiences worth a look are: “Airplane!” (1980), “The Palm Beach Story” (1942) “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985), “Flying Down to Rio” (1933), “The African Queen” (1951), “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” (1987) and “Lost Horizon” (1937).

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Please Don’t Eat the Daisies

(NR) Doris Day, David Niven and Janis Paige star in this 1960 film about the comic adventures a drama critic and his family encounter when they move from the city to the country. The film, directed by Charles Walters, screens Friday, Sept. 2, at 12:45 p.m. in the Cypress Senior Center, 9031 Grindlay St. Public welcome. FREE. (714) 229-6776.

Driving Miss Daisy

(PG) Morgan Freeman plays an easygoing, understanding man who befriends a difficult old Southern woman, played by Jessica Tandy, after he is hired by her son (Dan Aykroyd) to be her chauffeur. This 1989 film, directed by Bruce Beresford, won Oscars for best screenplay, best actress and best picture. It screens Wednesday, Sept. 7, and Sept 9, at 12:45 p.m. in the Cypress Senior Center, 9031 Grindlay St. Public welcome. FREE. (714) 229-6776.

Old Treasures From New China

(NR) Artwork from China, discovered during an archeological dig, relays the technological and artistic accomplishments of that nation in this film, screening Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 Main St., Santa Ana. Included with the price of admission of $1.50 to $4.50. (714) 567-3600.