Improvisational Murder Mystery : ‘Kiss & Tell,’ Jordan Alan’s second feature, lacks the focus of his debut.

Jordan Alan made a terrific debut with the darkly comic, ultra-convoluted murder mystery “Love and Happiness,” but his second feature “Kiss & Tell,” which opens Friday at the Monica 4-Plex, is too facetious to sustain its 92-minute running time.

Once again, however, Alan demonstrates his capability in handling a large cast that is by and large improvising. Again, he casts an observant eye on local lifestyles, especially among young people trying to be hip, but “Kiss & Tell” lacks the focus and impact of the earlier film.

At the heart of a complicated plot involving a lot of flashbacks is a lesbian stripper (Justine Bateman) whose murder seems to have involved a carrot (!). Three detectives (Peter Greene, Richmond Arquette and Lewis Arquette) work on the case, which involves a generous portion of the population of Greater Los Angeles.

Nothing that happens is of urgent interest, but a number of people make strong impressions, most notably Heather Graham as Bateman’s intensely homophobic pal. Other key players include Teresa Hill, Scott Cleverdon, Assumpta Serna and Mickey Cottrell. Thanks to cinematographer Ron Travisano and composer Michael Mattioli, “Kiss & Tell” looks and sounds better than it is. (310) 394-9741.

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Turner Entertainment began restoration two years ago of “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), which is widely regarded as the greatest of all American musicals. Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and starring Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor and Jean Hagen, it is set against a Hollywood coping with the advent of sound.

Because film stock has improved over 20 years, Turner’s restoration--which started under the direction of Richard May, now vice president for film preservation at Warner Bros., at a cost of approximately $60,000--represents an improvement in the quality of image over MGM’s 1975 restoration.

“Singin’ in the Rain” will play Friday through Oct. 23 at the Music Hall with “The Race to Save 100 Years,” a documentary on film preservation produced by Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros.

Approximately 85% of silent movies are lost due to the instability and flammability of old silver nitrate prints combined with studio indifference, greed and ignorance, and the advent of sound. Long considered a disposable industrial product, film is “art in a can” when it’s not being projected.

This excellent documentary presents experts, starting with director Martin Scorsese, making the case for preservation on both artistic and historical bases. It also shows the various intricate techniques and processes required to restore and preserve prints.

With its tantalizing collage of clips from a vast array of films, “The Race to Save 100 Years” makes it own case--especially in its comparison of films before and after restoration. It also reminds us that the acetate safety film in use since 1951 is not itself immune to deterioration. (The fading of Eastmancolor, which supplanted Technicolor in the ‘50s, is well-known.) What’s at stake here is nothing less than the art form of the 20th century. (310) 274-6869.

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The UCLA Film Archive’s “The Devil and Mr. Murnau” presents tonight at 7:30 two of F.W. Murnau’s great collaborations with Emil Jannings. The first is “The Last Laugh” (1924), the tragedy of a proud, uniformed doorman at a Berlin four-star hotel reduced to being a men’s room attendant. The second is “Tartuffe” (1926), with Jannings in the leading role of the Moliere classic.

Widely regarded as on one of the all-time great films, Murnau’s “Sunrise” (1927), which screens Saturday at 7:30 p.m., was adapted by Germany’s leading screenwriter, Carl Mayer, from Hermann Sudermann’s short story “A Trio to Tilsit.” Designed by Rochus Gilese, “Sunrise” marks the high point of the German Expressionist influence on American films. Intensely stylized, it was shot largely on an immense city set and in a vaguely Mittel Europa village constructed in Fox’s back lot (now Century City). It incorporates some miniatures, and there is also some location footage, most of it filmed at Lake Arrowhead.

The story is as simple as the process of its telling is intricate. George O’Brien, a farmer, has become so infatuated with a brunet vamp (Margaret Livingston) from the big city that he actually decides to follow her suggestion to kill his demure blond wife (Janet Gaynor, who won the first best actress Oscar for her performances in “Sunrise,” “Seventh Heaven” and “Street Angel”) while they are out boating. He flinches and his wife flees and grabs a trolley to the city, with him following close behind.

Once the humble couple have arrived in town, the husband begs forgiveness, and they go on an innocent spree to celebrate their reconciliation and joy at being alive. But on the way home they are caught in a storm on that lake where earlier the husband had planned to kill his wife. . . .

“Sunrise” will be followed by the virtually unknown 1923 film “The Grand Duke’s Finances,” which tells of a dull aristocrat whose island paradise is threatened by opportunists who want to turn it into a sulfur mine.

The equally unknown “Phantom” (1922), which concludes the Murnau retrospective Sunday at 7 p.m., is a 150-minute epic centering on the devastating effects of an accident in which a peasant is struck, though unhurt, by a coach carrying a beautiful rich woman. The encounter drives home to the man the wretchedness of his existence. (310) 206-FILM.

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Screening tonight at 7:30 at Raleigh Studios as part of the American Cinematheque’s “Rediscovering America” series is Marcia Jarmel’s warm and compelling documentary “The Return of Sarah’s Daughters.” Admitting to her own spiritual longings, Jarmel introduces us to two young Jewish women of obviously superior intelligence who grew up without a strong religious tradition but chose to embrace Orthodox Judaism. For one of them, Rus, the fit seems perfect: a life in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the center of Lubavitcher Chasidic life, as a wife and a social worker. But for her friend Myriam, the quest brought conflict, for in going to Israel to continue her religious studies and to expand her sense of Jewish identity, she also came face to face with the reality that she is a lesbian. Myriam’s determination to reconcile her religion with her sexual orientation while respecting both reflects the struggle that gay people face, and her success in this endeavor is truly inspiring. (213) 466-FILM.

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Jakov Sedlar and Joe Tripican’s “Tudjman” (Monica 4-Plex) is a straightforward, moving account of Franjo Tudjman, modern Croatia’s first president. Tudjman emerges as a scholarly, unpretentious man of quiet courage and iron resolve whose own life--he was born in 1922 the son of a political activist--mirrors the tragedies and horrors visited upon his people in the course of the 20 century. “Tudjman” benefits strongly from Martin Sheen’s conscientious narration.

Joshua Beckett’s “Always Say Goodbye” starts out like a romantic comedy but deepens into a thoughtful, graceful drama about a young man (played by Beckett) in need of growing up. Beckett’s Nick, a struggling photographer, has lots of casual sex until he meets Anne (Marcia Cross), a beautiful, successful fashion designer.

Anne is a confident, elegant woman who has given up trying to be a serious painter without major regrets, but Nick, who makes a modest living photographing weddings and the like, craves recognition as an artist, a goal worth pursuing, for he is talented.

In short, these two are in different places, which makes their relationship a challenge. At the same time, Nick needs to work out ambivalent feelings about his loving family. Beckett brings a light, often humorous touch to a story about a number of people, especially Nick, who are actually capable of self-reflection--and about whom we can actually care.

“Always Say Goodbye,” which screens Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Galaxy, Hollywood Boulevard at Sycamore, as part of the Hollywood Film Festival, marks a most promising feature debut for Beckett.

Tickets available at the Galaxy box office: (213) 957-9246.

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Filmforum will present Abigail Child’s 38-minute “B/side” (1996) and her 25-minute “8 Million” (1991), Sunday at 7 p.m. at LACE, 6522 Hollywood Blvd. With “B/side,” Child weaves fiction and documentary as she charts the establishment of Dinkinsville in Lower Manhattan, an encampment created by the homeless, in June 1991 to its destruction five months later. The film centers on a homeless woman (Shiela Dabney), representing her memories of life in an unnamed Caribbean nation through archival footage.

The effect of this seamless blend is a rich Impressionistic work incorporating a stunning use of sounds and fragments of music; “B/side” is as lyrical as it is critical.

Music is even more crucial to “8 Million,” in which dazzling collages within several individual vignettes are incorporated with the venturesome sounds of percussionist Ikue Mori and her group. Some the vignettes are elusive, but they are remarkably sensual and beautiful. (213) 526-2911.