It’s a Wide, Wide World : A Long Beach film festival endeavors to show movies the way they were really meant to be seen.

For those who miss the scope, splendor and spectacle of film-going, there’s the third annual Wide-Screen Film Festival, starting Friday evening with a 10th anniversary revival of “The Lost Boys” in honor of Halloween at Cal State Long Beach’s Carpenter Performing Arts Center.

The festival, which this year has adopted the ubiquitous preservation theme, will offer 12 eclectic films over the next three weekends, highlighted by the L.A. theatrical premiere of three notable restorations: “Sleeping Beauty,” Walt Disney’s first and only animated feature released in 70 millimeter (Saturday afternoon), “The Big Trail,” Raoul Walsh’s landmark large-format western with John Wayne in his first major role (Nov. 7 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” Sydney Pollack’s grueling ode to the Depression-era marathon dancers with Jane Fonda in her first major role (Nov. 8).

Also scheduled are rare screenings of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” a newly struck “Special Edition” version from the camera negative (Nov. 2); “The Rocketeer,” Disney’s disappointing comic-book extravaganza that still looks terrific in 70-millimeter (Nov. 14); and “The Deer Hunter,” Michael Cimino’s Oscar-winning Vietnam opus containing some of the most majestic and savage 70-millimeter imagery ever seen (Nov. 16).

The brainchild of filmmaker and instructor Gary Prebula, the festival was formed as a celebration of those large-format and 35-millimeter anamorphic processes that have enlarged and enriched the film-going experience.

“The dream was to do a festival so people could come and see wide-screen movies again in a great venue, the way filmmakers intended,” says Prebula, the festival founder and artistic director. Prebula also wanted to give Long Beach a presence; honor the cinematographer, editor and production designer--the unsung heroes of filmmaking; and save 70-millimeter prints, Hollywood’s unwanted stepchildren because of their size and bulk.

“The first year we didn’t know what we were doing, but the second year we really took off,” Prebula adds. “It became apparent that in order for this to survive--having watched Filmex as a volunteer--that you need to handle this like a business. We created a board that has been terrific in locating the best prints available and getting people to come and speak.”

It was inevitable, however, that preservation would play a significant role in the festival, because these precious films have become such an endangered species. In keeping with the theme, “The Race to Save 100 Years,” the informative new documentary on the history of preservation by Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros., will be screened Sunday, as will “Spartacus” (Nov. 9) and “My Fair Lady “ (Nov. 15), both restored by the team of Robert Harris and James Katz.

But we’re in store for entirely new restoration delights with “Sleeping Beauty,” “The Big Trail” and “They Shoot Horses.”

“Sleeping Beauty,” first released in 1959 in Technirama-70, was restored to its original wide-screen format two years ago by Disney preservationist Scott MacQueen. “Aesthetically, even more so than ‘Lady and the Tramp,’ which was the first animated CinemaScope feature in ‘55, this was a design piece to be seen on the wide screen,” MacQueen says. Screening with “Sleeping Beauty,” incidentally, is the Oscar-winning “Grand Canyon” Disney short that accompanied the animated classic during its initial engagement.

“The Big Trail,” meanwhile, was shot in an early 70-millimeter process called Grandeur back in 1930. Restored and newly improved by the Museum of Modern Art, this spectacular epic is now shown in 35-millimeter because of current large-format incompatibility.

“They Shoot Horses,” restored two years ago under Pollack’s supervision for a 25th anniversary screening at the Telluride Film Festival, was pieced together into a new print using scattered bits of internegative. The negative has been lost for a long time as a result of the ownership constantly changing hands.

“It’s terrible that you make a film and it disappears,” says Pollack, an active supporter of film preservation who will introduce the festival screening of “They Shoot Horses.” “You make a film, and it’s who you were and how you felt at the time.”

The director adores the wide-screen format and fought hard to use it on “They Shoot Horses” but abandoned it with “Out of Africa” in 1985. “I realized that most people would be seeing my movies panned and scanned [on home video]. What people don’t realize is that the least interesting thing for me is vistas. For me, I can get more information in wide screen in a matter of seconds . . . background, sense of place and environment. Not one but two people. I don’t do vistas--except for ‘Jeremiah Johnson’--I do Manhattan interiors.”

Three other directors who will attend the festival to discuss the merits of wide screen are Joel Schumacher (“The Lost Boys”), Joe Johnston (“The Rocketeer”) and Cimino. “I wanted teenagers, I wanted sexy, I wanted rock and roll, I wanted humor,” Schumacher stresses about his fresh and off-beat riff on vampires. “We can’t ever forget about the big screen. Some movies just need a wall of power and theater.”

Johnston, who had his first and only wide-screen experience with “The Rocketeer” in ‘91, says the format is a natural. “You’re seeing a long, wide image. A subtle thing that happens is that you imply to an audience that they’re there. It’s a lot of fun doing Panavision with horizontal air strips and open spaces, but the disadvantage is shooting a scene inside with two actors. I found myself experimenting with over the shoulder shots.”

According to Cimino, the wide-screen format provides more options for great transitions, which are what films are all about for him.

“Like the one in ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ where he blows out the match,” he recalls. “We will never forget that.”

Or the one in “The Deer Hunter,” where we go from the celebratory wedding to the violent jungle. “You get a more vivid soundtrack in wide-screen,” Cimino adds. “The movement--moving those choppers from left to right. You can’t get that kind of movement on the square format. The experience of the track combined with everything else that lends itself to the American landscape makes for a better adventure.”

BE THERE

Third Annual WideScreen Film Festival, Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach. Tickets $7 adults; $5 students, seniors, children 12 and under. Ticket information: (562) 985-7000, general information (562) 985-7033.