A rare look at the big picture

By Susan King

Nov. 30, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

THE hills really do look alive in the 70-millimeter version of the beloved 1965 Oscar-winning best film, “The Sound of Music.”

Witnessing Robert Wise’s adaptation of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical in large-screen format is a glorious experience. Starring Julie Andrews as the feisty Austrian novice Maria who becomes governess to the unruly Von Trapp children and falls in love with their handsome father (Christopher Plummer) while the Nazis invade the country, this classic is one of the highlights of the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre’s “70 MM Nights” festival.

The musical, which features such classics as “My Favorite Things” and “Do-Re-Mi,” screens Friday. But the three-film retrospective kicks off tonight with Richard Brooks’ underrated 1965 adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim,” starring a perfectly cast Peter O’Toole as the sailor, branded a coward, who finds redemption. Columbia Pictures recently restored this action-adventure.

Rounding out the festival Saturday is a newly restored 70-millimeter print of 1963’s “Cleopatra,” the extravaganza that nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. Co-written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the blockbuster stars Elizabeth Taylor as the Queen of the Nile, Rex Harrison (who was nominated for best actor) as Julius Caesar and Richard Burton as Mark Antony.

On tap next Thursday at the Egyptian is an evening of Walt Disney’s Oscar-winning “True-Life Adventures.” The nature-animal documentaries are also making their DVD debut Tuesday -- Walt Disney’s birthday. The film shorts and short features, including “Seal Island,” “The Living Desert” and “The Vanishing Prairie,” were produced from 1948 to 1960. A discussion with Roy Disney and a panel of some of the filmmakers will be held after the screening.

An ‘Annivoisary’

The Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica is holding a birthday party Friday for those knuckleheads the Three Stooges.

“The Three Stooges 72nd Annivoisary!” celebration features seven of the best slapstick shorts from Moe, Larry and Curly including 1934’s “Men in Black,” which received an Oscar nomination; 1938’s “Violent Is the Word for Curly,” directed by legendary silent comic Charley Chase; and 1940’s “You Nazty Spy.”

Saluting Dreyer

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art spotlights the career of Danish-born director Carl Theodor Dreyer, who helmed his first film in 1918 and became internationally acclaimed with his seminal 1928 French film, “The Passion of Joan of Arc.”

The Dreyer retrospective features “Day of Wrath,” his stark 1943 drama dealing with witchcraft, and 1955’s “Ordet.” Both films screen Friday and Saturday.

Also at LACMA, but in a far more upbeat vein, is director George Stevens’ “Swing Time,” screening Tuesday afternoon. Considered by many critics as the best of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical comedies, this 1936 delight features the Oscar-winning tune “The Way You Look Tonight.” The comedy also stars a supporting cast of first-rate farceurs: Victor Moore, Helen Broderick and Eric Blore.

‘The Doors’

The Story Makers Studio presents the 15th anniversary celebration of Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” on Wednesday at Grauman’s Chinese. After the screening will be a discussion with director Stone, stars Val Kilmer, Kyle MacLachlan and Kathleen Quinlan, and Doors band member John Densmore.

‘Cinema’s Legacy’

Bill Condon, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for “Gods and Monsters” and is the writer-director of the upcoming musical “Dreamgirls,” will present the 1955 classic musical “Love Me or Leave Me” next Thursday at the American Film Institute and Skirball Cultural Center’s monthly “Cinema’s Legacy” series.

James Cagney received his final best actor Oscar nomination for his riveting performance as a gangster who becomes the manager and husband of torch singer Ruth Etting (a strong Doris Day). Condon will talk after the screening.

The Skirball is also showing the two best Doris Day-Rock Hudson comedies as part of its free Tuesday matinee series: 1961’s “Lover Come Back” screens Tuesday, with 1959’s Oscar-winning “Pillow Talk” set for Dec. 12.

‘Aliens’ and effects

“Aliens,” James Cameron’s nail-biting 1986 sequel to the 1979 sci-fi masterpiece “Alien,” screens Dec. 8 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater.

Hosted by producer Gale Anne Hurd, the screening will also feature creature effects coordinator Alec Gillis, Shane Mahan, John Rosengrant and Tom Woodruff; miniatures technical supervisor Pat McClung; and visual effects supervisors Robert and Dennis Skotak.

German classics

The Getty Center presents “Cinema of Grace: German Romanticism on Film,” a series of six films inspired by the soul of German Romanticism.

The series begins Dec. 8 with Werner Herzog’s mesmerizing 1974 film “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser,” a factual drama about a young man who was raised from birth in solitary confinement only to be released into the world as an adult. Bruno S., a nonprofessional who spent years in and out of mental institutions, stars.

Screening Saturday are two superb examples of German Expressionism of the silent era: Fritz Lang’s 1921 “Destiny,” starring Lil Dagover, and F.W. Murnau’s bone-chilling 1922 vampire thriller “Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror,” starring the enigmatic Max Schreck as the bald-headed, pointy-eared demon.

susan.king@latimes.com

Screenings

American Cinematheque at the Egyptian

* “Lord Jim”: 7:30 tonight

* “The Sound of Music”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “Cleopatra”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

* Disney’s “True-Life Adventures”: 7:30 p.m. next Thursday

Where: 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-3456, americancinematheque.com

American Cinematheque at the Aero

* “The Three Stooges 72nd Annivoisary!”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica