George Stevens plays for some laughs

George Stevens directed such classic films as “Giant,” “Shane,” “A Place in the Sun” and “The Diary of Anne Frank.” He also has a lecture series created in his honor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which tonight screens one of the Oscar winner’s last great comedies, 1943’s “The More the Merrier,” at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Film historian Cari Beauchamp will introduce the romantic farce starring Joel McCrea, Jean Arthur and Charles Coburn, who earned a supporting actor Oscar. www.oscars.org.

Though reports have put Joan Crawford’s birth date from 1904 to 1908, the actress always claimed the latter date, so the UCLA Film and Television Archive is honoring her centennial with “Possessed: The Films of Joan Crawford.” The retrospective opens Friday at the Billy Wilder Theater with two of her early silent classics: the 1927 film “The Unknown,” directed by Tod Browning with Lon Chaney as an armless knife thrower, and 1928’s “Our Dancing Daughters,” in which she plays a free-spirited flapper.

Sunday are two films she made with Clark Gable: the 1931 melodrama “Dance Fools Dance” and the truly offbeat 1940 allegory “Strange Cargo.”

On Monday, the archive unfurls the new restoration of the 1953 religious epic “The Robe,” starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature. “The Robe,” which won Oscars for art direction and costume design, was 20th Century Fox’s first feature film in CinemaScope. www.cinema.ucla.edu.

Yo, ho! Film at REDCAT walks the plank tonight through Saturday when it presents video projections from Paul and Damon McCarthy’s “Caribbean Pirates,” a multi-screen installation that offers a lighthearted look at the pirate in American popular culture. The two will appear at the screenings. www.redcat.org

Don’t cry for Argentine cinema. It’s prospering. Several new Argentine films will screen Friday through Sunday at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater. Opening is the 2008 comedy “A Boyfriend for My Wife.” Saturday is the 2008 docudrama “Missing Identity,” the auto racing adventure “The Legend” and the drama “Lion’s Den,” which is the country’s official submission for the Academy Awards. It concludes Sunday with “Giant of Valdes” and “Rain.”

The Cinematheque’s Aero Theater is sneaking Baz Luhrmann’s new film, the romantic epic “Australia,” on Saturday. Luhrmann will also hold a talk. Sunday, the Aero will show his inventive 2001 musical “Moulin Rouge” and “Romeo + Juliet,” his 1996 Generation X re-envisioning of the Shakespeare tragedy. www.americancinematheque.com

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susan.king@latimes.com