`LAST PIECE OF THE EQUATION'; EGYPTIAN THEATRE GIVES CINEMATHEQUE VENUE EQUAL TO FILMS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

After 15 years of perseverance, the dream finally comes true for the American Cinematheque next week.

On Wednesday, the ambitious L.A. exhibition organization begins full-time programming at its new, permanent facility, the fabulously refurbished Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.

The AC plans to present all the eclectic celluloid the city can handle, starting with an appropriately big bang: ``Cosmic Fury: The Spectacular Cinema of James Cameron,'' which features a live discussion with the uber-director following Wednesday's screening of his special-edition cut of ``The Abyss.''

And the shows will keep on going, five nights a week. From here to eternity, the movie gods willing.

``We're just so glad that we've finally got our own venue, that we're able to have a theater that says `The American Cinematheque' on it, that we're able to expand our audience,'' says AC director of programming Dennis Bartok. ``I think we've always been lucky in that we've been able to show great films, bring in great filmmakers and get really appreciative audiences.

``Finally, I think we have the last piece of the equation, which is a theater that's equal to the films, the directors and the audience members who have supported us over the years.''

For nearly a decade, the AC organized monthly, then weekly, weekend mini-festivals at the Directors Guild of America building and Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. With a wide-ranging screening agenda that emphasized the kind of popular genres (American B movies, Italian westerns and horror films, Japanese samurai and yakuza actioners) often overlooked by classics-oriented college and museum film programs, the AC built up a loyal following of hip, younger film buffs.

At the same time, the AC managed to serve more traditional cineastes' needs with surveys of current European cinemas and the Alternative Screen, a regular showcase for the kinds of independent filmmakers who were more interested in creating personal visions than making product reels for Hollywood.

Programming at the 1922 movie palace - which has been brought back from earthquake dereliction to its former deco-pharaoh glory, with state-of-the-art projection and sound systems added to the mix - will include more of the same.

Make that much, much more.

The initial schedule at the Egyptian sets the tone for the AC's eclectic agenda. The Cameron retrospective, which concludes Feb. 6 with a 70mm print screening of ``Titanic,'' will be followed Feb. 10 and 11 by two evenings of winners from the currently running Slamdance Film Festival in Utah. A showcase for low-budget indies that didn't make it into the concurrent, snootier Sundance festival, Slamdance's guerrilla best represents the polar opposite of Cameron's big-budget blockbusters.

A two-week survey of films featuring 19 of France's younger generation of actresses (Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Nathalie Richard ...) begins Feb. 12. It's followed by two weeks of recent Spanish cinema.

There'll be a Spike Lee retrospective from March 15-20. You're no doubt familiar with him, but have you heard of Mike Hodges (March 26-31), whose masterful British crime films (``Get Carter,'' ``Pulp'') were major influences on the Tarantino generation? Get to know both filmmakers, who will make personal appearances.

Starting April 2, ``Buried Secrets: The Lost World of Film Noir'' will offer up rare examples of the influential, midcentury American thriller cycle. Who even knew there were still good prints of such dark, '40s and '50s jewels as ``Hell's Half Acre,'' ``The Killer Is Loose'' and ``The Devil Thumbs a Ride'' - or that the films existed in the first place?

Finding these and the hundreds of other films required to fill out the AC's year-round slate is not exactly easy. Bartok, his small staff and a dedicated group of volunteer consultants depend on the kindness of studios and the great film archives, such as those at UCLA and the George Eastman House, to get their prints. But the job hardly stops there. Individual film collectors and rights holders have to be located, cultivated and cajoled.

``Once you set your mind that a program is going to happen and you really start tracking down film prints and the filmmakers, I would say it takes a good four to five months of hard work,'' Bartok explains.

And that's just the average. A planned retrospective of the virtually forgotten, Russian fantasist Alexander Ptushko, for example, has taken five years to organize.

Along with the multifilm series, the Egyptian will hold regular screenings of short films programmed by Andrew Crane and twice monthly presentations of new, American independent features.

Margot Gerber has been programming the Alternative Screen series for more than three years. She feels that the theater offers independent filmmakers and distributors as attractive an L.A. showcase as they could possibly wish.

``A lot of people will be interested in getting their film exhibited at the Egyptian because it's such an amazing venue,'' Gerber notes. ``Alternative Screen will be in the big house (the 600-plus seat Lloyd E. Rigler auditorium), with all the state-of-the-art projection and on a really big screen.

``But because we have a smaller theater too (the 83-seat Steven Spielberg auditorium), we can also become another cinema where small distributors or self-distribution entities can talk to us about actually booking their film for five or 10 days.''

AC director Barbara Zicka Smith expects that to be just one of many changes the organization - and its programming strategy - will now undergo.

``The trick will be going from this very kind of renegade, underground organization to being an organization with this big theater on Hollywood Boulevard,'' says Smith. ``We sit here and we think that it's not going to change, but it is going to change and there's nothing we can do about it. We've worked really hard to affect a change that we wanted.''

Long and hard. The Cinematheque was the brainchild of Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams, the founders of Filmex, L.A.'s always overstuffed, perpetually undercapitalized and fondly remembered international film festival of the 1970s.

As Filmex fizzled in the early '80s, the Garys refocused their energy on forming a kind of permanent festival along the lines of cinematheques in Paris, Rome, Moscow, Jerusalem and other major world cities.

For over a decade, though, plans for a permanent AC home were tied to failed Hollywood real-estate development schemes. Smith, who had worked at Filmex, gradually assumed more responsibility for the homeless organization as the Garys' health deteriorated (they died of AIDS complications within weeks of each other in 1992).

Two years after the Northridge Earthquake severely damaged the Egyptian property, the city of Los Angeles agreed to turn it and a $3 million repair grant over to the AC. Donations and loans paid for the rest of the $14 million repair cost.

Money is still being raised to pay off about $4 million owed on the refurbishment loans. Part of that will come from a restaurant scheduled to open on the site by midyear. Other income streams will come from concessions sales, renting the theater for premieres and private screenings on Sunday and Monday nights, and daytime showings of a specially commissioned film about the history of Hollywood, designed to attract the tourist trade.

Hopefully, there will also be big-ticket sales for AC programs. Perhaps that explains why the Egyptian's first series is dedicated to the reigning king of the box-office world.

Of course, there were other good reasons for it.

``I don't think we would have done a series of Jim Cameron's movies in a small theater with a really little screen,'' Smith notes. ``He's certainly deserving of a tribute and, I think, the concept of seeing all of his movies together is really going to be remarkable.

``We were also thinking that we have this great facility and we want to show it off. I guess that is, sort of, the new facility influencing us. But it's not influencing us to do something that we wouldn't have done, if we could have, before.''

The viability of some programs, Bartok admits, remains in question.

``The next six months to a year are going to be the test case,'' he says. ``We'll see what the public responds to. There are things that we've never really done before. We may get great crowds whenever we do 70mm shows. We'll be testing the waters by showing silent movies every Tuesday night, once our 1922 Wurlitzer pipe organ is installed. We'll see how the audience responds to that.''

Whatever uncertainties remain, though, one thing is for sure: The American Cinematheque will never run out of movies to show.

``The funny thing is, no matter how much we screen, we realize how much more there is to show,'' Bartok says. ``For all the films that we've shown over the past 10 years, there are thousands being made every year, all around the world. We'll discover whole bodies of films that we didn't know anything about.''

Once they do, though, you can now safely bet that the American Cinematheque will bring them to L.A.

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5 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) A WORLD OF FILMS

American Cinematheque begins its full-time screening of eclectic celluloid

(2--5) The American Cinematheque's eclectic programming at the newly refurbished Egyptian Theatre features, inset, clockwise from top, James Cameron's ``Titanic'' on Feb. 6, Virginie Leddyen and a new generation of French actresses from Feb. 12-25, and a Mike Hodges retrospective in late March that includes ``Get Carter'' starring Michael Caine.

starring Michael Caine.