FILM/SNEAK PEEK; SILENT `PAN' AT EL CAPITAN.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski

Want to feel like a kid again? Like a kid in, say, the mid-1920s? There's a one-night-only screening Saturday of the 1924 silent version of ``Peter Pan.''

The film, starring Betty Bronson as the boy from Neverland who doesn't want to grow up, will be the first silent film ever screened at Hollywood's landmark El Capitan Theatre, which opened as a playhouse in 1926 and didn't show movies until the 1941 premiere of ``Citizen Kane.''

House organist Dennis James will perform the movie's original score on the restored Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ. The bill, starting at 7:30 p.m., also includes one of Walt Disney's earliest films, the 1924 silent short ``Alice's Wild West Show.'' Virginia Davis McGhee, who played Alice in the film series, will discuss them with Leonard Maltin.

``Ever since we installed the mightiest of the Mighty Wurlitzers at the El Capitan Theatre last June, we've been wanting to do an evening devoted to the great silent films,'' said Richard Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group.

This ``Peter Pan,'' directed by Herbert Brenon, had the approval of author James M. Barrie and took in an impressive $2 million at the box office in its theatrical release. Walt Disney admired the film and bought it in 1938, when he began developing his animated version. The Disney studio and the George Eastman House restored it in 1996 using the only known 35mm tinted nitrate print.

Tickets are $12 each. The El Capitan, renovated and reopened in 1991, is located at 6838 Hollywood Blvd. For more information or to order tickets, call [phone].

Tip of the Iceland berg

The word ``Iceland'' probably brings to mind handknit woolens, creamed herring and reindeer, maybe even the pop star Bjork, but chances are good that films aren't on that random association list.

But Iceland is as proud of its cinematic achievements as its other exports, and it will showcase a few recent works next week as part of its Iceland Naturally Festival, recognizing the 1,000th anniversary of Viking Leif Eriksson's landing in North America.

American Cinematheque, which is hosting the film series at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre (6712 Hollywood Blvd.), describes Icelandic cinema as ``one of the most quirkily inventive and unique in European film, combining deadpan humor with an outrageously bleak, often stunningly poetic view of the land and its people.''

The series begins Tuesday with a screening of Agust Guomundsson's 1998 film ``The Dance.'' Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, the president of Iceland, is scheduled to appear Thursday when Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's 1999 movie, ``Angels of the Universe,'' will make its U.S. premiere as part of a four-film tribute to the country's most acclaimed director.

The film fest, running through May 6, also includes actor Baltasar Kormakur's feature directing debut, ``101 Reykjavik,'' about a young man who learns that his one-night stand (Spanish actress Victoria Abril) is also his mother's lesbian lover.

The Iceland Naturally Festival, aimed at boosting summer tourism, includes a May 5 El Rey Theater concert by Iceland's hottest bands, among them Slowblow, which plays ``lo-fi pop music'' derived from mistakes and unwanted sounds. There also is a family picnic on May 6 in Thousand Oaks with Icelandic food, a puppet show and music, as well as a one-woman play at the Egyptian about Europeans' first settlement of North America.

For more information about the films, call [phone] or see www.egyptiantheatre.com on the Web. Details about other festival events are available at www.icelandnaturally.com or by calling [phone], Ext. 374.

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Photo: Betty Bronson, right, with Mary Brian as Wendy, starred as Peter Pan in the 1924 silent, the first ever at the El Capitan.