MCA/Universal continues the trend among Hollywood studios for restoring old movies.

MCA/Universal continues the trend among Hollywood studios for restoring old movies

MCA/Universal will restore the 1961-vintage "Spartacus" for release next year, underscoring a move by Hollywood studios to dig through their archives, spruce up old movies - and find gold in burgeoning cable and video markets.

The rerelease of the 70mm Kirk Douglas film, directed by a young Stanley Kubrick, comes fast on the heels of the highly successful rerelease of "Lawrence of Arabia" last year. The Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif film cost a staggering $500,000 to restore, but it has brought in nearly $20 million in theaters and video sales.

"A movie has four or five lives now, whereas 40 years ago, before television, it had basically one life," said Gregory Lukow, deputy director for the National Center for Film and Video Preservation.

The trend of restoring and rereleasing old movies began in the late 1970s. Among the first rereleases were the French silent version of "Napoleon" and the Judy Garland version of "A Star is Born." Since then other studios followed suit as they saw a big potential for making profits.

Compared to the profits made from a rereleased picture, preservation costs are small. It costs between $10,000 and $20,000 to preserve each black-and-white film and between $50,000 and $100,000 to preserve each color film. Last year, Turner Entertainment Co., which owns all of the RKO archives and much of the MGM and Warner archives, spent $1.2 million in 1989 on film preservation.

However, films in the Turner archives are not usually restored because the company intends to rerelease them, said Roger Mayer, president of Turner Entertainment.

"We don't restore them in order to be able to go into a rerelease except in extraordinary circumstances," he said.

"Gone With the Wind" was one of those exceptions. Turner took the film, which had not been released in theaters in 10 years, and restored its original color and improved the sound. When it was released for its 50th anniversary last year, the classic grossed $3 million at the box office and $14.4 million in cassette rentals.

But Turner Entertainment preserves most of its films with the intention of not having to restore them.

"You don't have to restore something if you preserve it properly," Mayer said.

MGM is widely acknowledged as the best at preserving old films. The key asset in its pending sale of MGM/UA to Pathe Communications Inc. is the 1,000-title United Artists film library, which includes James Bond films and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." This move comes at a time when film preservation has become a popular cause. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, along with other leading film directors, formed The Film Foundation in May with the goal of raising $30 million toward the effort. According to the directors, old films made from nitrate cellulose can disintegrate at any time.

The American Film Magazine held its first Celebrity Polo Match on Sept. 22 to raise money for film preservation. Eastman Kodak, Maxell and Gump's were among the sponsors.

The National Center for Film and Video Preservation in Hollywood has a list of its 10 most wanted films that cease to exist. Included on the list are the 1917 version of "Cleopatra;" a 1928 Greta Garbo film called "The Divine Woman;" the 1927 version of "Camille" and a 1910 version of "Frankenstein."

PHOTO : Gone With the Wind: Grossed $3 million when rereleased for its 50th anniversary last year