Back by popular demand! In time for Valentine's Day, and throughout February, AFI Silver offers a selection of great movie romances, from 1930s screwball comedies to the quirky rom-coms of today.

AFI Member passes will be accepted at all films in the Valentines series.

BRINGING UP BABY

#14 on AFI's 100 Years ...100 Laughs
#51on AFI'S 100 Years...100 Passions
#88 on AFI'S 100 Years...100 Movies

Put-upon paleontologist Cary Grant is feeling the pressure: his brontosaurus is just one intercostal clavicle away from completion, he has an important meeting coming up with donor prospect May Robson, and his wedding to straitlaced Virginia Walker looms. Then he meets kooky free spirit Katharine Hepburn. Before he knows what hit him, he's searching for her escaped pet leopard, Baby, through the wilds of Connecticut and the missing dinosaur bone that her dog buried--and falling in love. A legendary flop when first released, Howard Hawks's energetic masterpiece has come to be seen as the definitive screwball comedy.

DIR/PROD Howard Hawks; SCR Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde. US, 1938, b&w, 102 min. NOT RATED

Friday, February 5, 7:00; Saturday, February 6, 6:30

THE PALM BEACH STORY

#77 on AFI'S 100 Years ...100 Laughs

Claudette Colbert intends to leave husband, Joel McCrea, a struggling New York architect, and move to Palm Beach in matter-of-fact search of a wealthy husband--to help fund the work of her true love, McCrea. Not willing to give her up, McCrea pursues her, arriving to find filthy rich Rudy Vallee in the picture. Passed off as Colbert's brother while he hangs around in hopes of wooing her back, McCrea catches the eye of Vallee's vivacious sister, Mary Astor. Many comic couplings and escapes ensue in Preston Sturges's delirious screwball comedy, one of film historian Stanley Cavell's quintessential "comedies of remarriage."

DIR/SCR Preston Sturges; PROD Buddy G. DeSylva. US, 1942, b&w, 88 min. NOT RATED

Sunday, February 7, 3:45; Wednesday, February 10, 6:30

LOVER COME BACK

Rival advertising execs Doris Day and Rock Hudson are polar opposites--she by-the-book, he by-whatever-means-necessary-- who find themselves competing for the account of a promising new product, "VIP." Trouble is, Hudson made up VIP to create a diversion from the ethics inquiry he was about to face, and his elaborate hoax has him posing as the VIP inventor and romancing Day, with surprising success. Delbert Mann's smart and sure-handed sex comedy benefits from comedic support by Tony Randall as Hudson's ineffective boss and Edie Adams as "the VIP girl."

DIR Delbert Mann, SCR/PROD Stanley Shapiro; SCR Paul Henning; PROD Martin Melcher. US, 1961, color, 107 min, NOT RATED

Saturday, February 13, 2:30; Sunday, February 14, 7:10; Wednesday, February 17, 9:30

ROMAN HOLIDAY

#4 on AFI'S 100 Years...100 Passions
#4 on AFI'S Top 10 Romantic Comedies

In her breakout role, Audrey Hepburn plays a Central European princess who skips out on her official schedule to explore Rome incognito, with undercover reporter Gregory Peck and photographer Eddie Albert. Ten Oscar nominations, including five-time nominee Hepburn's lone win for Best Actress, Edith Head for Costumes, and an Oscar for Best Story going to Ian McLellan Hunter--then fronting for a blacklisted Dalton Trumbo.

DIR/PROD William Wyler; SCR Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton. US, 1953, b&w, 118 min. NOT RATED

Friday, February 12, 7:00; Saturday, February 13, 7:00; Sunday, February 14, 2:30

WHAT'S UP, DOC?

#61 on AFI'S 100 Years ...100 Laughs
#68 on AFI'S 100 Years ...100 Passions

Peter Bogdanovich's 1972 homage to classic screwball comedy sees the exceedingly clever, carefree and calamity-causing Barbra Streisand set her sights on punctilious musicologist Ryan O'Neal, in San Francisco to attend a conference and hoping to earn a coveted grant. Witty wordplay from screenwriters Buck Henry, David Newman and Robert Benton and Bogdanovich's agile handling of the gags allow the stars to shine, with Madeline Kahn (in her screen debut) leading an impressively funny cast of supporting players.

DIR/SCR/PROD Peter Bogdanovich; SCR Buck Henry, David Newman, Robert Benton. US, 1972, color, 94 min. RATED G

Friday, February 19, 7:00; Sunday, February 21, 2:45

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY ...

#23 on AFI'S 100 Years ...100 Laughs
#25 on AFI'S 100 Years ...100 Passions
#6 on AFI'S Top 10 Romantic Comedies

Espousing the theory that "no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive" because "he always wants to have sex with her," Billy Crystal's committed bachelor Harry Burns puts his theory to the test with Meg Ryan's prim and proper Sally Albright. After a period of antagonism in college, the two have become pals, living and working in New York, but their friendship is threatened when he discovers that he has, in fact, fallen in love. Ryan's how-to-fake-an-orgasm performance in Katz's Deli features director Rob Reiner's mother, Estelle, delivering the climactic zinger (#33 on AFI's 100 Years ...100 Movie Quotes). The Oscar nominated-screenplay is by Nora Ephron.

DIR/PROD Rob Reiner; SCR Nora Ephron; PROD Andrew Scheinman. US, 1989, color, 96 min. RATED R

Saturday, February 20, 7:15; Tuesday, February 23, 7:00

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Emma Thompson won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for this fine and faithful 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's 1811 novel. Thompson and Kate Winslet are the Dashwood sisters, financially strapped but rich in spirit, who hope to make good matches if they can navigate the byzantine schemes and secrets of their Devonshire community. Director Ang Lee came to prominence with his deft handling of the script, and the fine ensemble cast includes the sisters' potential suitors, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman and Greg Wise, plus Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie and Tom Wilkinson.

DIR Ang Lee; SCR Emma Thompson, based on the novel by Jane Austen; PROD Lindsay Doran. UK/US, 1995, color, 136 min. RATED PG

Friday, February 26, 6:45; Saturday, February 27, 3:00; Tuesday, March 2, 6:30; Thursday, March 4, 6:30

HIGH FIDELITY

Director Stephen Frears never misses a beat in this adaptation of Nick Hornby's hit novel, with John Cusack winningly portraying the extremely put-upon Rob, an unlucky-in-love record shop owner who, while undergoing yet another painful breakup, this time with girlfriend Laura (Danish actress Iben Hjejle), makes a kind of "greatest hits" compilation of the past loves and losses in his life. An uproarious Jack Black steals all of his scenes as one of the "musical moron twins" employed in Cusack's store.

DIR Stephen Frears; SCR John Cusack, Scott Rosenberg, Steve Pink, D.V. DeVincentis, based on the novel by Nick Hornby; PROD Tim Bevan, Rudd Simmons. UK/US, 2000, color, 113 min. RATED R

Friday, March 5, 7:00; Saturday, March 6, 10:10; Sunday, March 7, 6:15; Wednesday, March 10, 9:30