By Scott D. Johnston

For Twin Harbors Newspaper Group

Grays Harbor’s historic 7th Street Theatre kicks off a yearlong celebration of its 90th anniversary with showings of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” Jan. 19-20, the first of 16 movie weekends in 2018.

Located at 313 Seventh St. in downtown Hoquiam, the 990-seat venue was built in 1928. It’s one of the nation’s few remaining vaudeville and movie palaces from that era, featuring a curved “atmospheric” ceiling enhanced with painted sky, clouds and embedded twinkling stars. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

The theater has undergone several restoration projects since 1976. Supporters are raising funds now to repair a leaky back wall.

The volunteer-driven, nonprofit 7th Street Theatre Association formed in 1986 and started showing classic movies in 2003. In addition, the theater welcomes about 12,000 people a year to a variety of events and concerts, including Miss Grays Harbor and stage productions by Hoquiam High School and the 7th Street Kids.

A 90th birthday party and other special events are being planned for the coming year.

A 90th Anniversary T-shirt is for sale at the theater for $20 Those who wear the shirt to any 2018 movie showing will receive $1 off the admission price.

Currently, the theater hosts two film series. Movies produced at least 50 years ago are part of the Silver Screen Classics series, shown at 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. The Classic Film Series screens not-quite-so-vintage films at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Tickets to all film screenings are $6. They’re available in advance at Harbor Drug and Crown Drug in Hoquiam, at City Drug in Aberdeen, and online at www.7thstreettheatre.com. For more information, visit the website or call 360-537-7400.

Here is the 2018 film schedule:

Jan. 19-20: “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)

One of the theater’s most popular movies, “Raiders” is a sprawling adventure that that looks great on the Harbor’s biggest screen. Harrison Ford’s iconic Indiana Jones character leads this Steven Spielberg-George Lucas collaboration.

Feb. 16-17: “The Notebook” (2004)

Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, this romantic drama offers the “wrong side of the tracks” love story of young Allie and Noah (Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling). The tale is framed by being read from a notebook to nursing home resident Gene Rowlands, who is suffering from increasing memory loss and dementia, by fellow senior James Garner.

The annual Valentine movie features the “Take Your Honey to Hoquiam” promotion, with area restaurants, florists and others offering free movie tickets with qualifying purchases.

March 10-11: “Gone With the Wind” (1939)

This epic tale of the rocky romance of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, as told through the Civil War and Reconstruction era in the American South, received eight Academy Awards, including the first nomination and win for an African American: Hattie McDaniel. Clark Gable and Best Actress winner Vivien Leigh led a huge cast, including Leslie Howard, Olivia de Havilland, Victor Jory, Ward Bond and George Reeves, in the Hollywood adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

March 23-24: “Wayne’s World” (1992)

Slacker pals Wayne and Garth find the cable access TV show they produce in the basement of the Chicago home of Wayne’s parents is suddenly a hot property. Based on the recurring “Saturday Night Live” sketches featuring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, this comedy grossed almost 10 times its $20 million budget.

April 7-8: “The Maltese Falcon” (1941)

Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of the cynical, hard-nosed Sam Spade set the standard for film noir private detectives in this mystery. “The Maltese Falcon” also featured Peter Lorre’s second-best known role (after seven Mr. Moto movies), the sneaky, snarky Mr. Cairo. The film was the directorial debut of eventual Hollywood legend John Huston, and the screen debut, at age 62, of Sydney Greenstreet in his archetypical Fat Man bad-guy role. It also included silent film icon Mary Astor and character actor Elisha Cook Jr., who had more than 200 roles in a career that spanned six decades.

April 20-21: “9 to 5” (1980)

Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton had fun at work delivering loads of laughs as the long-suffering assistants who outsmart their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” of a boss, Dabney Coleman. Parton made her big-screen debut in this comedy and wrote and performed the hit title song, which won two Grammy Awards.

May 5-6: “Bringing Up Baby” (1938)

One of the ultimate screwball comedies, this film has Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in high gear as an excited, energetic heiress and a mild-mannered paleontology professor. The comically complicated plot involves a dinosaur skeleton, a thieving but talented terrier, a circus, a million-dollar endowment and a leopard named Baby.

May 18-19: “Moulin Rouge” (2001)

The story takes place in 1899 in the infamous Moulin Rouge, a garish Paris nightclub where rich and poor men alike come to be entertained. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor star in what the late, great movie critic Roger Ebert described as “all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess … you’ll quickly know who is good and bad, who is in love and why — and then all the rest is song, dance, spectacular production numbers, protestations of love, exhalations of regret, vows of revenge and grand destructive gestures.”

Sept. 1-2: “Forbidden Planet” (1956)

One of the best-known Atomic Age science fiction films, this story relies on neither giant mutant monsters nor bug-eyed aliens. Instead, it combines intellect and action to consider the nature of mankind as it struggles to find its place in outer space. Walter Pidgeon plays Dr. Morbius, creator of Robbie the Robot but also keeper of a dark secret; Anne Francis provides classic ’50s sci-fi eye candy as his daughter, Altaira; and Leslie Nielsen, more than 30 years before his “Naked Gun” comedies, is the straight and serious spaceship captain out to solve the mystery, save the day and get the girl.

Sept. 21-22: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977)

As researchers discover and decipher phenomena that suggest an alien visitation to Earth may be imminent, ordinary family guy Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) and a few fellow Hoosiers have their own UFO experiences. Roy and a single mom (Melinda Dillon), whose son seems to have been snatched by spacemen, are left with subconscious suggestions that drive them toward their own ultimate “close encounters” in director Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi adventure.

Oct. 6-7: “Gaslight” (1944)

Ingrid Bergman won the first of her three Academy Awards as a young newlywed who is being manipulated by psychological means into questioning her own sanity. The 1944 mystery and the play on which it was based gave rise to the term “gaslighting”: Charles Boyer, playing Bergman’s husband, causes the gaslights in their home to dim, then insists it didn’t happen and denies and disparages his wife and her eyewitness accounts, eventually causing her to doubt her grip on reality.

Oct. 26-27: “Men in Black” (1997)

We’ve long suspected that aliens may be living among us, and the unlikely comedic teaming of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones shows just how wild and crazy the truth could be. “We are the best-kept secret in the galaxy,” Jones’ character, K, explains. “We monitor, license and police all alien activity on Earth. We’re your first, last and only line of defense. We live in secret; we exist in shadow.” Hollywood makeup genius Rick Baker won the fifth of his seven Oscars for Best Makeup, with a vivid variety of extraterrestrials in a galaxy where “Elvis is not dead; he just went home,” and the Earthling good guys are the Men in Black.

Nov. 3-4: “The Magnificent Seven” (1960)

When their village is once again terrorized by bandits, Mexican farmers recruit seven American gunslingers, each with his own personal mix of past and purpose, to protect them. This Hollywood Western version of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 Japanese cinema classic, “Seven Samurai,” boasts an all-star cast that includes Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Eli Wallach and Robert Vaughn.

Nov. 23-24: “White Christmas” (1954)

Bing Crosby starred in the 1942 musical comedy “Holiday Inn,” which featured Irving Berlin Oscar-winning song “White Christmas.” Twelve years later, elements of the plot and several of the songs were reconfigured into the cinema classic that shares the famous tune’s title. Crosby returns, this time with Danny Kaye, as song and dance men who try to save their old World War II general’s struggling country inn while pursuing the singing Haynes Sisters, played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

Dec. 1: “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (1989)

This holiday selection features Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and Randy Quaid in what many say is the best of National Lampoon’s Vacation movies. Also in the cast are E.G. Marshall, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki and Doris Roberts, who enjoyed a 65-year career as a character actress in film and television.

Dec. 15-16: “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946)

James Stewart and Donna Reed star in the 1946 Frank Capra classic. Almost all his life, George Bailey has sacrificed his ambitions and dreams to help others, but he becomes despondent when circumstances and the town’s cruel skinflint conspire to tarnish his good name just as the holidays arrive. In answer to the townsfolks’ prayers, Angel Second Class Clarence arrives to show how different things would be if George had never lived.