Picture this: Rudolph Valentino burning up the screen, wearing gaucho chaps and dancing the tango in one of his last films, A Sainted Devil (1924) . . . filmed in Astoria and nearby Farmingdale. The hilarious Marx Brothers in one of their first films, Animal Crackers (1930), set at the fictional mansion of Mrs. Rittenhouse . . . "one of the showplaces of Long Island." The debonair Cary Grant, kidnapped at the start of North by Northwest (1959) and driven out to the Phipps Estate in Old Westbury, a grand mansion that Alfred Hitchcock's art director Robert Boyle said "fitted us perfectly." Ben Stiller, squirming under Robert DeNiro's watchful eye in Meet the Parents (2000) . . . a movie shot mainly around the Village of Oyster Bay.

Hundreds of films - some classics, some forgotten - have been shot on Long Island locations or have taken this region as their setting. An exciting new summer exhibition at The Long Island Museum in Stony Brook takes a close-up look at the 90-year history of this enterprise.

Lights! Camera! Action! Long Island in the Movies is on view at the museum now through October 23. The stars, the talent and the stories will bring it all home. Hollywood is closer than you think!

Stepping right into the movies, visitors will enter the exhibition by walking past a re-created old studio backlot set. An early 1960s movie camera, lights, a boom microphone and other film equipment will bring the visitors into the behind-the-scenes story of making movie magic. A dramatically lit marquee sign will point the way into the exhibition's first gallery. As visitors walk through red velvet theater curtains they will arrive at a video station playing a compilation of classic moments in Long Island movie history. In all, the exhibition will have seven different stations to watch a variety of exciting film clips.

Before California muscled its way to the top of the business, New York was the celluloid center. Many pictures were shot across Long Island during the silent and early talkie picture days. The exhibition's first section, "Hollywood East," explores film's important early ties to the area.

Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn and Bay Shore and "The Big House," Famous-Players-Lasky Studio (later Paramount) in Astoria, were the launching pad of many hit movies. Artifacts in this area include a 1919 Bell & Howell movie camera on its wooden tripod; a coral-colored dress worn by Lilian Gish in Way Down East (1920) and other film-worn costumes from Monsieur Beaucaire (1924) and The Emperor Jones (1933), a Sabrina movie poster, 1954, offset colored print, Margaret Herrickk Library, American Academy of Motion Pictures. Primarily shot at locations around Glen Cove, including the estate of Paramount Pictures' president Barney Balaban, Sabrina was one of a wave of new pictures to depend on sumptuous Gold Coast backdrops for their stories.

Long Island mansions in film are covered in the next gallery, "The Gold Coast on the Silver Screen." Starting in the 1950s, lavish North Shore mansions became the backdrops for films that included Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina (1954), Paul Newman's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Cary Grant's North by Northwest (1959). A fur coat worn by Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby (1974) and several flapper dresses from that picture highlight this area. A video station playing portions of the film in which these costumes are seen will play nearby.

The exhibition's grand finale is devoted to the most recent depictions of Long Island in the movies; "Picturing the Suburbs" explores those films that have pried the lid off suburbia, looking for the dark and twisted as well as beauty in ordinary places. This area will also cover the new ties the filmmaking industry has made with Long Island, including the resurrection of the Astoria studio in the 1970s, best seen in pictures such as The Wiz (1978) and All That Jazz (1979). Costumes from each of these films will be on view.

Ever wonder how Hollywood make-up artists create monsters or age famous faces for film? The work of Oscar-winning make-up artist and Floral Park native John Caglione, Jr., whose client list includes Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid and many more, is explored near the end of the exhibition.

Last year, Caglione earned himself an Emmy Award, which joins his Oscar, British Academy award and Science Fiction film award - all for which he won in 1990 for Best Makeup in the film Dick Tracy. Other credits of Caglione's include Mona Lisa Smile, For the Boys, Heat, The Recruit, Donnie Brasco, Stay starring Ryan Gosling and Hide and Seek starring Robert DeNiro.

Caglione is the son-in-law of Ellen Kelly and the late Michael Kelly of Floral Park, also uncle to Lisa and Neil Kelly of Floral Park. For more information, visit Caglione's website at www.johncaglionejr.com. The artist works from his home office in Mount Sinai and stunning examples of his work, in pictures like Dick Tracy and Angels in America (2003) will be displayed.

At the exhibition's close, visitors can test their knowledge of Long Island in film with a multimedia computer trivia game. How much of a film buff are you? Harpo Marx will squawk his horn and give you his famous scowl if you answer wrong; but answer right and Harpo plays his harp!

Production shot from A Sainted Devil, starring Rudolph Valentino, 1924. Filmed at Famous Players-Lasky Studio, Astoria, and at Farmingdale (shown). Courtesy George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.

Lights! Camera! Action! gives visitors yet another exciting way to look at Long Island history: through the lens of a film camera - as movie audiences around the world have, for almost 100 years.

Lights! Camera! Action! Long Island in the Movies is sponsored in part by Suffolk County under the auspices of the Office of Film and Cultural Affairs and by The Roslyn Savings Foundation.

The Long Island Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission to the museum is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students. Members and children under 6 are free. The museum is located in Stony Brook at 1200 Route 25A.