You've got to hand it to the Silver Screen: Those flickering movies, especially when seen with a crowd of fellow filmgoers, not only have a way of beating one's cabin fever blues; they also - as happened in the 1930s Golden Era of cinema - do well by those in need of forgetting at least some of their economic worries. As if made to order to fit this bill, the growing number of key film series unspooling around the region is about to get added to in the Ellenville area of central Ulster County over the coming weeks, including new offerings at the spectacular old landmark theater Shadowland - best-known these days as one of our region's top theaters.

"Matinees at the Shadowland," a new classic movie program kicking up next Saturday, February 20, takes advantage of one of the last of the old-style movie palaces left in the region. First opened in the 1920s, the Shadowland is a classic and beautiful Art Deco vaudeville/moviehouse converted into a 148-seat theater 25 years ago. The new monthly series they're putting on, Saturdays at 2 p.m., kicks off February 20 with the classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce; the classic Fleischer Brothers cartoon Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor; the Three Stooges in We Want Our Mummy; and Chapter One of the serial Flash Gordon.

Things continue on March 20 with the great compendium film of the Silent Era's great stars, When Comedy Was King, featuring the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Harold Lloyd, Fatty Arbuckle and Laurel and Hardy, plus more of the added fare that always made such outings so much fun. The series rounds out on April 27 with the original A Star is Born, starring Janet Gaynor.

"The Shadowland matinees are designed to remind people what going to the movies was all about," says Brendan Burke, Shadowland's artistic director, of the return to moviegoing at the theater. "In addition to a feature film, each Saturday matinee program will have previews, an animated cartoon, a comedy or musical short subject and a chapter of a famous serial."

The Shadowland is located at 157 Canal Street in Ellenville, down Route 209. For more information or to reserve seats, call (845) 647-5511 or visit www.shadowlandtheatre.org.

And speaking of movies in Ellenville, don't forget that the village's fabulous Library is also starting a series on Tuesday, February 23 with a screening of the ever-haunting Otto Preminger mystery Laura at 7 p.m., following by a new documentary, The Third Man, on Saturday, February 27, with the filmmaker William Tyler Smith in attendance. For more information on those events at 40 Center Street in Ellenville, call the Library at (845) 647-4611 or visit eplm.org.