Hollywood's wholesale conversion from silent films to talkies in 1929 produced some fascinating results, among them these two from Frank Capra, working at then poverty-row Columbia Studios. Tonight's program begins with a 20-minute clip from his curious hybrid The Younger Generation, a silent film with a music track, punctuated with dialogue sequences. The sentimental influence of The Jazz Singer is rampant in this tale of another second-generation go-getter (Ricardo Cortez) rebelling against his orthodox Jewish parents (Jean Hersholt and Rosa Rosanova) even as he drags them from their Lower East Side junk shop up to a Fifth Avenue mansion. This was Capra's (and Columbia's) first attempt at a talkie, and his cinematic confidence stops dead when the dia- logue starts up. However, with Flight, released later in 1929, the advances are huge. The dialogue still sounds both stiff and somehow improvisational, but the camera has been freed, and the aerial photography here is stunning. It's a late entry in the post-Lindbergh aviation cycle, with a romantic triangle stolen from Wings (two flyboys/one nurse). Overall, Flight looks less a typical Capra than something from Howard Hawks or John Ford, what with all its male roughhousing and Right Stuff. Indeed, its air force jingoism has made it irresistible for revival this year. After an opening modeled on the infamous wrong-way run in the 1929 Rose Bowl, Capra's free-and-easy docudrama turns to Central America. His characters fly off to Nicaragua to confront guerrilla hordes under "the bandit Lobo" (read "Sandino") and avenge mutilated U.S. Marines. Our misbegotten, wrong-way running hero is lost, reported last seen-believe it or not-"chasing some gooks." In the history of U.S. relations with Nicaragua, Flight is a little-known piece of propagandist escapism, crafted with Capra's own touch. Scott Simmon