Planned celebrations by the developing National Coast Guard Museum here and the existing Coast Guard Heritage Museum of Cape Cod to mark the opening this week of the new Disney film heralding Coast Guard heroism could not be more different.

The small Cape Cod museum, in cooperation with the Orleans Historical Society, is working with a host of community partners and sponsors on the Cape to welcome the public to weeks of events intended to help celebrate the Coast Guard.

The main event will be a screening of "The Finest Hours" at the community nonprofit Chatham Orpheum Theater on Thursday evening, followed by a gala event at the Chatham Bars Inn. Tickets for $95, to benefit the museum and historical society, were made available to the public and sold out weeks ago.

For the rest of the weekend, the film will be screened five times a day, for the start of a weekslong run, with plans to bring in groups of schoolchildren.

During the upcoming weekend, the inn will sponsor a mini museum exhibit on the daring 1952 rescue from the Chatham Coast Guard Station. The dramatic ocean rescue is the subject of the movie.

Volunteer docents will be on hand to explain the exhibits, which will include a life preserver worn by one of the rescued that fateful night. One of the authors of the book on which the movie was based also will be on hand.

Most impressive, the Orleans Historical Society plans to put on display for the public the 36-foot wooden rescue boat that is featured in the movie, bringing ashore 32 crewmembers of the tanker that was sinking in a ferocious New England blizzard.

The motorized lifeboat, known as CG-36500, was found deteriorating many years ago and rescued and restored by historical society volunteers. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

It will make quite a centerpiece to the public Coast Guard celebrations planned in Chatham this weekend.

In New London, on the other hand, you would be hard pressed this week to know much about the Coast Guard tribute the Disney film is promoting around the country, unless you got a private invitation to a Thursday screening from the National Coast Guard Museum Association of New London.

The association, which benefited from a private screening of the film in Houston earlier this month, which featured live and filmed appearances by former Presidents Bush, seems to be showing its elitist side in promoting the movie.

I know the association needs shipping tycoons and Houston millionaires to donate.

But it might help to remember that some $50 million for the project is being budgeted from taxpayer money, not to mention the property for the museum that was donated by the people of the poor city of New London.

The special film event planned for New London will be at the 1,400-seat Garde Arts Center. It is being paid for by museum-friendly donors and planned by the Coast Guard Academy.

The entire cadet corps, officer candidates and many academy staff and faculty are planning to attend.

It should be electrifying to be in The Garde as so many young Coast Guard heroes in the making watch Hollywood at its best, depicting the Coast Guard at its best.

A red carpet arrival and reception will be attended by a special guest, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, former commandant, who will address the cadets on leadership.

The National Coast Guard Museum Association got 200 tickets to the Garde event to distribute and they are all going to invited guests, according to Wes Pulver, association executive director.

There was no selling them to the public for donations. There was no lottery or selling tickets of chance to be redeemed for tickets. None apparently went to schoolchildren.

The invitations went free instead to "business leaders" and "community leadership," according to Pulver.

The movie also will screen Thursday evening, starting after 7 p.m., at most of the commercial theaters in the region.

There will be no events or explanatory exhibits or, well, hoopla at any of those theaters to mark this telling of the story of one of the most incredible Coast Guard rescues, nothing to distinguish it from the slasher movie playing on the next screen over.

It would be hard to know that New London is the city that wants to be the keeper of Coast Guard traditions and history. This week, the lavish telling of a great Coast Guard story is by invitation only.

The rest of us, though, can still salute Coast Guard bravery over popcorn from the concession stand.

I encourage everyone to do so.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct