2952231177.jpg &&& STEVE FRIEDMAN saw his first movie at age 4. It was "Alice in Wonderland." It made a lasting impression on him. "I wandered away from my parents during the show," he once told the Daily News' Frank Dougherty. "In retrospect, it was a weird film for a 4-year-old to get lost in." But getting lost in movies became a lifelong pursuit for the man known as "Mr. Movie," whose last radio gig was a Saturday-night call-in show about movies on WPHT (1210-AM). Steve died yesterday after a long fight against kidney disease. He was 62 and lived in Malvern. He had been waiting for years for a kidney transplant, and had been on dialysis. However, he did his usual movie call-in show from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday. "He would come into the station with his head down, in obvious pain," said Steve Ross, who does his "Remember When" show Saturday nights, "but as soon as he took the microphone he would be rejuvenated. We call it 'microphone therapy.' "He was so courageous, just a beautiful guy." Mr. Movie was so popular that after it was revealed that he was waiting for a kidney transplant, at least a dozen listeners volunteered to donate a kidney to him, but no match was found. "This was really amazing," Ross said. "For a person to offer a part of their body to a total stranger . . . Steve really touched people." Steve Friedman, who formerly had the same kind of film show on WCAU and who had appeared on TV, had an encyclopedic knowledge of film. He dazzled friends and listeners with his familiarity with movie minutiae, including dialog. If you mentioned a movie to him, he often could spiel off passages from them. "I would arrive for my show with a lot of material," Ross said. "Steve would arrive with his brain." Friedman, who had taught film at Villanova University and Rosemont College, made frequent appearances at various venues around the area to talk about movies. He formerly had a talk show on WCAU from midnight to 5:30 a.m., but even at that daunting hour, people who wanted to talk film would wait on hold for hours to get a chance to banter with him. He often said his favorite movie was the 1956 sci-fi film "Forbidden Planet." He claimed to have seen it 178 times. Steve was a native of Harrisburg who studied English and film at Penn State. He previously worked as manager of on-air promotions for WCAU-TV and other management positions. He signed off each show with this admonition: "Go out and hug someone, before it's too late." He is survived by his wife, Michell Muldoon, and a daughter, Darragh. Services: Were being arranged.