Overly Glib `Silence' Goes Direct To Video

Carl Schenkel's ``Silence Like Glass,'' which was scheduled for theatrical release here Sept. 14, has instead gone directly to videotape this week.

Well-intentioned but overly glib, this R-rated film from the director of ``The Mighty Quinn'' is based on screenwriter Bea Hellmann's real-life bout with cancer. It tells of two young girls stricken with lymphosarcoma. Ballet dancer Eva Martin (Jami Gertz) and foul-mouthed rock aficionado Claudia Jacoby (Martha Plimpton) are the unlikely hospital roommates who help each other cope with their illnesses.

Serving on the medical front are Rip Torn, Bruce Payne and others. Interfering with medical procedures are family and friends, including one Visitor From Hell (Yeardley Smith) who just won't leave Claudia alone.

The obvious film for comparison here is ``Longtime Companion.'' At every stage of the game, ``Longtime Companion'' comes out ahead. Both films purport to be frank looks at no-win medical scenarios. But ``Silence Like Glass,'' in attempting to be hard-nosed and believably gritty about its grim subject, only winds up making its characters appear to be the rudest, most insensitive people in the world. Instant phone calls, abruptly ended visits, sarcastic taunts and out-and-out abuse are the rule here.

An unfortunate Plimpton is saddled with saying ``Go f- - - yourself,'' dozens of times. Plus, she looks too healthy. Granted, she's lost all her hair, but that only makes her look like Sinead O'Connor doing a guest spot on ``Alien Nation.'' She exudes a vitality that crackles right off the screen. You'd never guess that she's dying.

Wan, thin Gertz is better at looking sick.

Given the shortcomings of the script, the miracle is that any performances come through at all. But they do. Plimpton and Gertz use body language and facial expression in ways that, at intervals, overcome the hackneyed lines and ham-fisted direction. (The supporting cast has no such luck.)

What makes the script so bad? It suffers from a ``televisionitis'' that afflicts many ``issues'' movies. Simplistic confrontations are followed by easy resolutions. In one very odd moment, a patient helps another commit suicide. She's then taken to task by the doctors who tell there are serious legal ramifications to what she's done. She tells them off in no uncertain terms. They laugh. And that's it. No follow through. Televisionitis becomes incoherence.

It's tempting to pin the blame on the screenwriters, both of them German, opting to write in English. Schenkel and Hellmann are so desperate to flaunt their knowledge of American slang that they forget to bring any imaginative logic to their material. They seem perfectly content to elicit a push-button response when they could be drawing a three-dimensional picture.

Result: They don't do justice to their subject or their actors.

Also skipping theaters and going straight to video this month:

``Almost'' (in stores now). Rosanna Arquette plays a suburban housewife whose life changes when she begins reading romance novels. Bruce Spence is her salesman husband. No rating.

``Running Away'' (in stores now). Sophia Loren and director Dino Risi join the direct-to-video club with this wartime drama, which sounds a lot like Loren's 1961 Oscar winner, ``Two Women.'' She plays a businesswoman who flees wartorn Rome with her 15-year-old daughter. Rated PG-13.

``The Serpent of Death'' (in stores now). An R-rated archaeological thriller starring Jeff Fahey, who played opposite Clint Eastwood recently in ``White Hunter, Black Heart.''

``Torn Apart'' (Wednesday). Adrian Pasdar and Gregory Peck's daughter, Cecilia, play an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian schoolteacher in this R-rated melodrama, which played theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Box Office magazine called it ``an all-too-predictable Gaza Strip `Romeo and Juliet,' '' while The Los Angeles Times' Kevin Thomas found it ``so old-fashioned in its conception that it does not achieve the impact it strives for so earnestly.''

``Midnight Cabaret'' (Wednesday). Lisa Hart Carroll stars in this 1988 horror film about a nightclub performer's act that becomes too real when her co-stars are found murdered.

``Street Hunter'' (Wednesday). R-rated martial-arts thriller starring Steve James as a cop turned bounty hunter.

``Blood Games'' (Wednesday). A female baseball team takes revenge on the killer of their coach, but the victim's father puts a bounty on their heads. Rated R.

``Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes'' (Wednesday). Patty Duke plays a widow and Jane Wyatt is her strong-willed mother in this R-rated installment in this horror series.

``The Last Fling'' (Thursday). Romantic comedy with John Ritter as a divorce attorney who goes to Acapulco for a whirlwind weekend with Connie Sellecca. Also in the cast: Scott Bakula and Shannon Tweed. Rated PG.

``May Wine'' (Dec. 19). Joanna Cassidy drags her daughter (Lara Flynn Boyle of ``Twin Peaks'') to Paris, where they end up with the same lover, in this R-rated romantic comedy.

``Honeymoon Academy'' (Dec. 19). Robert Hays and Leigh Taylor-Young in a comedy about a CIA agent who mixes business with her honeymoon. Rated PG-13.

``Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog'' (Dec. 19). Romantic comedy about a struggling young artist and his boss' niece; with cameos by Paul Bartel, Phyllis Diller, Robert Culp and Wendy O. Williams.

``Priceless Beauty'' (Dec. 20). Christopher Lambert plays a celebrity musician who retreats from fame after his brother's accidental death. Diane Lane co-stars in the R-rated romantic fantasy.

``Dead Women in Lingerie'' (Dec. 26). R-rated thriller starring Jerry Orbach, Lyle Waggoner and June Lockhart, who has come a long way from playing the mother on ``Lassie.''

``The Willies'' (Dec. 27). PG-13-rated collection of five campfire stories, starring Sean Astin and James Karen.

``Primal Rage'' (Dec. 27). A 1988 horror film about an experiment that turns students into killers. With Patrick Lowe and Bo Svenson.

``The Gamble'' (Dec. 27). An 18thcentury adventure film starring Matthew Modine as a Venetian whose father gambles away the family fortune to a German countess (Faye Dunaway). Jennifer Beals of ``Flashdance'' co-stars. Rated R.

Video notes: Seattle mountaineer-filmmaker Gary Speer's ``The Unclimbed Ridge: Everest'' and ``A Ridge Too Far'' have been combined on one videocassette. It's available at R.E.I. stores and other outdoor-equipment stores. Speer wrote a magazine piece about taking his camcorder to Everest, ``Shooting For the Summit,'' that was published in the June issue of Video Review . . . MGM/UA Home Video will release several silent classics in February - Ernst Lubitsch's ``The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg,'' Buster Keaton's ``The Cameraman,'' the 1926 ``Don Juan,'' Greta Garbo in ``A Woman of Affairs'' - along with some vintage Academy Award winners: ``The Story of Louis Pasteur,'' ``A Free Soul,'' ``The Divorcee,'' ``The Champ,'' ``The Sin of Madelon Claudet'' and ``Separate Tables'' . . . This year's Oscar-winning foreign film, ``Cinema Paradiso,'' had its video date changed because it's still playing in art houses after nearly a year in release. It's now set to arrive Feb. 6 . . . To commemorate the Dec. 26 release of the AIDS drama, ``Longtime Companion,'' Vidmark Entertainment will donate more than $20,000 to assist in the fight against AIDS. The company has also established an annual award in recognition of those whose contributions have helped increase awareness about the disease.

Corrections: The Nov. 25 listing of National Registry films available on videocassette inadvertently omitted Pare Lorentz's ``The River,'' which is listed for $19.95 in a new catalog from Video Yesteryear (1-800-243-0987). Also in the catalog, for the same price, is Robert Enrico's Oscar-winning version of the Ambrose Bierce short story, ``An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'' - which was the inspiration for the current theatrical film, ``Jacob's Ladder'' . . . ``The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.,'' which had been announced for cassette release in October, then late November, has been postponed indefinitely. The 1953 cult film is tied up in a rights dispute between a smaller distributor and RCA/Columbia, which may eventually release it.

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THIS WEEK'S NEW VIDEOTAPES, LASERDISCS:

Today - ``The Righteous Brothers: Unchained Melody.''

Tuesday - ``Dance International Video Magazine Vol. 2.''

Wednesday - Adrian Pasdar in ``Torn Apart,'' Lisa Hart Carroll in ``Midnight Cabaret,'' Pedro Almodovar's ``Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!,'' Reb Brown in ``Street Hunter,'' Gregory Cummings in ``Blood Games,'' Jeff Goldblum in ``Framed,'' Patty Duke in ``Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes,'' ``15 Years with Macneil-Lehrer,'' ``This Old House: Creating a New Kitchen, Part II,'' ``American Patchwork: Cajun Country,'' ``Newton's Apple: A Kid's-Eye View Into the World of Science,'' ``Nature: Rainforest,'' ``Nature: Hawaii.''

Thursday - Peter Weller in ``Robocop 2,'' John Ritter in ``The Last Fling.''

Saturday - ``I Was Stalin's Bodyguard,'' ``The Anna Akmatova File.''

New laserdiscs:

Arthur Hill in ``The Andromeda Strain'' (letterbox edition), William Friedkin's ``Sorcerer,'' Bill Cosby in ``Ghost Dad,'' Mark Harmon in ``Worth Winning,'' Martin Sheen in ``The Incident,'' Tommy Kelly in ``The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,'' Sean Penn in ``Bad Boys,'' Shelley Winters in ``The Balcony,'' Angie Dickinson in ``Dressed to Kill'' (letterbox edition), Tobe Hooper's ``Spontaneous Combustion,'' Merle Oberon in ``Berlin Express,'' Jessica Lange in ``Frances,'' Wendy Barrie in ``Five Came Back,'' Henry Fonda in ``The Fugitive,'' Irene Dunne in ``I Remember Mama,'' Clive Barker's ``Nightbreed.''

Video Watch appears Sundays in Arts & Entertainment. You can get more video information by calling the Seattle Times' 24-hour free service Infoline. Call 464-2000 from any touch-tone telephone and when instructed, enter the category number 0911 to reach the Video Hotline. You may replay all information by pressing ``R'' (7); back up to previous information by pressing ``B'' (2); and jump over over current information by pressing ``J'' (5).