`Dangerfield,' `Love Hurts' Head For Video

This month's straight-to-video releases include four movies that were originally scheduled for big-screen release but played only a handful of theaters.

"Rover Dangerfield," a G-rated 74-minute cartoon that's coming to tape on Wednesday, was on last summer's official Warner Bros. lineup of movies intended for multiplexes. Written by Rodney Dangerfield, who also does the voice of the title character, it's about a wisecracking Las Vegas dog who gets doublecrossed by a chorus girl's boyfriend and ends up working on a farm.

Briefly released in Sacramento last August, it was panned by Variety's critic, Jim Harwood, who lamented the mediocrity of the script but pointed out that it obviously wasn't a cheap production: "The animation is not state of the art, but it's far above TV standards . . . Warner Bros. will have to hope `Rover' finds some revenue in home video."

Also due Wednesday is "Iron Maze," a "Rashomon"-style psychological thriller directed by Hiroaki Yoshida ("Twilight of the Cockroaches"), that played New York briefly last November. Bridget Fonda plays the American wife of a Japanese owner of a Pennsylvania steel mill, and Jeff Fahey is an out-of-work worker who attacks her husband.

The New York Times' Vincent Canby called it "this week's leading entry in the looniest-movie-of-the-year sweepstakes . . . all of the characters are seriously stupid and behave badly . . . a screenplay of epic confusion and unintentional hilarity." The executive producers include "JFK's" director, Oliver Stone.

Shown at a couple of film festivals in the spring of 1990, Bud Yorkin's "Love Hurts" (due Feb. 19) has a terrific cast (Jeff Daniels, Judith Ivey, John Mahoney, Cloris Leachman) and a not-so-terrific script. It's an uneven domestic drama about a straying father (Daniels) who is forced to spend a weekend with his ex-wife (Cynthia Sikes) when his sister (Amy Wright) gets married.

Produced by Vestron Pictures shortly before the company went under, it got lost in distribution limbo for a couple of years. When Yorkin visited the 1990 Seattle International Film Festival, he was trying to get a studio to pick it up, but he wasn't optimistic: "It's not the easiest sale in the world. This is my last gasp. I can't do any more for it." Vestron's still-active video division is releasing it on tape.

The most prominent of this month's sequels, "Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time" (Feb. 20), stars Marc Singer in a follow-up to his 1982 sword-and-sorcery hit. During the movie's brief run in Los Angeles last summer, Variety's critic, Joseph McBride, wrote that despite its "silly dialogue and cheesy special effects, (this) is a mildly engaging tongue-in-cheek fantasy about mythical characters traveling through a time warp to battle it out in the mean streets of contemporary L.A."

Two more sequels have bypassed theaters altogether and will go to video first: "Relentless 2 - Dead On" (Feb. 26), with Leo Rossi reprising his 1989 role as a Los Angeles detective who specializes in tracking serial killers, and "Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight" (Feb. 28), a "Kickboxer" spinoff starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Richard "Shaft" Roundtree and set in a prison.

The prolific Martin Sheen has a couple of low-profile new movies making their debuts on cassette. He co-stars with Joseph Estevez in the family drama, "Another Time, Another Place" (due Wednesday), and with Renee Estevez in "Touch & Die," a suspense piece about a journalist who investigates a consortium of nuclear power agencies who may be involved in a series of murders (Feb. 19). The Estevezes are Sheen's children.

Also heading straight for video this month:

"Hired to Kill" (in stores now). The late Jose Ferrer appeared in this 1990 soldier-of-fortune adventure, starring George Kennedy, Oliver Reed and action star Brian Thompson ("Cobra," "The Terminator").

"Netherworld" (in stores now). Supernatural 1991 thriller starring Michael Bendetti ("21 Jump Street") as a Louisiana bayou boy who discovers that his deceased father practiced black magic. Directed by David Schmoeller ("Puppet Master").

"Dune Warriors" (due Wednesday). David Carradine heads a group of mercenaries in this 1991 rehash of "The Magnificent Seven," shot in the Philippines by action director Cirio Santiago ("Desert Warrior"). Variety's critic, Lawrence Cohn, called it "a standard-issue `Mad Max' clone."

"Blood Clan" (due Thursday). Turn-of-the-century gothic thriller starring prize-winning Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent. It's based on the true story of Katy Bane, a Scottish orphan brought to Canada following the court-ordered execution of her cannibalistic family.

"Bushwacked" and "Quayle Season" (Feb. 18). Two half-hour political satires, using news footage of President Bush's gaffes and Vice President Quayle's most infamous quotes.

"Cheap Shots" (Feb. 26). Black comedy about the get-rich-quick schemes of a rural motel manager (Louis Zorich) and his only tenant (David Patrick Kelly), who attempt to make sex tapes of a couple who rent one of the rooms.

"The Chilling" (Feb. 26). A cryogenics experiment goes awry and the frozen dead are re-animated by a lightning storm. The cast includes Linda Blair, Troy Donahue and Dan Haggerty.

"Love & Murder" (Feb. 26). An R-rated 1991 comedy-thriller starring Todd Waring as a photographer/peeping tom who takes pictures of women through their apartment windows.

"Neon City" (Feb. 26). Monte Markham directed, co-wrote and plays a supporting role in this R-rated thriller, about a bounty hunter and a killer who are trapped in an armored transport in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Vanity and Michael Ironside are also in the cast.

"Spirits" (Feb. 26). Erik Estrada and Carol Lynley star in this 1990 supernatural thriller about a priest who breaks his vow of chastity with a woman who later murdered her family.

"Sebastian's Party Gras" (Feb. 28). Another in what's beginning to look like a series of half-hour live-action Disney musicals starring Samuel E. Wright, the voice of Sebastian the crab in "The Little Mermaid."

"The Haunting of Morella" (Feb. 28). David McCallum, whose mid-1960s "Man From UNCLE" series recently turned up on MGM/UA Home Video, stars in this R-rated 1991 movie about a witch who possesses her daughter's soul.

Video Watch by John Hartl 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). ------------------------------

NEW VIDEOTAPES IN STORES THIS WEEK

-- Tuesday - "Le Grandi Primadonne" and "Evviva Belcanto."

-- Wednesday - "Rover Dangerfield," Jean-Claude Van Damme in "Double Impact," "Black Cobra 3: The Manila Connection," "The Church," "Les Patterson Saves the World," "Omega Cop," "Moving Target," David Carradine in "Dune Warriors," Charlton Heston in "Sherlock Holmes and the Crucifer of Blood," Martin Sheen in "Another Time, Another Place."

-- Thursday - "The 1991 Video Yearbooks," Gordon Pinsent in "Blood Clan," Jeff Fahey in "Iron Maze," Martin Short in "Pure Luck," Jane Seymour in "Matters of the Heart," Edie Adams in "The Seekers (Part III)," Sam Waterston in "Amazing Stories (Book Four)", "Marilyn Horne and Montserrat Caballe: Belcanto Primadonne," "NFL 1991 Video Yearbooks," William Campbell in "Checkered Flag," "The Monkey People," "We All Have Tales," live-action versions of "Sleeping Beauty," "Hansel and Gretel" and "Puss in Boots."

-- Friday - James Ivory's "Autobiography of a Princess," "Mary My Dearest," Ingrid Bergman in "Voyage in Italy," "The Boxer and Death."

-- New laserdiscs: "The Little Theater of Jean Renoir," "Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio," Nick Cassavetes in "Delta Force 3: The Killing Game," "Kickboxer 2," "Dream Machine," David Cassidy in "Spirit of 76," George Segal in "Where's Poppa?," Fred Astaire in "Finian's Rainbow" (letterboxed), Sean Astin in "The Goonies" (letterboxed), Robert Alda in "Rhapsody in Blue," Kristy Swanson in "Mannequin Two: On the Move," Phoebe Cates in "Drop Dead Fred," Glenn Ford in "The Violent Men" (letterboxed), Donald Sutherland in "MASH" (letterboxed), Katharine Hepburn in "The Little Minister," John Garfield in "The Fallen Sparrow," Jean Harlow in "Riffraff," Milton Berle in "New Faces of 1937," Herbert Lom in "The Devil's Daughter," David Bradley in "Lower Level," "Government Agents vs. the Phantom Legion," "King of the Rocketeers," "Zombies of the Stratosphere," "A Man Called Flintstone."