Redford

JUST WONDERING:* Who was checking NBC anchor Tom Brokaw's copy earlier this week?Inappropriate pun-laden transitions between news stories are an irritating part of many local newscasts, but you rarely hear them on the network level. Yet after reporting on this week's runway collision between two airliners in Detroit, in which eight passengers died, Brokaw introduced the next story: "Continental Airlines collided with bankruptcy today. . ."* Do you believe in coincidence? Consider the facts.

HAVANA TO CRABTOWN?: Production crews have been scouting about town for a new movie starring none other than Robert Redford as the nation's chief exec in "The President Elopes."Fred "The Russia House" Schepisi will direct, and it's being produced by Michael Houseman, who recently did David Mamet's "Homicide" here.NAME DROPPING: Muscleman-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in town over the weekend to visit his mother-in law, Eunice Shriver, who's a patient at Johns Hopkins Hospital . . . The Los Angeles Times reports that Sylvester Stallone has purchased a 400-plus-acre horse form in suburban Maryland . . .Robert Duvall will star in a TV miniseries called "Killer Angels" about the Civil War, part of which will be shot in the near future in Western Maryland . . .Eye Spies report Walter Matthau is coming to the Big Crab in May to shoot a movie by Robert Halmi Jr., one of the producers of "Lonesome Dove" . . .And, finally, local director Arthur Egeli, whose suspense thriller, "Maxim Xul," starred Adam "Batman" West, has reportedly finished the script for his new film project, "Prodigy," which we hear will be Annapolis-based.

When film star Robert Redford was starting the Sundance Festival in Utah in the late 1970s, there were times when he felt like a barker outside a seedy nightclub. "Sundance was a rocky road, and there were a lot of near-fatalities along the way," Redford told about 1,000 arts administrators who gathered in Baltimore this weekend for the half-century summit of the advocacy group Americans for the Arts. "When the festival started, it was just me and two other people. We had one theater, and I'd stand by the front door and urge people to give us a try. I felt like a man who works in a strip joint saying, 'Why don't you come on in?

New York -- It is a Robert Redford movie . . . without Robert Redford.At least, not the grandly romantic Robert Redford character who loves and litters leading ladies around the globe, from Barbra Streisand on a New York street to Meryl Streep on an African plain. Or even the guy's guy Robert Redford, merrily capering with best buddy Paul Newman or proving manly mettle as The Downhill Racer, The Natural or The Candidate.Rather, "Incident at Oglala" is Robert Redford, just another concerned citizen -- albeit one with the kind of Hollywood star power to get this small, decidedly non-commercial documentary made in the first place.

SO, shall we expect to see Tom Cruise, his business partner Paula Wagner, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep yukking it up in costume and singing silly songs, in the wake of the disappointing opening of Lions for Lambs? Well, Miss Streep has just completed the movie version of Broadway's Mamma Mia! so there are colorful clothes and ABBA tunes galore in her future. I don't know that Tom, Paula or Redford are quite so lucky. They all had a lot of high hopes riding on Lions for Lambs, it being the initial Cruise/Wagner project out of their United Artists deal, and it is Redford's first directorial effort in seven years.

"Indecent Proposal," the slick new Adrian Lyne film, asks: Is everything for sale? The answer it gives is: Yes, except good screenplays.Largely, it's a gloss on a mean old story that used to make the rounds:Millionaire at a party goes up to a woman, says, "Would yousleep with me for a million dollars?" She says, "Yes." He says, "Would you sleep with me for $50?" She says, "What do you think I am, a whore?" He says, "We've already established that. Now we're haggling on the price."In this case, it's debonair Robert Redford making the pitch, without the haggling.

Even when Robert Redford was a new-style superstar, he was old-school in the way he maintained his privacy. He brought a cool, laconic electricity to American movie acting and maintained a public reticence to match. He espoused causes without bullying his listeners or inserting his life too far into the national conversation. He has always advocated for the arts straight from the heart. But as he displayed in a recent interview with The Baltimore Sun, he's now willing to reveal more of himself to help an aesthetic crusade.

TODAY, WHILE many are out returning gifts or catching year-end bargains, let's muse on Robert Redford's words in his most recent Sundance catalog of merchandise: "Holidays again. Forgive me while I dodge the rumble of the million-footed throngs that have succumbed to the marketing ether for Christmas and its days. Can we, without disappointing the children and others who long for the surprise of gift giving, just look to a different value to digest?" One might say -- if in a jaundiced mood -- that this is a little holier-than-thou, appearing in a catalog of things to buy!

SEEN ON THE SCENE: Yep, that was indeed a barber with hi scissors that made his way into Baltimore County Executive Roger Hayden's office recently. Seems the new exec had been too busy to get a much-needed haircut, so someone on his staff decided to take matters into her own hands, or rather those of a barber. . .HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: The film, "The President Elopes," which was supposed to be in the process of being shot somewhere in Maryland, has been put on hold, indefinitely.

Maybe you've heard these phrases before: "If you have a phone, you have an attorney. " "You're making a big mistake. " "Nobody bothers me. " "Jack says 'Yes.'" For better or worse, these are the catchphrases of Baltimore advertising, lines delivered incessantly by TV pitchmen who, not coincidentally, own the businesses they're pitching. They're not actors, and they might not have the greatest voices in the world. But they certainly are one thing: everywhere.