Daily News from New York, New York • 137

I I 111 liUcHBSillLy sunflai June 11, 1989 Lights I Mm a Ml PERENNIALLY LOVELY: Jacqueline Bisset in "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" fir What's she doing in a nasty comedy? ti -s? -w i all. think a lot of people were surprised I would do something like By KENNETH M. CHANKO 'he last place you'd fig--ure to find Jacqueline Bisset is in the midst of the gleefully tacky comedy, "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills," which opened Friday. After all, this is the same perennially lovely actress who's been an international symbol of stylish, high-class glamor since starring in a series of tony productions with titles like "The Greek Tycoon," "Murder on the Orient Express" and, more recently, "Rich and Famous." But here's Jackie as Clare Lipkin, a wealthy but washed-up sitcom queen, in Paul Barters racy, R-rated farce about the lives of the rich and their, servants in Beverly Hills. Bis- Jacqueline Bisset set delivers lines of such offhanded vulgarity in "Class Struggle" that her fans might have a hard time going along.

Bisset herself has referred to the movie as "sick" and "on the edge of raunchy," adding, "It made me laugh aloud in a few places and absolutely stunned me in others." Even director Battel acknowledges, "Frankly, it hadn't occurred to me that the material would appeal to Jackie. It's a bit risky. It's out there on the edge." Wearing a white robe and slippers, Bisset is curled up on a small sofa in her trailer on the last day of the movie's shooting in a rich enclave of Los Angeles. She's trying to explain exactly what made her take the part of Clare. "I think a lot of people were surprised I would do something like this," she says in a clipped British accent "I don't think I would have ever considered such a part eight or even 10 years ago." Over the last couple of years, Bisset says she's learned to take herself and her career less seriously.

In a way, as Clare, Bisset is parodying parts of herself and her lifestyle, which includes splitting time between homes in London and Los Angeles. She admits she wouldn't have had the confidence to pull it off earlier in her career. "Class, Struggle" also apv peaKitf ltd? tMerUeiatilV' Sh it had recently starred in such big productions as TV's "Anna Karenina" and the "Napoleon and Josephine" miniseries; "Class Struggle" offered the opportunity to be one of many featured players in a smaller ensemble piece. Bisset's been in the movie business for almost 23 years; she made her speaking-part acting debut in Roman Po-lanski's 1965 "Cul-De-Sac" (she had a bit part earlier that same year in a British comedy, "The Knack, and How to Get She's proved she can act and not just when jiggling around in a wet T-shirt, as she did in "The Deep" in "The Grasshopper," Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" and, more recently, in John Huston's "Under the Volcano." She's now on location in Brazil, shooting "Wild Orchid," a thriller in which she has some steamy love scenes with co-star Mickey Rourke. isset, now 44, feels she's only recently come into her own as an actress.

"It took me awhile to get a handle on things," she says, not wanting to go into details about her personal life, which includes an abrupt breakup last summer with ballet star Alexander Godu-nov, after seven years in his company. (She has never married.) "But I feel much braver now about doing certain things. And I've lightened my load, emotionally. I'm much more lighthearted." About her character's life in "Class Struggle," Bisset says, "I've been fooling myself, living the successful life in Beverly Hills, but being reasonably miserable for the past years. But I emerge at the end.

I break free." Strange as it may seem, Clare might be the perfect role for Bisset at this point in her career. "Class Struggle" ends with the promise of a more fulfilling life for the now self-assured Clare, who drives off into the sunset In a white Rolls-Royce convertible, of course. (Kenneth M. Chanko is a freelance writer.) 1 Check It Out FOR COMIC FANS ONLY Comic Book Confidential, which opens at SoHo's Film Forum (57 Watts St.) on Wednesday, is not a movie for everybody. Shot documentary style and featuring onscreen interviews with comic book artists, the filmlraqese medi- urrt froW fietetcftheT pre1--sent and will appeal mostly to avid comic book collectors.

TOHIV Katkleen CAsaou. The posters claim one needs a seat belt for this latest Trekkie adventure saga, presumably because audiences would be jumping up and down with excitement. The preview audience jumped up and down all right, but that was because they were frantically trying to read the sub-titled commands of a rebel Klingon captain. For, with the captain of the Enterprise, William Shatner, at the controls as director, "Star Trek The Final Frontier" is a lumbering bore. The familiar members of the Star Trek acting crew provide some welcome comic relief, however.

The crew includes, of course, veteran Vulcan Leonard Ni-moy, who directed the far superior "Star Trek TV: The Voyage Home." RcserEbert "Star Trek is the worst of the "Star Trek" movies, a pointless exercise in dead ends that begins as slowly as any movie in years. After the Starship Enterprise crew is laboriously recalled from Earth leave, the ship sets out on a mission to rescue three hostages, and ends up being commandeered for a voyage through the Great Barrier at the end of the universe a barrier that conceals only a confusing anticlimax. yage -11 "3 yj vj THEJFJljCtRjTJEJWiiliam.Shatner qX-aattLeortard Nimoy oat.