Daily News from New York, New York • 48

A party for a new book by an old friend nm MM -bee. C3 CO lj to ro oi James Jones: the trilogy completed seemed nervously ill-suited in her new role as hostess to a glittering guest list, but she scurried warmly from table to table, hugging people and apologizing for some of the seating arrangements. So many people turned up that extra tables had to be set up outside the mess hall in a space tiny and cold as a kitchen pantry. Oddly enough, some of the unfortunates who ended up braving the icy blasts from the elevators and open grill windows turned out to be some of James Jones' closest friends, like Betty Comden and Adolph Green. "I think these seating arrangements were made before they read the reviews," joked Miss Comden good-naturedly, referring to the hit status of her new musical "On the Twentieth Century," which had opened a few nights earlier, Adolph Green sent his son Adam into the mess hall for periodic reports on what the "grownups" were doing, while Phyllis Newman sang songs by Rodgers and Hart and Miss Comden poured coffee for Kurt Vonnegut, Karen Lerner, Barbara Loden, Elia Kazan and Earl Wilson.

"This is tourist class." piped Art Buchwald, sticking his head through the door. rf 'VVxi T-V" If; co CO TOk RAVE SOULS who stood in line for chuckwagon-slyle grub got something called beef floren-tine, which looked like moussa- ISTINGUISHED WORTHY. I IJ 1 Words James Jones grew accus- tomed to in his long career as a literary figure. But now the adjectives applied to a party in his honor, and one could only wonder what James Jones would have thought of that. "He would love it, said his widow, Gloria, as she stood in the receiving line Wednesday night greeting stars of the entertainment, publishing and social firmaments.

"He would have said 'Who the are all these and beat the hell outta here," said a two-fisted author who asked not to be identified. But mostly he would probably have agreed with his friend Willie Morris, who looked around and said it was "a pretty fancy party for a boy from Robinson, IU." It was a pretty fancy party for a boy from Yazoo City, where Willie Morris comes from, too, and Morris was the first to admit it In a sense he was being honored, too, because he had taken the unfinished novel James Jones left behind when he died of congestive heart failure on May 9, 1977, in South ampton, at the age of 55. Morris, a neighbor and friend, took it upon himself to finish the three remaining chapters of the 457-page novel, reconstructing words from Jones' own thoughts and language, thus completing a massive war trilogy that began with "From Here To Eternity," continued through "The Thin Red Line," and now ends with the new novel, "Whistle." It is a body of work that took 30 years to write and is considered by many a land mark in American literature. And so, a party was held to celebrate a writer, just dead, and a book, just born. I couldn't find anyone all night who had actually read "Whistle," but everyone was thrilled about the party.

The setting was perfect. Since Jones had devoted most of his life to writing about war, somebody decided it was only fitting that the party be held at the Armory, on Park where dinner was served in the Seventh Regiment mess hall. "What is this place?" asked a bewildered Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, at which point one of the waiters leaned over and replied: "My National Guard unit used to train here!" Irving Lazar, the literary agent, made it clear that guests were invited to celebrate, not to mourn. The word "posthumous" never came up. "The problem," said Carol Duffy, a cracker-jack publicist from Delacorte Press, publisher of "Whistle," was to find a way to kick off a book that is a major literary event, when there was no author around to do talk shows.

We agreed to stage a kind of literary toast that would be dignified but still un." It was the kind of night that brought out family feelings, too. The William Styrens brought their children, Tommy and Susanna. James Jones' children, Jamie and Kaylie, stood in the receiving line with their mom. Adolph Green and Phyllis Newman brought Amanda and Adam. Guests were asked to dress up the event with black tie attire, but News Photo by Richard Corkerv For James Jones' "pretty fancy party for a boy from Robinson, III." ka, along with Waldorf salad, beans, cold fish and a dessert that looked like instant pudding served in a plastic orange, but tasted like Lysol.

But it was not a night for complaining. It was the kind of uncanny hayride that found Susan Sontag sitting at the same table with Stanley Siegel. Kevin McCarthy read the moving bugle taps scene in "From Here to Eternity." Lauren Ba-call read a passage from "The Thin Red Line," Martin Gabel read something from "Whistle," and Norman Mailer looked glum throughout. Theodore "Making of the President" White grabbed Shirley MacLaine at the bar and said: "I just told some broad from Women's Wear Daily I wouldn't vote for you for President, but the Senate is O.K." Marion Javits was smoking a cigar and turning green. "I always smoke whatever anybody puts in my hand, but it usually makes me feel better than this!" Mike Nichols talked to George Plimpton, Irwin Shaw talked to Tom Wolfe, Mike Wallace talked to Diana Vreeland, and Karen Lerner talked to me about James Jones: "He was a total Naif.

I was with him the first time he went to Elaine's. He had never heard of Elaine's. He didn't even know he was at a bad table in the back of the room. He didn't even know what tortellini was. But he had a ball." He was a former boxer who talked salty and wrote tough.

This time Elaine herself had come to his party and he wasn't even there. He would probably, in the final analysis, have gone home wondering what the hell it was all about. But he would have gone home smiling. as they streamed in from the cold night, it became apparent that some guests had ideas of their own. Woody Allen, his brow furrowed with worry wrinkles, wore a wool jacket, chinos and hush puppies.

"Would you believe nobody told me it was a tie affair?" he moaned. "Would you have worn one if they did?" "No, but I would have worried more." Joe Armstrong, the coltish young publisher and editor-in-chief of New York magazine, kept asking everyone to smell his bow tie. "It's an old blue tie which I painted with black shoe polish," he grinned, showing a label of the twfrsizes-too-big tuxedo he was wearing. "It's an After Six from the and store in Abilene, and I wore it to the high school prom." He's never bothered to buy a new one. Tommy Thompson, who wrote "Blood and Money," arrived with Shana Alexander.

The Walter Cronkites talked to Barbara Walters. Carl Bernstein talked to his wife Nora Ephron, while Miss Ephron's ex-husband, Dan Greenburg, smiled pleasantly. Pat Kennedy Law-ford stood in the chow line trying to pick Chinese mushrooms out of the meat salad. John and Mary Lindsay talked about tnelr ski trip. Peter Beard talked about photographing crocodiles.

Sargent Shriver talked about his trip to Russia. Elia Kazan, Budd Schulberg and Sam Spiegel, the trio that made "On The Waterfront," posed for the flashbulbs like grinning East Side Kids. Schulberg, someone recalld, was the man who introduced James Jones to his wife Gloria after Kazan had hired her to play a cocktail waitress in "On The Waterfront." Mrs. Jones, a pretty woman with a plump countenance, wall-to-wall teeth and a grin as big as Rhode Island, Looking Down on Big PcodldJSflmicp mmMlhe MoviesBy KATHLEEN CARROLL CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING. Juliet Berts, Dominique Labourier.

Directed try Jacques Rivette. At the Cinema Studio. Running time: 3 hours, 13 minutes. No Ratin. With English titles.

get for murder. But who is the potential murderer? Is it the child's fragile-looking aunt (Bulle Ogier) who seems so anxious to seduce her brother-in-law? Or is it her mother's former friend (Marie-France Pisier), a woman who, for some reason, cannot stand the smell or flowers? Or do these characters even exist? Are they mere extensions of the girls' vivid imaginations? One is never sure of the answers to these questions, and, after three hours and 13 minutes, "Celine and Julie Go Boating" becomes a pretty frustrating experience. It was intended mainly as an improvisational exercise for its actors who have been given total freedom by Rivette. All four of the film's stars, Juliet Berto, Dominque Labourier, Miss Ogier and Miss Pisier are given screenplay credit and it's more than obvious that thay invented their own dialogue, most probably on the spot. While they arc performers of considerable appeal, the rewards' for one's patience: with this film are Jacques Rivette's films present a difficult challenge for audiences in that they are not only overly long, but they also are apt to be confusing in the sense that Rivette, like a good magician, deliberately mixes realtity with illusion.

Rivette's "Celine and Julie Go Boating" involves two delectably daffy young women who became obsessed with an ivy-covered mansion and its strange inhabitants two women, a man and his young child. Each day Celine and Julie take turns returning to the house and, after jogging their memories with a piece of candy, try to make sense ouVof what they have seen. They both suspect the child is a tar This airviewi'vf Dallas was shot the triangles and quadrangles of city's Workman Jim Hale, 27, is replacing light bulbs in the tower. "j'htrer's nighttime lighting is one of Dallas's major spectacles..