Daily News from New York, New York • 98

-1 Eeteintsiiminnieinit 1-5 3 iff I By DAVID HINCKLEY AN AUGUST dav in 1974 PhiliDDe Petit Trade Center walk because he was writing a movie about it, and who would produce the movie if everyone already knew all the details? A bit of the New Yawk hustler somewhere inside Killy? Well, yes. But Petit isn't concerned; he feels no need to reel in ironies merely because he cast them forth. "I do not analyze." he says. It's probably just as well, too; for one thing, he doesn't have the time. Besides juggling and wire-walking, he also writes prose and poetry.

He 0 strung a cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center and spent 45 min Jean-Claude Killy; he has that daring, romantic air that all men aspire to, but somehow only the French achieve. You can picture him as a wartime pilot in a tavern the night before a mission, talking of terrible danger, even certain death, then waving his hand ever so slightly in dismissal, as if to say he has somehow already conquered the worst by understanding it Still, Petit must be pressed to admit that his adventures tend to be performances; but he does, after all, consider the world a stage. "When I perform, it is my theater, my way of expressing my thoughts and ideas," he says. The Big Apple Circus ECAUSE OF THAT, Petit doesn't compare himself to anyone else. "Maybe I am not the best; someone is always better" he says.

is a new high for Philippe Petit utes walking back and forth on it, lying down, juggling and otherwise doing things that most of us couldn't have done on the sidewalk, 1,350 feet below. Subsequently he walked across the top of Notre Dame in Paris and between two bridges in Sydney. He plans "several" more such strolls, just as spectacular and just as illegal. It is his destiny, he says; like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, he sees something and knows he has a mission to complete before he can rest "I do not analyze why," he says. "I just know I must do it" Petit's wire walks the next few weeks will be somewhat more conventional; he's the special guest artist with the Big Apple Circus, which opens its five-week holiday run tonight at Lincoln Center.

But he insists that artistically, they mean no less. "Lincoln Center is very important to me," he says, sitting in a chilly warmup gym at the circus' E. 104th St headquarters. "I am challenging myself. I will be be doing a show I have never done before.

It is as if I have been working 16 years to put these nine minutes together." What people will see at Lincoln Center, he says, is his public performer side, the Petit he calls "the street juggler, putting on a show and passing the hat." It is different from the Petit who is obsessed with walking between large, tall things like World Trade Centers, the Petit who conquers purely for love and passion. "When I was on the wire there, it was a moment of pure joy," he says. "I think it is great to devote a whole chunk of your life to fulfilling one idea, and even greater not even to know why you did it." Lines tend to blur in split personalities, however, and thus it is with Petit when he says, moments later, that he has never told the full story of his "But I do have a strong feeling I am unique." He probably has a point there; he may be the only wire-walker who is dying to walk across Carnegie Hall with full orchestral accompaniment As Petit talks, a dozen other performers from the Big Apple are warming up. Though he's not a veteran here, he fits. "We motivate each other," says Paul Binder, who founded the one-ring circus in 1976 with a single promise: that every paying customer would be close enough to see, hear, smell and almost touch everything that went on.

It's a promise kept; and furthermore, the Big Apple has some of the classiest acts from Michael Moschen's fire-juggling to the acrobatic Back Street Flyers of Harlem to Tarra, the roller-skating elephant Binder and Michael Christensen, the juggling clowns of "Sesame Street," provide the interludes verbal as well as visual. In the end, though, it works because everyone here, like Philippe Petit, has something to say. Most of them simply say it at lower altitudes. The Big Apple Circus runs Dec. 4-Jan.

3, two shows most days. The tent is heated. Tickets at Ticketron, Chargit and Lincoln Center. For information, call 860-7320. assembles his music and costumes.

For this show, he built the master working model of the tent. He would like to direct a movie someday. He would like to form his own circus. Yes, lack of time is his greatest frustration. In general.

On this particular day, though, his specific frustration is a broken widget, which has left him grounded. It's the last place a wire-walker wants to be, and he looks restless, like Mayor Koch with no cameras turned on. In fact, if Mayor Koch could walk the high wire and Petit could be elected mayor, no one would miss a beat. If Petit were one size bigger, he could be All that glitters is 'On Golden Pond' IROM WHAT I'VE seen of this year Christmas futile attempts to cradle him in her arms while trying vainly to rouse the sleepy country telephone movies, we are in for thistles and briars instead nf hollv and mistletoe. The single most lovine exception is On Golden Pond, a film only the most curmudgeonly Scrooge among the critics could sniff at, and a film every person with a heart will cherish and adore.

Katharine Hepburn is 74 years old; Henry Fonda is 77. Combine their ages and experience and you get what adds up to a century and a half of everything that is distinguished and first-class about American acting through the years. On Golden Pond, the first film they've ever appeared in together, REX REED 80th birthday, the bucolic serenity of their country landscape is invaded by their daughter, Chelsea, her new dentist fiance, and the man's tough, defensive, unhappy street-tough kid, with all the baggage of heavy duty jargon and permissive psychology in tow. Leaving behind the unwanted, 13 year-old Billy in the old folks' care, the lovers fly to Europe, and it's up to Norman and Ethel to teach the boy what real life is like "on Golden Pond." Like all great human dramas, this remarkably unclouded work explores with wisdom and subtlety a wide spectrum of intensely felt relationships the conflict between father and daughter who have been estranged for years, between the confused young brat and the two old turkeys, and between the two old people, on the verge of their last days together and not wanting to see the green of summer end for fear it might be their last None of these complex relationships nor the ways in which they are comfortably resolved are ever maudlin or sentimental, and there isn't a cliche in sight Every time the movie almost reduces its audience to sobbing, there's clever laugh to ease the tension and bring everyone back to reality. It's a marvelous triumph.

When I first saw Ernest Thompson's play on Broadway, I kept thinking what a tragedy of bad timing it was that Spencer Tracy was no longer around to make the inevitable movie version with Kate Hepburn. I kept seeing Tracy in the part of Norman, breathing life into each scene, like the one in which the old man is convinced he's living on borrowed time, ranting cantankerously as he reads the want ads aloud, muttering to himself, "I think Til read a new book see if I can finish it before I'm finished. Maybe a novelette." Henry Fonda fills his shoes brilliantly. Norman is a perfect role for him because it's about strength of mind when the apple won't bite. And Ethel is a perfect role for Hepburn because it's full of courage and spunk and indomitable human spirit I'll wager there won't be a dry eye in the house when Fonda has ajieart MirtflOAWIlMgLfilftPfiPri.llltK operator.

1 STTSHESE TWO majestic stars work vigorously but. I w'tn restram starchy good sense, and rivet-U ing honesty. Just watching the two of them together, under Mark Rydell's generous, careful direction, is one of the most magical experiences the contemporary motion picture screen can offer. The supporting players are all perfect, too. Jane Fonda, who produced the film as a tribute to her father, has a small role, but she fills it with luminous moments of her own as the troubled daughter, and when she fights to win her father's love, looking at these two generation-gap Fondas together is like peeking through somebody's keyhole.

Dabney Coleman adds a spark of manly strength as the fiance who will not be intimidated by the eccentric senior citizens, and youngster Doug McKeon displays a sensitivity and intelligence beyond his tender years as the surrogate grandson. All of them contribute to the feeling of small nuances and keenly-observed intimacies that make this an unusual film experience. By working homogeneously, they give the film depth, life, dimension. There is balance, companionship and mutual respect in every shadowy corner of this movie, and the result looks very much like love. Hepburn's voice comes and goes like static on a radio tuned to a distant station, and Fonda has never seemed more physically frail, yet they support each other in more ways than I thought possible touching, watching each other, sharing the camera unselfishly, never hogging the spotlight always knowing when to give the other one center stage.

Finally, they teach us all something valuable about the joy of living and the dignity of growing old. The result is time well spent with people well observed, and when it ends, you'll come to knowta great deal more, about the goodness and richness ever did before you proves that they still y--- 1 have a few surprises left. Kate the Great will probably be around to bury us all, but the werewolves who prowl the Hills of Beverly are predicting this will be Henry Fonda's swan song. I hope they're howling at the moon in vain, but if On Golden Pond does turn out to be the final chapter in his illustrious career, then I cant think of a better way to sign off. His rich and all-encompassing portrayal of 80-year-old Norman Thayer is the sum total of everything that has gone before.

It is his finest work on the screen and I only pray that he sticks around long enough to get the Oscar he is certain to win. On Golden Pond is a warm, engaging, easygoing, sometimes funny, often deeply touching look at the mysteries and adventures of two people in the autumn of their years. For 48 summers, Norman and Ethel Thayer have retired to their rustic lakeside cottage "on Golden Pond" to fish, relax, and look at life through rose-colored binoculars in measured-glances. This peaceful- summer-el I-f.