Daily News from New York, New York • 591

the drain iridiir clown HOLLYWOOD By Marilyn Beck! By DOUGLAS WATT If 1 4' WHAT BEGAN AS A QUIET, no fault divorce between "Fletch" producer Peter Douglas and his wife of four years, Blanche, has turned into another bitter Hollywood palimony case. Douglas soon-to-be ex-spouse is suing on grounds of breach of oral contract (among other things) based on the year and a half the couple lived together prior to marriage. i Blanche, a Beverly Hills deputy district attorney, is demanding support, half the property acquired by the couple during their live-in relationship, plus at least $100,000 in damages, stating her intention to amend the amount after ascertaining "the full extent and value" of Douglas" Vincent Pictures, Inc. Peter 29, Kirk Douglas' third son, is on a European holiday and, friends say, is badly shaken up by this latest turn of affairs. He's not expected back until the end of the month.

But his attorney, Daniel Jaffe, says a countersuit was filed last week, but that i-, it. A IiIac lotto SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. Moslc.l on the Its? r5i tha Gershwin. E3HOUGH IT IS splashy and in living color, ''Singin' in the Rain," which opened at the Gershwin last night, is a pallid imitation of the celebrated Gene Kelly-Debbie Reynolds-Donald O'Connor movie, generally regarded as the best of the MGM musical films. It's not just that Kelly is missing, though that counts for a lot.

For while the famous dance is re-created practically verbatim, following the original Kelly-Stanley Donen choreography, the winning star's absence is keenly felt. Don Correia, who plays the part, is a nimble and accomplished dancer, but with the personality of a chorus boy, not a star. feoivtiu nnvnn needs reminding Don Correia and Mary D'Arcy 1 licoS Lliai that this is the story, concocted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, of the time the late 1920s when movies made transition from silents to talkies. The shrill voice of the comely silent star Lina Lamont had to be replaced by the sweet dubbed-in one of a winsome movie hopeful. Faye Grant makes almost as vivid and funny an impression in the part as Jean Hagen did in the Overlooking the unfortunate lack of vibrancy 2 4,., rvirrpia and the songful but placid document has not yet maae we i.

refuses to comment on its contents, but I ve learned on good authority that it contains accusations destined to accelerate the battle into an even uglier war. FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT: Robert Redford has quietly become involved in editing Desert certainly won hurt the future of the Jon Volght-JoBeth Williams drama that seemed destined not to generate much attention. "Bloom," about a Las Vegas 13-year-old coping with her father's alcoholism and mother gambling habit was directed by Gene Coor for Redford production company. Williams reports that while Redford "did, to a degree," oversee production from a distance, he stayed away from the set "I sure he felt that he didn't want to undermine Gene by being there breathing down his I'm told that with Redford breathing his creativity into post-production of the film. Columbia is so high on the film it is Planning to accord it a major release euwj of the Painted Doll," "Temptation" and, truly out of nowhere.

Gordon Jenkins' "Blue Prelude." The evening ends, a brave smile on its face, with reprises of "Would "You Are My Lucky Star" and, the entire cast jouncing about in yellow slickers, "Singin' in the Rain." Whistling in the dark was -more like it. Hansford Rowe and Richard Fancy give sound performances as, respectively, the studio head and the excitable director, and most of the supporting players are capable. But even with Santo Loquas-to's bright and imaginative scenery, which includes a long white sedan with running board, Ann Roth's striking costumes, and Jennifer Tipton's excellent lighting, this is a colorless occasion. The many black-and-white movie sequences, essential to the plot, keep reminding us of the show's source. It's a little like re-creating "Top Hat" minus Astaire and Rogers.

111 U1C ijiaid, w. Mary D'Arcy, the evening is on its surest footing when everybody is tapping and singing madly to the cheery Nacio Herb Brown-Arthur Freed songs from the film. But the play includes, foolishly for the most part, other numbers of theirs and different writers. Unhappily, what was probably O'Connor tore-most screen dance 'Em is wasted here in a helter-skelter dance by Peter Slutsker. The book doesn't intrude too much on the fancy i.

firct half most of it conventional FOREIGN AFFAIRS: It's not just Americans i f- "Ramhn I've lust returned wno ve guiie r. Kvi i tnk 4ont tn Kincanore and Bali, and in hotn but spirited tapping and ballroom stuff. The show falls to pieces in the second half with a long-winded mishmash song-and-dance routines dredging up, among other things, snatches of Wedding tfcose garden spots the Sylvester Stallone Picture is a subject of conversation everywhere and Stallone is undoubtedly Hollywood's hottest export of the mo-nient I found it particularly humorous to note the way the flick was being ballyhooed at one major Singapore theater with a banner proclaiming. Its cost: $28 million, U.S.!" i AND THE WINNER IS: Marlee Marthn has landed the lead in Paramount "Children of a Lesser God" The 19-year-old Chicago area resident who spent eight years training with the Children Theater 8 the Deaf-has just completed a run a legit Production of the drama at Chicago's Immediate Theater Company. It was a video tape of her work the show that led to her casting in the film.

4, i Pat O'Haire At least the rain dance works irtvt noircr havp been made. STRANGE TASTES: A bearded John Ritter, witn dancer Cynthia Gregory, yet, dropped in the other night at the Provincetown Playhouse to take in Charles Buschs camp comedy, "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom." There's talk about a West Coast Production of this show. What part could he play? Aough thev swore the New York production of "Aren We All'" would end July 21 and that would be it. it turns out now that Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert plan to take a bit of a vacation, then gear up again in the fall and tour the Frederick Lonsdale play in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington. They won be taking the rest of the cast along with them however George Rose is already rehearsing for "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." opening in Central Park next rninth; Jeremy Brett is returning to England to film further adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Lynn Redgrave has her own plans made.

On the tour, the supporting actors will all be different. CHANGING PLACES: "As Is." the new play about the AIDS crisis at the Lyceum, will have a West Coast production, with Richard Thomas in the Jonathan Hogan role. He may even replace Hogan in thepart on Broadway, as Hogan is committed to be in "Foxfire on the West Coast, with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy repeating their Broadway roles. Hogan would play the Keith Carradine part AMERICAN MUSIC: Since tomorrow is Independence Day. it's time for a little Americana, so the Arie String Quartet is bringing out some of its traditional 2 when it plays at the Atrium, 61 W.

62d at 6 (It's a free concert, incidentally.) The group will performing the first strmg quartet wntten.n America. And the one and only stnng quartet ever froth Ore Rpnlamln the stage version When "Singin" was in rehearsal, it was aDDarent that the most important dance num-be? simply wasn't working. It was set on a fecial stage with a drain basin underneath to lave the water for recycling. The stage came out the rain came down and the dram worked properly What didn't work were the dancers. They couldn't dance.

They slipped. They slid. They fell. Something had to be done. Steve Wolf, owner of S.

Wolf's, was called. He and his veep. Tom Kucar. ooked at the problem, and 15 minutes later, solved it. Wolf s.

ft seems has a fast-drying polyurethane-type enameTusually used by the Coast Guard for its ships and by auto repair shops for their floors -We put a little grit into it to give it the consistency of ndpaper Kucar explained -The wooitayanaa Igg- By PATRICIA O'HAIRE Strange are the alliances one finds in a Broadway show. One would think that a big musiS lVe Singin' in the Rain" would I have nothing at all in common with a Coast Guara cutter. Or an auto repair shop. TheIil have the same paint on their boards The movie "Singin' in the Ram" had Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor dancing on the street in California in some pretty foul weather Witt Tno trouble, either. But trying to replace that on Broadway is quite a different matter.

On Broadway.dancing in the ram gets feet wet and shoes soggy. Stages can soak up water and wood takes a lone time to dry and some timasK ifc warps. Daptefs can wet sur CJ faces: get hndkhermar that means it can be used matmees and even- A shop oantWAveana ings. A real trouper. savea me uay ritten oy one oi oujj.

vvwi fraVUbV Whereelse would you learn such things? 1.