WRITERS SCURRYING BEFORE STRIKE VOTE

There’ll be no joy in Hollywood if the Writers Guild of America votes to strike tonight, but studios won’t be reaching for the panic button either.

While writers’ and producers’ representatives were trying feverishly to stave off a strike, screenwriters were working virtually round the clock to line studio shelves with scripts by midnight Thursday, when the guild’s TV and movie contract expired.

“There are going to be a lot of bleary-eyed writers at the (strike) meeting tonight from having pulled all-nighters all week,” said literary agent Patrick Faulstich. “It’s not unlike finals time during spring quarter.”

Agents, producers and executives have been pressing writers to deliver by Thursday. They’ve also been frantically deal-making to commission screenplays that writers could contemplate--informally and discreetly, of course--if they find themselves on strike for an extended period.

What the writers can’t do during a strike is attend script meetings, which effectively shuts down the development process by which projects inch their way through revisions toward production. Studio executives, however, now have plenty of scripts in hand to mull over. Those that are ready will be circulated to directors and actors for possible production. And “go” productions with finished screenplays would proceed as planned.

Executives say that only a strike of several months would hurt the studios. (TV production with its heavy output and tight schedules would be harder hit.)

“We’ve been stowing away a few chestnuts and putting a lot of stuff in the pipeline as preparation for production,” said Columbia Pictures Executive Vice President Robert Bookman. “The main thing has been making sure that our producers delivered the scripts that were feasible to deliver without affecting the quality.”

Many agents and writers say that studios will quickly discover that script quality has suffered under intense deadline pressure. “It’s a very difficult thing to do to a writer,” acknowledged producer Craig Zadan, who was delivered one script last Friday, one on Monday, and was hoping for a third Thursday. “You have to tell them that even if it’s not perfect, even if it’s not what they would normally consider their best work, they have to get it in.”

“The studios know they’re going to have problems,” said screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson (“All of Me”), who turned in a script this week. “Even though we can’t stop the cameras, we stop the pipeline, and it’s filled at the moment with a lot of stuff that was rushed out.”

If there is a strike, writers won’t stop writing. Many will turn to projects of their own creation that could be sold “on spec” when the strike is over.

“That’s the ultimate strength of the writers guild,” said Robinson. “Actors or directors have to wait for a strike to end. We’ll work on the best ideas we have, which are our own ideas. And then,” he added with a laugh, “we’ll sell them for a hundred jillion dollars.”

‘SILVER’ SCREEN: Mention writer-director Joan Micklin Silver to many moviegoers and they flush with affection for three of the ‘70s’ best-loved comedies: “Hester Street,” “Between the Lines” and “Chilly Scenes of Winter” (first released, disastrously, as “Head Over Heels.”)

That mid-’70s trio launched an array of young talent--Carol Kane, Jeff Goldblum, John Heard, Lindsay Crouse, Peter Riegert, Mary Beth Hurt--and remains popular on the repertory circuit. But none of the films was a big box-office hit, and Silver’s feature career hit a dead end.

“Finnegan Begin Again,” a made-for-cable film directed by Silver, started its Home Box Office run this week. Ironically, the film has a much bigger budget (about $4 million) than any of Silver’s theatrical features and also features her first “name” cast: Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Preston.

Silver, in town for a screening of “Finnegan,” described herself as an “underused resource.” There were occasional offers from studios in recent years, she said, but none of substance. She spent years developing a script about a middle-aged woman, but that choice of character was repeatedly deemed uncommercial.

Frustrated by her opportunities in film, Silver has spent the last few years working in New York theater. She just finished an Off Broadway revue (“A . . . My Name Is Alice”) and begins rehearsals later this year on “Rags,” a big-scale Broadway musical. She’s also preparing a new cable-TV movie to star many of the performers she’s worked with in the past.

As for her ‘70s legacy: “Almost every day someone comes up to me and says how much they loved something I’d done,” she said. “And it’s always a different one.”

EASTERN FRONT: The Czechoslovakian state film agency has notified Milos Forman that it will permit distribution of “Amadeus,” the Czech native’s first film to be shown there since he left the country in 1969.

“I am very happy that not only my friends but my compatriots who speak the same language that I learned as a boy will be able to see my work,” said Forman, who received a telex from Prague Tuesday. “I hope that this is a breakthrough for other (Czech) directors as well.”

Forman, who has two sons still in Czechoslovakia, speculated that acclaim and Oscar nominations for “Amadeus” put pressure on the government there to allow the film in. Will he attend opening night? “If they’ll invite me, I’ll gladly go.”

CASTINGS: Robert De Niro will star in “The Mission,” the Warner Bros.-Goldcrest drama set in 18th- Century South America. Roland Joffe (“The Killing Fields”) directs. . . Another Warner Bros.-Goldcrest epic, “Revolution 1776,” will star Al Pacino as an “American reluctantly swept into the turbulence following the Declaration of Independence.” Hugh Hudson (“Chariots of Fire,” “Greystoke”) begins shooting on March 18 in England.

Harry Dean Stanton is co-starring with Mary Steenburgen in Walt Disney’s “Father Christmas,” about a skeptical woman who learns to believe in Christmas. Production began Feb. 11.