FILMEX’S NEW GUIDING LIGHT

The beams from searchlights fan back and forth, crisscrossing in the sky. Black limos deposit famous people in evening wear. An announcer, with the spiel of a carny barker, alerts a swooning crowd to new arrivals.

What is this, the Academy Awards? Clips from the premiere of the 1954 version of “A Star Is Born”? How about a look ahead to the opening night of Filmex ’86 and the world premiere of “Police Academy III”?

Nothing in that scene is currently planned, but don’t count any of it out. Jerry Weintraub, newly elected chairman of the 15-year-old Los Angeles International Film Exposition, known for its changing venues and foreign menus, says the festival from now on is going to be a festival-- parties, galas, stars, razzle-dazzle and some Hollywood movies to boot.

“Everything--I want to do it all,” says Weintraub, relaxing with a drink and a cigar in his office at the Burbank Studios, where he is in post-production on the Peter Falk comedy “Happy New Year.”

“It will truly be a festival. This is the town, this is where it was born, this is where the best film festival in the world should live. If Cannes can do it, we can do it better. If Venice can do it, London, New York, we can do it better . . . “

“It (the festival) has been outside the Hollywood mainstream, but it’s going to get back in,” Weintraub says. “This is Hollywood. This is Detroit. This is the home of the industry.”

There you have it. The new chairman of Filmex (a gold star to anyone outside the industry who can name the old one; answer below) believes it is Hollywood’s birthright to host the best film festival on earth, and while it may be hard for film purists to imagine “Police Academy” or (gulp!) a TV movie being part of that, it occurs to Weintraub.

“We’re not going to sell out the artistic integrity of the festival; that (the foreign product) is going to be there. But there are going to be plenty of American films.”

And TV movies?

“It’s an important part of the industry today,” Weintraub says. “There are terrific writers and directors involved in that area and it shouldn’t be snubbed or looked down on.”

Weintraub says he is attaching Filmex ’86 to the 50th anniversary of the Directors Guild of America. There will be a tribute to a different director each night. Starting in 1987, he says, there will be prizes.

“A festival can never live without a competition,” he says. “I’ll go head to head with Cannes for films. I’ll go head to head with anybody.”

No one can accuse Weintraub, one of Hollywood’s wealthiest and most influential leaders, of holding back. One becomes a mover and shaker by moving and shaking. That’s why Atlantic Richfield Co. Vice President William McGee, the outgoing chairman, and Wendy Goldberg, a charter board member, talked him into it.

“I had been chairman for 2 1/2 years,” says McGee, “and for two of those, it was very apparent to me that Filmex needed a heavy hitter from the industry in the job. I’m elated that we finally have one.”

Weintraub is not just a heavy hitter. He’s Pedro Guerrero with Tommy Lasorda’s contacts. He started out organizing Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson concerts. He was Neil Diamond’s agent. He started one of the most successful management firms in the entertainment industry, and has produced several hit movies (“Diner,” “Nashville,” “The Karate Kid”).

He is also a tireless and efficient fund-raiser, a fact that makes Larry Scherzer, Filmex’s chief financial officer, brim with optimism.

“No doubt we need more community support to break even,” says Scherzer, a tax partner at Arthur Young and Co. “I think it’s a great coup to get him. He’s got the ability to attract major industry people to be part of Filmex.”

Although Filmex’s debt has been lowered since the brouhaha that drove founder Gary Essert out in 1983, it’s still estimated at nearly $300,000. It’s a nickels-and-dimes figure in a megabuck business, Weintraub says, “but somebody’s got to go out and collect the nickels and dimes.”

“It’s a silly amount of money to have as a debt,” he says. “If they owed $27 million, I could just turn my back on it. But $270,000? You have to be able to dig that up in this town.”

Weintraub will use the same shovel he uses to dig money up for other causes: th e favor. Forget what you’ve heard about sex and lust. The major contact between the money people in Hollywood is back-scratching.

“Fund-raising is a reciprocal kind of thing,” says Wendy Goldberg. “You give to mine, I’ll give to yours. Jerry is a generous person. He has helped a lot of people with his energy, his time and his money.”

Essert, who is now developing American Cinematheque, a theater complex that will be devoted to art house fare, says Weintraub’s guidance is what Filmex has always needed.

“He is the absolute perfect person to get things done here,” Essert says. “He has the energy, the diligence and the commitment to make it work.”

Weintraub has already announced plans to form an advisory panel made up of hand-chosen writers and directors who will work with Filmex Artistic Director Ken Wlaschin in selecting films for the festival. He also intends to expand the board from its current 45 to 60 and lace it with industry people.

“You know I’m going to get everybody,” he says, smiling. “I have to, and they have to do it for me. That’s the fun of getting things done in this business.”

Weintraub says he’s already gotten several key Hollywood figures to agree to participate, including heads of studios, and will release a complete list in the next 10 days. He says he’s putting people on the board who can get things done.

One of the first things he did as Filmex chairman, he says, was ask Jim Spitz, head of distribution at Columbia Pictures, to talk with Plitt Theaters about designating its Century City complex as the permanent home for Filmex.

“Henry Plitt is a terrific guy and I’m sure he likes Filmex,” Weintraub says. “I’d rather let somebody from the picture business talk to him than some banker from Downey.”

Weintraub expresses support for McCormick and Wlaschin, who’ve organized the last two festivals, and they say they support him and his plan to draw the festival closer to the Hollywood mainstream.

“For people to think good movies are not made here is just nonsense,” McCormick says. “Hollywood is the inspiration for what has happened all over the world.”

Wlaschin is not quite ready to embrace “Police Academy” as a festival-worthy movie, but the former director of the London Film Festival says he’d be happy to show the best film from each studio.

“You’d expect they’d want to put their best film forward,” Wlaschin says. “If the best was ‘Police Academy,’ then there are people who’d want to see it.”

Even the most hard-line detractors of Filmex’s past global grab-bag philosophy (as many as 180 features are shown each year, some of them in English) may object to having youth-raunch films included, and purists will go into apoplexy.

Whether the festival will actually go that far to accommodate Hollywood remains to be seen, but clearly, the move to Weintraub is a move toward the commercial mainstream, and he says he isn’t worried about how critics will react.

“We’re in the entertainment business here, that’s what we do,” he says. “We’re not in the judgment business.”