ALTMAN STAYS ON TARGET WITH OFF-TARGET MOVIES

“It’s frustrating to find yourself in a pigeonhole,” director Robert Altman was saying the other day. “It makes you feel like a pigeon.”

To find Altman’s likeness in the animal kingdom, you’d do better to look in bears’ dens than in pigeonholes. But there he was just a few years ago, a grizzled veteran being pigeonholed by Hollywood as a director whose quirky ensemble style misses that rich teen-age target audience.

Altman, who has directed three of the best films of his generation in “McCabe and Mrs. Miller,” “MASH” and “Nashville,” had a major disappointment in the 1982 “Popeye” (disappointing to Paramount, he says, not to him) and shortly after, he sold his production company here and went to New York to direct plays.

Since then, he has set up a production company in Paris and he only surfaces here, in what he considers a creative dead zone, to talk about the plays he has translated to film. First, there was “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” followed by “Streamers” and last year’s “Secret Honor.”

The current translation is “Fool for Love,” from Sam Shepard’s Off-Broadway play about a pair of battle-weary lovers (Sam Shepard and Kim Basinger) who ransack their pasts during one emotional night in a run-down New Mexico motel.

Altman says Shepard called him after “5 & Dime” came out and suggested they might work together on “Fool for Love.” Typical of Altman, who demands creative control on all his work, he didn’t ask for Shepard’s help in directing it.

“I told him, ‘It’s your creation, it all came out of your mind, but I’m not going to try to do your play. I’m going to do my film of my perceptions of what your play is. You may not like it.’ ”

Altman says Shepard agreed and there were no creative clashes during the seven-week shooting. In fact, he says, there were few conversations off the set.

“We didn’t discuss it very much; we just did it,” he says, adding that Shepard hasn’t seen the finished film yet and never told him what he thought of the way it was being done.

“I don’t know him very well; we don’t talk much,” Altman says. “Sam is a very private guy, and I didn’t go down there to become his best friend.”

“Fool for Love” was turned down by most of the studios, Altman says, and he was within two days of giving up on the project last year when he got a call from Cannon Films. Cannon, which has been busy trying to shed its image as the Pep Boys of Hollywood, made the deal in one night.

“They have been great,” Altman says. “They don’t like to pay big salaries, but neither do I. They gave me final cut and total control and haven’t interfered in any way. They didn’t even ask how long it was going to be.”

Better yet, Cannon is actually releasing the film, at least in Los Angeles (Dec. 6) and New York, with other markets pending those box-office results.

“O.C. and Stiggs,” the only movie-movie that Altman has directed since “Popeye,” is still sitting on a shelf at MGM/UA, a year and a half after he delivered it.

“They don’t know what to do with it,” he says. “It’s a satire on teen-age films and what they want is a teen-age film.”

Altman says his experience with “O.C. and Stiggs” is a replay of his experiences with two earlier films and a reminder of why he wants nothing more to do with Hollywood.

“The way studios shuffle people around now, you can’t make a movie fast enough to finish it for the ones who bought it,” he says. “I started with one administration on ‘Stiggs’ and when I was finished, there was another one moving in. The new people didn’t like it.”

Altman says the same thing happened with “Health,” which he directed for 20th Century Fox, and “Remember My Name,” which he produced (Alan Rudolph directed) for Columbia.

On those occasions, Altman infuriated the studios by screening the films for critics and festival committees. He says he’s waiting until Ted Turner takes over MGM to decide his next step with “Stiggs.”

“I’ve heard that Turner likes the picture,” he says. “I’ll talk to him about doing something with it. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll start embarrassing them.”

Altman says his attitude about the new-think Hollywood, run by ex-agents and marketing people, is solidified with each visit. He says in four days here all he had heard was talk about which films will make how much money, as if nothing else mattered.

“The creativity is gone, absolutely gone,” he says. “That’s why I don’t live here anymore. People say, ‘Are you disenchanted with America?’ No, I’m not disenchanted with America, but I am disenchanted with a film community that goes out and takes samplings of the audience so they can manufacture what they think people want to see.

“I know what people want to see in the theater, in art and in film. They want to see something they haven’t seen before. They can’t tell you what that is because they haven’t seen it yet. The question is a waste of time.”

Altman talks about Hollywood in the abstract, knowing that he may get another dose of its reality soon. His next film, “Pret-a-porter,” will be filmed in France but he says he’ll probably try to get it released in the United States by one of the major distributors.

He says “Pret-a-porter” will use one of Paris’ zanier fashion festivals ( pret-a-porter is French for ready-to-wear) as a backdrop for a “Nashville”-style ensemble film using an international cast headed by Cher, Linda Hunt and Susannah York.

In the meantime, Hollywood strikes him as this place where nothing creative grows. Asked what advice he’d give to a talented young director showing up here now, he gives the same answer Watergate witness Gordon Strachan gave when asked what he’d tell young people considering public service.

“I’d say, ‘Get out of here,’ ” Altman says. “Go to Omaha or New Jersey. At least, you’ll have a different perspective.’ ”

There is no passion for film left in Hollywood, Altman says. Or, if there is, it’s not allowed to get out.

“It stays in the pigeonhole,” he says, “with the pigeon.”

PLOTTING ON: Stanley Kramer is out as director of “The Conspiracy,” a film about an assassination plot against Pope John Paul I that is to begin shooting in Yugoslavia in February.

Kramer, who hasn’t directed a film since his 1979 “The Runner Stumbles,” cited script differences in his decision. He had been named to replace Michael Anderson (“Around the World in 80 Days”), who had a scheduling conflict.

Producer Richard Martin said he is close to making a deal with another director and that he still plans to go into production on schedule. However, he may lose some members of the cast that originally included Paul Scofield, Robert Mitchum and Christopher Walken.

“We are trying to hold on to as many as we can,” Martin says. “And I think we will.”

MINING THE FIELD: “King Solomon’s Mines” fought off mostly bad reviews to gross more than $5 million in its opening weekend at 1,122 theaters nationwide.

This must come as especially good news to Cannon Films, since it has already shot a sequel in Africa with star Richard Chamberlain as Capt. Quartermain.

The rest of the weekend’s new releases, according to Daily Variety, were:

Goldwyn’s “Once Bitten,” which continued to gnaw at the box office. After two weekends it claimed $6.5 million.

“One Magic Christmas,” which had a not-so-magical beginning for Disney, grossing only $2.6 million.

“Starchaser: The Legend of Orin,” the 3-D animated adventure from Atlantic, which managed $1.6 million.

“Bad Medicine,” from Fox, which had a sickly debut weekend with only $1.2 million.