2 MOVIES WEATHER THE STORM IN PHILIPPINES

The political turmoil that occurred over the weekend in the Philippines was monitored closely by two anxious Hollywood film makers, but not because they were hoping to buy the movie rights; they were concerned about what a civil war would do to the films they were about to direct.

Oliver Stone, the Oscar-winning writer of “Midnight Express,” was to have flown to Manila Sunday to take charge of production of “Platoon,” a Vietnam War movie based on his own experiences as an infantryman in Vietnam in the mid-’60s.

Buzz Kulik, a respected TV producer and director, had planned to fly to Manila Saturday to take charge of “Women of Valor,” a CBS television picture about American Army nurses held by the Japanese as prisoners of war during World War II.

But the Manila airport was shut down Saturday after two military leaders started the mutiny that ended Tuesday with the resignation of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

“My people called in the middle of the night and said ‘Don’t come,’ ” Kulik said Tuesday. “For the last few days, we were watching the situation hour by hour.”

“I have been a CNN (Cable News Network) watcher ever since the coup (sic),” said Stone, whose project depends on the cooperation of the ministry of defense, which was in the eye of the storm. “If the military entered into a civil war, we would have had to go to Thailand.”

A civil war would have been costly to both productions. Stone said there have been camps and an entire Vietnam village constructed for “Platoon” and production was to begin March 1. He said the decision to shoot in the Philippines, also the location for Francis Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” was made before Marcos called for the February election.

Stone, who leaves today for Manila, said about a dozen American crew members were in the Philippines when the coup started, but the cast--among them Charlie Sheen, Tom Berringer, Willem Dafoe and Kevin Dillon--wasn’t scheduled to fly in until the end of this week. After the scare, “Platoon’s” start date was only pushed back one week.

“Women of Valor,” which will star Susan Sarandon and Kristy McNichol, will also lose a week, says Kulik, who is now scheduled to join his mostly Philippine crew Saturday.

“My people there say there are no problems,” Kulik says. “Thank God, it looks as if it is all over. We would have been in trouble. We were talking about moving to Brazil or Mexico or Puerto Rico. It would have been a mess.”

SILENT PARTNER: When Michael Alan Eddy sold his first script--”Bedroom Eyes”--four years ago, he could only hope that the movie would be made and that he would end up with a sole screen credit. Later, when he read the version that was actually being shot, he said he was sure he wouldn’t get a sole screen credit. And now that he’s seen the movie, he wishes he hadn’t.

“The script was completely rewritten by another writer and I would prefer that his name was up there, too,” says the 33-year-old Eddy, who read about the Los Angeles opening of “Bedroom Eyes” in a newspaper ad. “At least then I could point to somebody else and say, ‘He did it.’ ”

“Bedroom Eyes,” which opened in more than 50 Southern California theaters Friday, is a psychological thriller about a stockbroker who pauses during his nightly jog to watch some sexual Olympics through a woman’s window and ends up being suspected of her murder.

That’s the plot of the movie anyway. Eddy says that in the script he sold to Canadian producers Robert Lantos and Stephen J. Roth four years ago, the stockbroker gets caught up in a murder after following a voyeur client to the victim’s house.

There’s another change that Eddy doesn’t think constitutes nit-picking to mention.

“The murder victim in my screenplay is the murderer in the movie.”

Eddy, who says two of his subsequent scripts are in development with American producers Freddie Fields and Joe Wizan, was not asked to rework “Bedroom Eyes.” After shopping it unsuccessfully in Hollywood, he sold it outright to the Canadians.

“I was pretty excited because it was my first sale,” he says. “But when I saw the script they were shooting, I felt awful. There were a few scenes left and a little bit of my dialogue. But it was a different script and there was another writer’s name on it. I never thought I’d get a solo credit.”

Producer Lantos, reached at his Toronto office, said there was never any question of Eddy’s getting a solo credit.

“We didn’t think there were enough changes to warrant a second credit,” Lantos said. “It was never even considered.”

Told of Eddy’s complaint that the movie barely resembles his script, Lantos laughed and said, “I think there are a lot of writers who feel that way.”

Anyway, what Eddy envisioned as a Hitchcockian thriller laced with humor and ‘80s visual and verbal explicitness ends up being what he considers just another exploitation film. The movie been released theatrically in Canada and in most foreign markets, Lantos said, to business he described as “good to very good.”

(Its American distributor, Cinecom International, would not provide box-office figures for its opening weekend in here and in San Diego and it was not screened in advance for critics.)

Whatever initial interest there is in the movie may be attributed to its provocative title (“That was mine,” says Eddy) and the sensual artwork being used to sell it. Even Eddy says he likes the advertising image of a man peering through blinds at a woman who, in panties and high heels, is unsnapping her garter belt.

“That’s about the only good thing to come out of all this,” Eddy says. “I’ll get a good poster for my wall.”

RHYMES WITH PEORIA: If you think it’s a show-business cliche to gauge the commercial potential of an act by testing it in Peoria, consider the case of director John Binder’s critically acclaimed UFO spoof “Uforia.”

The movie, which stars Cindy Williams and Harry Dean Stanton, was completed five years ago at a then hefty cost of $5 million, but the film was never formally released.

Its original distributor, 20th Century Fox, decided not to release it after reportedly getting poor audience response at preview screenings, and Universal, which picked it up from Fox two years later, shelved it after test engagements in Peoria and Rockford, Ill., turned out few warm bodies.

Binder says that despite his pleas to Universal to open the movie in the big cities, where he was confident it would get good reviews, the studio simply shelved it.

“From the beginning, they refused to show the film to critics,” says Binder, who is still bitter even though Universal is now giving “Uforia” a limited American release. “They were not about to admit they may have been wrong.”

Binder believes the shelving of “Uforia,” a comedy he wrote after reading a Times article about a couple who were selling rides aboard an alien spaceship, put his career on the shelf too. He has kept busy writing for television, but there have been no further offers to direct.

“Uforia” was rescued from oblivion, he says, by a consultant for the Los Angeles Film Exposition who was able to talk Universal into showing it at the 1984 Filmex. It got good reviews there, and individual theaters began requesting prints from the studio.

The film had a long, healthy run in Boston. Then in January it opened in New York, to rave reviews from most of the major critics.

Universal is obviously not counting on “Uforia” to sweeten the value of MCA stocks. Distribution chief Bill Soady, who was instrumental in buying the movie from Fox, says that even with the good reviews, it’s barely covering its advertising expenses.

Soady acknowledged that the Peoria approach may have been wrong for the movie, but he defends the studio’s thinking at the time.

“It’s a picture about small-town America; we thought it would do better there,” Soady says. “Sometimes, you read it wrong.”

Soady isn’t ready to admit Universal made an error by not releasing “Uforia” in major cities three years ago. Critics are an unpredictable lot. Who knows what they would have said about the movie then?

“Critics love to discover movies,” Soady says. “They had a chance to discover this one.”