DELIVERING ‘LETTER TO BREZHNEV’ ON A POSTAGE-STAMP-SIZE BUDGET

“What we did with this film,” said Margi Clarke, red-ringed, mouth grinning, platinum-blond hair blowing in the wind, “was bring together the upper-class unemployed and the working-class unemployed to give each other a job.”

Margi Clarke is one of the leads in “Letter to Brezhnev” (at the Goldwyn Pavilion). Made on a shoestring budget of $75,000, it has earned enthusiastic critical attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fine. But how does a group of out-of-work Liverpudlians--or, if you prefer, denizens of Liverpool--with no previous moviemaking experience and no friendly bank manager, get such a venture off the ground?

“I just told you,” said Clarke, scrabbling around for a cigarette. “One day my brother Frank, who wrote ‘Letter to Brezhnev,’ got a call from someone asking if he could put up a friend for the night.

“ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but they’ll have to use the mattress where the dog sleeps. There’s no other room.’ The person who turned up was Fiona Castleton, who was on her way to join her family on the Isle of Man. We didn’t know it then but they’re really rich.

“Anyway, a bit later she asked Frank to visit her on Man so we all pooled our dole (unemployment) money and paid for his trip. That’s when he told Fiona’s father about his script. He said it would cost 50,000 to make it--and Fiona’s father gave it to him. Then her family all got very involved with the film.”

Directed by Chris Bernard, the movie was shot in three weeks in Liverpool streets and in the homes of friends. It concerns two women, one of whom (Alexandra Pigg) is determined to go to the Soviet Union to join a Soviet sailor she met on shore leave.

“We all got a 5-a-day allowance (about $7),” said Clarke “but 2 million worth of energy went into that film, I can tell you. It does show you don’t have to spend a fortune to make an interesting film, doesn’t it?”

Clarke, 29, one of 10 children who grew up in poverty, used to make a living stuffing pillows in a bed factory. After turning to acting, she worked in television for a while, then went to live in Paris where she supported herself as a singer. After her brother wrote “Letter to Brezhnev,” she came back to Liverpool to do the stage version at the Unity Theater.

Now, with the London Standard’s most promising newcomer award (for “Letter . . . “) behind her, she finally feels she’s getting somewhere. Just before coming here, she read for a new play to be staged at Britain’s National Theatre.

But whatever happens, she says nothing will ever be more exciting than the London premiere of “Letter to Brezhnev.”

“Everyone was there,” she said, “just everyone. Because of the story, even the correspondent for Tass (the Soviet news agency) came along. We were all too scared to talk to him. But not my mother. She took him in hand and got him drunk. On vodka, of course.”

REAL: Hoggle is the ugly, gnomelike little creature who features very largely indeed in muppeteer Jim Henson’s new movie, “Labyrinth” (opening June 27).

Henson knew his latest creation was going to succeed when, at a press conference in New York, reporters began holding up hands to question Hoggle about the movie.

“They weren’t looking at my son Brian, who was standing to one side doing Hoggle’s voice, or the four puppeteers controlling his facial expressions electronically,” said Henson this week. “They were actually trying to talk to Hoggle. It was fascinating.”

Henson teamed up with George Lucas to make this fantasy about a young girl (Jennifer Connelly) who sets out to rescue her infant brother, kidnaped by goblins and their ruler, Jaret (David Bowie). The perilous journey features a whole new set of Henson creations--including one, Humongous, who’s 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

“Halfway through, we realized there were certain similarities to both ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ” said Henson. “We had to ask ourselves: Is that OK? Yes, we decided, it was OK. Those are both terrific films.”

One of Henson’s concerns before starting, since Ridley Scott was already at work on his fantasy adventure “Legend,” was that there could be some duplication of ideas.

“I decided to meet him and find out what he was doing,” Henson said. “His film was coming out before ours and it would have been disastrous if we’d done any of the same things--that can happen so easily, you know--but when I went to see him at Pinewood, his set was closed and they wouldn’t let me on. So I never did meet him. But fortunately, our films are very different.”