COURT FREEZES TOMLIN FILM DISTRIBUTION

The producers of a documentary about Lily Tomlin’s Broadway hit, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” have been ordered to halt distribution of the film in a dispute with the actress over footage from the play and scenes shot in her hotel and dressing rooms.

Superior Court Judge John L. Cole issued the order Wednesday in response to Tomlin’s concerns that the 90-minute documentary, “Lily,” could jeopardize her efforts to market video rights to the play to national pay-television services.

Tomlin estimated in court papers that video, recording and other rights to the production are worth $3 million.

Producers Joan Churchill and Nicholas Broomfield, who developed the documentary in part through a commission from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, argued that the order would violate their First Amendment rights to exhibit their film.

“I think there’s no question (but) that a motion picture is a protected expression,” and protected by constitutional guarantees against prior restraint, said their attorney, Dennis M. Perluss.

“There’s no First Amendment right to appropriate other people’s material,” responded Daniel M. Sklar, Tomlin’s lawyer.

The dispute centers around Tomlin’s contention that what was to have been a “work process” documentary about the making of the Tony Award-winning play and how it evolved through the writing and rehearsal process to a finished production, actually turned into an “entertainment vehicle” composed primarily of footage from the play.

While the contract called for including only 15 minutes of the actual production and 15 minutes of the same scenes in pre-production form, the final piece shows different scenes in pre-production stages, and the end result is that nearly a fifth of the play is reproduced in the documentary, Tomlin contends.

Moreover, Tomlin said the producers included scenes shot in hotel suites and dressing rooms and clips from some of her earlier television productions without her approval. At least an hour of the 90-minute film is now made up of entertainment sequences, she said in her lawsuit filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The producers insist they complied with the terms of the contract, because the additional 15 minutes of show footage is, indeed, from pre-Broadway productions. “This second 15 minutes is definitely ‘formative’--that is, it differs from the final form of the material as actually performed in the show,” they argued in papers filed with the court.

They said Tomlin gave them oral authorization to use the earlier film clips, and had originally agreed to allow footage from the dressing room areas to be included in the documentary.

“What she’s really trying to do is exert creative control over the film--she doesn’t like the film,” Perluss told the court.

But Cole said the fact that 20% of the play is reproduced in the film is “clearly a species of unfair competition.”

He scheduled an Aug. 4 hearing for further arguments on whether the order should be extended.