THIS EXPLORER YARN WENT NOWHERE AT THE BOX OFFICE

By most critical accounts, Graeme Clifford’s “Burke & Wills” is a pretty terrific movie. To paraphrase the better ones, it is a sprawling historical adventure drama that looks about three times as expensive as its $7-million budget.

So far, the movie--based on the true story of an ill-fated exploration of Australia in 1860--has played in seven American cities where it was greeted by 15 good reviews, three so-so reviews and one negative. It got seven positive notices in Los Angeles, including one from The Times’ Kevin Thomas and a bell-ringing 10 from KABC-TV’s Gary Franklin.

But business for “Burke & Wills” has been so dismal that those critics who liked it might have made a bigger impact on its financial outlook had they just bought tickets and kept their opinions to themselves.

“The picture has gotten very good reviews, but even where it gets the good reviews, nobody comes to see it,” said Peter Myers of Hemdale Releasing Corp.

Clifford, a native Australian who has been living in Los Angeles for 16 years, has another theory.

“They (Hemdale) have done nothing to promote it,” Clifford said, angrily. “The reviews were wonderful, but you have to have advertising support, too. If people don’t know the movie’s playing, they won’t come.”

Did you know the movie was playing?

“Burke & Wills” opened in Los Angeles June 19, played in five theaters, and vanished last week. There were periodic newspaper ads, but most days, there were none at all. The openings were accompanied by no posters from Hemdale. The Monica had a poster on display, but it was a leftover from the Australian release, hand-delivered by Clifford.

“There was really no follow-up at all,” said the manager of one of the theaters where “Burke & Wills” played. “Everybody who heard about it heard about it by word of mouth.”

Clifford, whose only previous film was the 1982 “Frances,” has a laundry list of things Hemdale has not done since buying the American rights to “Burke & Wills” from Hoyts Edgley, an Australian distribution and exhibition company. But Clifford’s main contention is that Hemdale is protecting profits from a video sale by cutting back on the costs of the theatrical release.

John Daly, head of Hemdale Film Corp., denied that there were any profits from the video sale of “Burke & Wills,” which was part of a 12-picture, $24-million sale to Embassy Home Entertainment.

“We put up a good guarantee for the picture (to Hoyts) because of our relationship with Graeme, and I am not looking to make a profit on ‘Burke & Wills,’ ” Daly said. “Graeme has never appreciated the mathematics of it.”

Neither Daly nor Myers, who heads Hemdale’s fledgling distribution division, deny that “Burke & Wills” is being given little advertising support. They say the film is being played out in various markets to fulfill requirements of its video sale.

“We did spend money on it in Seattle,” Myers said. “People knew the movie was there. It got good reviews. But still nobody came.”

After seven cities and 20 engagements, Myers said, the economic reality is that the film is costing more to advertise than is being returned in rentals.

“If we spend another $50,000 on it we’ll lose another $40,000,” he said. “Eventually, you have to say, ‘I’ll do the best I can, but I’m not going to throw money away.”

For Clifford, who is beginning production on a feature called “Gleaming the Cube” for Gladden Entertainment, the experience of “Burke & Wills” has been longer and nearly as tortuous as the historical event upon which it is based.

He said it took five years to get the film into production. It was made under excruciating circumstances in the wilderness of Australia. Then, despite critical validation in Australia and America, few people have seen it in either place.

Putting aside the dispute between Clifford and Hemdale, “Burke & Wills” raises a couple of other issues. Is the interest in Australian movies waning with the American art-house crowd? And how can film makers be sure their movies will ever get a decent theatrical chance now that distributors can cover much of their costs--and sometimes actually get into profits--by pre-selling video rights?

Myers, whose solid background in specialty films included the handling of “The Gods Must Be Crazy” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” said he believes Australian films have lost steam here. But more important, he said, is the cost of competing in today’s theatrical market.

“This was obviously not made as a video film,” Clifford said. “It’s appalling for them to spend $100,000 on a movie like this and say there’s no audience for it. They didn’t even try.”

QUALITY ASIDE: Who said that with all the multiplex theaters going up around Los Angeles, that sophisticated suburban moviegoers would have more than the conventional run of major studio movies to choose from?

I did, and obviously I was wrong.

A total of 243 theaters in Los Angeles-area having six or more screens. Right now, only eight of them are occupied by “art house” movies. And seven of those are playing at the Beverly Center!

Cineplex Odeon’s other polyplex, the much ballyhooed 18-theater complex at Universal City, is featuring just one non-Hollywood product and that one--the English comedy “Withnail and I”--is being released by Cineplex Odeon itself.

Far from offering a greater variety of films, the Universal Cineplex is simply assigning theaters by demand, using one or more to handle the overflow from others. We’ll have to be excused for thinking there would have been 18 movies because there were 18 screens.

Currently, “Jaws the Revenge” is in three Universal Cineplex theaters, and “RoboCop,” “Innerspace,” “Dragnet,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in two each.

Thanks a lot.

SECOND-HAND HEART: If you’re dying to see the part of the love scene between Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet that was cut from from Alan Parker’s “Angel Heart” to win an R rating, your video store will soon have it for you.

International Video Entertainment is shipping both the original and R-rated versions of “Angel Heart” Sept. 24, and since the unrated versions were being bought by retailers at about a 9-to-1 ratio over the R, you’re bound to get your chance.

You be the judge. Is the original version of “Angel Heart” so hot that no children under 17 in America should see it, even if their parents were willing to take them?

Parker said this week that he has mixed feelings about both versions being made available on videotape. He is still upset that he had to compromise the film to suit the censors. But he said five states, and a lot of individual retailers, won’t sell or rent unrated tapes, so there was no choice.

The ratings controversy obviated a fair hearing for “Angel Heart” in theaters, and no doubt, the unrated version is going to get a pretty good workout because of the revived 10 seconds. But ultimately, “Angel Heart” will be judged by its overall merits, and it ought to stand that test well.

Parker (“Midnight Express,” “Shoot the Moon”) is one of the top international directors working today and for those who expect a few thrills from their thrillers, “Angel Heart” delivers.