DAVID MAMET PLAYS HIS DIRECTING CARD

David Mamet was unhappy with the way the scene was playing. “Back it up to one,” he barked. Clearly relishing this newfangled movie lingo, Mamet quickly added: “I love saying that.”

There’s no doubt about it. He is crazy about directing movies.

That’s right. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (“Glengarry Glen Ross”), the elegant tough-guy dramatist, the Oscar-nomination-bound screenwriter (“The Untouchables”) was having a ball here on the stage of Harrah’s South Shore Room, shooting a scene with a pair of impossibly leggy showgirls.

(The movie, “Things Change,” a comic fable of mistaken Mafia identity co-starring Joe Mantegna and Don Ameche, shoots in and around Lake Tahoe through early November.)

The only thing missing here was the 39-year-old writer-director’s signature--his sly, syncopated, streetwise dialogue. But who needs dialogue when both showgirls look like a new-wave Cleopatra barging down the Nile, outfitted with glittery gold crowns, tiny pasties over their nipples, eyecatching bikinis and spiked heels so high that the girls could probably dunk a basketball without leaving the ground.

The actresses’ routine was simple: Descend a steep stairwell, bat their eyes at a pair of visiting Mafia wise guys, then waltz off across the stage--swiveling around, just for a moment, to offer an enticing farewell smile.

It’s that last look that had Mamet worried. After a second rehearsal, he huddled with his charges. Listening to Mamet offer advice, you’d swear he was on stage, deep in one of his pet hard-boiled characters’ pockets.

It certainly didn’t sound like the kind of acting tip you’d get from Steven Spielberg. “Remember the two parameters of our smile?” Mamet said crisply. “With that second look, be nice and enigmatic, as only you Egyptian girls can do. It’s the fertile crescent, but it’s hotly contested. That’s what you’re saying with that look.”

He took a certain paternal pride in the actresses’ performance--and with good reason. One of the showgirls used to baby-sit for Mamet and his wife, actress Lindsay Crouse.

Watching the showgirls wobble off, adjusting their high heels and certain scanty threads, Mamet raised an eyebrow. “Who’d think my old nanny would end up looking like that ?”

Mamet on why writers are unhappy in Hollywood:

First off, they’re unhappy because they’re in Hollywood. Let’s face the facts. It’s not a good place for writers to be. You need a certain amount of solitude and self-confidence. And it’s hard to develop any confidence if you’re constantly worried whether anyone is going to understand what you’re doing, much less accept your vision. So either the work suffers or the writer suffers. I’m sure there are exceptions. And if anyone knows of any, please write in!

Mamet is an American original--the theater’s angry, underground sensation who’s reached eminence while remaining an outsider. His plays have offended many critics with their gutter language, enchanted others with their volleys of jagged, rhythmic dialogue that recall Hemingway and Howlin’ Wolf as much as Harold Pinter.

On the stage, Mamet’s characters lounge in saloons and body shops, hone their hustles in singles bars and real estate offices--they frequent the shadowy dives where most American dramatists were afraid to go. In his film directorial debut, “House of Games,” opening Friday, Mamet returns to this seamy territory, focusing on a colorful crew of con men who capture the unsettled imagination of an inquisitive psychologist. (“Games” also landed the celebrated closing-night slot at the New York Film Festival and has earned respectful, if mixed, early reviews.)

Because he lives in a tiny Vermont hamlet and rarely sets foot in Tinseltown, it’s tempting to see Mamet as a writer--and an outsider--who’s gone Hollywood, but on his terms. Both “House of Games” and “Things Change” were shot his way--low-budget (both films together cost little more than $10 million), away from Hollywood and with his favorite crew of Chicago actors.

“I really do love film,” Mamet said, tugging on a souvenir Harrah’s cap that obscured his dark brush-cut hair. “When I grew up in Chicago, I’d watch movies all day long, on TV. There are some directors who are just great--Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, John Ford and of course, Stanley Kubrick. Their films all have such astounding moments. And when you’re directing, you’re always looking for those moments--those images--that can make a film go .”

Mamet will never be mistaken for a typical Hollywood director. Wearing a pressed blue work shirt, gray jeans with a snakeskin belt and his round clear-framed spectacles, he looks more like a punctilious acting coach--one of his sideline occupations.

Perhaps it’s Mamet’s unpredictability that makes him so intriguing. He quotes Tolstoy and Dick Clark, his stable of actors includes a Tony winner as well as an ex-nanny, and he’s just as likely to offer a learned discourse on pistol shooting as on Theodore Dreiser.

Oddly enough, Mamet--who comes off in most interviews as something of a pedagogue--has a refreshingly playful sense of humor. He wore a Harrah’s casino cap most of the day at the casino. But during a TV interview, he briefly donned a cap touting rival Caesars casino, giving the Harrah’s publicity exec a major fright.

On the set here, he was relaxed, exceedingly polite and always concerned that everyone’s opinion was voiced and heard--though not always acted upon. Wiry, energetic and built like a college wrestler (he makes time for a 45-minute exercycle workout each day).

Mamet insisted that he encountered few problems making the often bumpy transition from theater to film. “The intensity of the work was a surprise, but it’s really not all that different,” he said. “In a film, you’re creating little 10-second plays all day long. You’re still playing pretend.”

Didn’t he have even a twinge of uncertainty. “Oh, I did have moments of great panic,” Mamet acknowledged. “But you have to conquer them. You just ask yourself, ‘What’s your job today?’ And then you do it.”

Don’t worry--Mamet hasn’t lost his sharp, theatrical edge. During a kitchen scene here, Natalya Nogoluch, who was playing an Italian cook, unleashed a string of Sicilian-style profanities.

Mamet asked what she’d said. “She told me that if I didn’t get out of her way when she was cooking,” explained actor Vinnie Guastaserro, “that she was gonna slit my throat.”

Mamet beamed with approval. “Good!”

On the decline of Western civilization:

Sure I’m pessimistic about the future. Have you ever watched television? Leo Tolstoy once said, “There was never an intelligent man who didn’t feel the world was so evil that it wasn’t going to end immediately.” And I believe him.

Joe Mantegna and Mamet were born two weeks apart in the same rough-and-tumble Chicago neighborhoods, growing up under the spell of the city’s beloved icons--the Cubs, the seedy underworld culture and, of course, the theater. Mantegna has worked with Mamet, on and off, for more than a decade, starring in the premiere of Mamet’s “A Life in the Theater” and winning a Tony for “Glengarry Glen Ross.”

After seeing the pair on a film set, communicating in winks, nods and hushed whispers, you’re immediately reminded of the intimate rapport between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro.

“The whole thing is, I’m an urban actor who grew up in Chicago and David is an urban playwright who grew up in Chicago, so we’re both from the same world,” explained Mantegna, who’s lived in Los Angeles for nearly a decade but still dresses like a Rush Street slob--gray sweat shirt, jeans and red sneakers. “I grew up on (Chicago’s) West Side, and then in Cicero, where there were a lot of characters--maybe not underworld guys, but certainly in the basement.

“I figure I heard the same voices David heard growing up, so when I read his stuff, I hear it. His style is just as definitive as Shakespeare’s. Once you do learn it, you never forget it. I could do the whole first act of ‘Glengarry’ right now. But you can’t mess with it. It would be like an actor taking ‘to be or not to be’ and saying, ‘I think it’ll sound better if I say ‘to be or not.’ ”

Mantegna recalled that Mamet always stood out from his Chicago theater peers. “Even back in the mid-’70s, when all of us were starving, David was the one with a sense of style and confidence. He was as broke as the rest of us, but when I’d be wearing combat boots, he’d always have a nice tweed coat, a sharp hat and be smoking those expensive cigars.

“People see David today and they sometimes get the wrong idea, ‘cause he has such a strong sense of himself. And they say, ‘Gee, has he changed?’ And I say, ‘No way, he’s always been like that.’ ”

Mantegna said he wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear that Mamet--who loves movies but loathes Hollywood--was adding film directing to his oeuvre . “At this point, I’m way past being surprised by anything David does,” he said. “If he’d come up and told me, ‘Joe, I’m planning a trip to the moon--how ‘bout it?’ I’d say, ‘OK, let’s go.’ ”

Mantegna says the only time he saw Mamet flustered during filming “House of Games” was when Mamet had to direct his wife in a love scene with his old acting pal.

“I was nervous myself, but of the three of us, I’d say David was definitely the most nervous,” Mantegna recalled with an impish grin. “I found it real endearing. Here was David Mamet--Mr. Gung-Ho Tough Guy Who Always Knows the Answers. And all of a sudden he’d turned into a little boy. You should’ve seen him--he spent a lot of time looking down at his shoes.

“Afterwards, he came over and said, ‘I’d only let one of my best friends do that. But did you have to do it with such passion?’ ”

Mantegna laughed. “I said, ‘David, you threw me in the water, so I’m going to swim.’ ”

On fame:

I’m a publicity whore just like the rest of them. But I’m not a bimbo.

It isn’t easy knowing where you stand with Mamet. In an interview, he seems formal, perhaps ill-at-ease. (He insisted that he only smokes two cigars a week--but lit up a pair in two days, both during interviews.) He’s never grouchy or unfriendly--simply blunt and often taciturn. A renowned card player, Mamet was asked how high the betting runs in his poker game. “The stakes are best kept between us card players.”

Mamet enjoyed keeping his questioner off-balance. Some queries received one-word answers, some inspired a voluble reply, while others--usually the most personal ones--were skillfully parried with an evasive compliment.

Asked why he has always exuded such self-confidence, he responded, “Hmmm, that’s a good question. I haven’t really . . .”--he puffed on his cigar--”I really don’t know. . . .”

Mamet was most at home with his cast, most of whom are longtime acting cronies--”my Chicago theater Mafia.” They ate lunch together, swapped jokes and greeted new arrivals with a noisy round of hugs and exhortations.

Not everybody was exactly a professional. During the day’s showgirl sequences, Mamet gave walk-on roles to a publicity exec from Harrah’s as well as to a Boston TV producer whose camera crew was there shooting an interview.

Watching dailies one night, a visitor asked Mamet about a comical casino scene featuring several bloodthirsty gamblers. “They’re not actors,” he explained. “They’re guys from my poker game in Vermont.” Another key bit actor--who plays a nervous wise guy waiting for instructions from his Don--turns out to be another Cabot, Vt., neighbor, Chris Kaldor, who owns Harry’s Hardware, the town store.

Wearing a blue suit and slicked-back hair, sipping espresso on the film’s Italian kitchen-style set, Kaldor had the cool, oily air of a bona-fide Mob henchman. “Hey, this is all new to me,” he said. “It’s been difficult, ‘cause I had to get someone to help my wife watch the kids and the store, but what an experience.

“When I asked David about the part, I thought I’d get some complicated instructions. But he just said, ‘Be yourself.’ I said, ‘OK, but I’m pretty nervous.’ And he just told me, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’ll be a snap.’ ”

Mamet’s impression of Shakespeare in Hollywood:

OK? Get this, get this. “One Gentleman From Verona.” No? OK. “TWO Gentlemen From Verona.”

Mamet is a man who likes to be in charge. When he took “Glengarry Glen Ross” to Broadway, he not only kept his original Chicago cast but insisted on total control--overseeing the posters, writing the radio ads himself and punishing tardy theatergoers by refusing to seat them until intermission.

Naturally, things don’t work that way in Hollywood, where writers get rewritten on the slightest whim, directors get fired by petulant stars, and moviegoers, once they’ve paid their fare, can shout at the screen to their hearts’ content.

Mamet is no stranger to this process. Once, as a young, aspiring playwright, he co-wrote a TV pilot for Dick Clark, whom Mamet quotes with glee as telling him that “theater is all very well and good, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s like a flea on the ass of an elephant.”

He’s also had several screenplays produced, including “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “The Verdict” and “The Untouchables.”

Each received largely favorable reviews, but Mamet still seethes about the financial outcome of “The Verdict.”

“The problem with ‘The Verdict’ is with 20th Century Fox,” he said coolly. “Fox owes me a lot of money. They cheated, they lied and they said they loved me. I haven’t sued them. I just won’t work with them. Who knows? Some time, much farther along in the distant recesses of time, they might come to me with work needed to be done. And I suppose I could say: ‘OK. Pay me my money.’ ”

(A Fox corporate spokesman responded: “We find it inappropriate to comment on matters involving previous management.” However, Mamet’s boycott apparently doesn’t include acting--he took a cameo role, as a card player, in pal Bob Rafelson’s “Black Widow,” a Fox film released earlier this year.) Writers usually get even with nasty Hollywood screenplays or memoirs. Mamet has a play due out next year called “Speed the Plow,” which features three characters--two studio executives and a temporary secretary. Mamet called it “very polemical,” but laughed when asked whether any worried studio execs should be trying to obtain an advance copy.

“It’s not cheap thrills. It’s writing about Hollywood,” he said. “Look, the play is a couple of hours long. But it could’ve been 50 hours long. There’s so much to work in.”

Mamet insisted that he’s tired of sniping at such an easy target. “I’ve got no kick with Hollywood,” he said. “In fact, I’ve got to stop talking about Hollywood. It’s like talking about Rudolf Hess. Sure he was a war criminal, but. . . .”

Still, he enjoys the strange rites of Hollywood. “My favorite new one is that studio executives’ secretaries call me in Vermont and tell me that so-and-so can’t talk to me now.”

Mamet looked incredulous. “Remember, I’ve never called them . They just want to let you know they’re very busy!”

On critics:

I once won a contest in New York magazine which asked for entries in writing “the best possible anything.” I wrote what I thought was the world’s most perfect review. It read: “I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I have written. When you read this, I’ll be dead. Signed, Clive Barnes.”

Joe Mantegna was in ecstasy. About five seconds after arriving on a new set--the kitchen of a stately old mansion nestled on the California side of Lake Tahoe--Mantegna froze in his tracks. He turned his nose toward a bag of food by the sink and inhaled greedily, like a frogman getting his first burst of salt-water air.

“I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven,” he said, sticking his head into a paper bag filled with authentic Italian salami, green peppers, raw onions and cookies. “The smell of the cookies alone is killing me. This is the way I grew up--it’s just like my grandmother’s house.”

There was still a movie to be made--and it took all morning for Mamet to set up an intricate shot featuring a pair of grouchy Italian women cooking pasta for a trio of mob henchmen while a parade of delivery men and maids rushed in and out of the kitchen.

Each time a new rehearsal would unfold, something would go wrong--the delivery men would enter a beat late or an actor would muff his lines.

An hour later, after dozens of more rehearsals and four actual takes, Mamet got the shot. Obviously relieved, the cast and crew broke into applause.

Mamet managed a shaky grin. “When they see that shot,” he said, “what are they gonna say?”

His assistant director tapped the kitchen table. “How. When. Where. And why!”