Vestron, HBO Dispute Still Holding Up ‘Platoon’; Green Light for ‘Charing Cross Road,’ ‘Street Smart’

Vestron Video’s injunction is still holding up the home video debut of “Platoon,” which had been scheduled for this week. The injunction is the latest move in a long battle between Vestron and HBO Video over the rights to the Oscar-winning movie.

MGM/UA’s “Yellow Submarine,” originally scheduled to be released this week, is coming out next week instead.

Due the week of Oct. 25: “Lethal Weapon,” “Tin Men, “Making Mr. Right,” “Project X,” “The River’s Edge,” “Malone” and “Creepshow 2.”

NEW RELEASES: RCA/Columbia’s “84 Charing Cross Road,” is an ode to cerebral love--an homage to romance by mail. In 1949, feisty New York writer Helene Hanff (Anne Bancroft) writes to English book dealer (Anthony Hopkins) seeking rare books. She winds up in a correspondence, spanning two decades, with him and the employees at the store at 84 Charing Cross Road in London. She’s an unattached loner and he’s a prim, repressed married man with a family. Obviously both find something vaguely romantic in this correspondence. The big question is whether these transatlantic pen pals ever get together. Holding an audience’s interest with this fragile story is quite a feat but director David Jones pulls it off. A small, delightful film aimed at art-house audiences.

Media’s “Street Smart” is a provocative study of the consequences of unethical journalism. A magazine writer (Christopher Reeve) fabricates a story about a New York pimp and becomes a celebrity. But the pimp who’s the model for his story is on trial for murder, leading to a subpoena of the writer’s nonexistent notes and some tricky plot twists. Unfortunately, some of those plot turns seem contrived--particularly the unrealistic ending. But the real reason to see this movie is to savor Morgan Freeman’s chilling performance as the volatile, unprincipled pimp. If this had been a hit movie, Freeman would have been guaranteed an Oscar nomination. Reeve’s Superman role continues to haunt him. It may take you a while to accept him as the writer and blot out images of him as the Man of Steel.

Pacific Arts’ “Square Dance” is another vain attempt to make an interesting movie about just-plain Southern folk who lead dull, dead-end lives. This is a carbon-copy of one of those grim, slow-moving Horton Foote tales of families in conflict. What tension there is in “Square Dance,” directed by Daniel Petrie, is usually dissipated by scenes that go on too long. It’s mainly a coming-of-age story about an adolescent (Winona Ryder) who trades the boredom of farm life with her crotchety grandfather (Jason Robards) for the unexciting existence with her mother (Jane Alexander), a hair-cutter in Fort Worth. Alexander, who usually plays bright, proper ladies, portrays a blue-collar bimbo while macho heartthrob Rob Lowe plays a young man who’s mentally retarded. These excellent out-of-character performances add a little bounce to “Square Dance.”

Academy Home Entertainment’s “Firehouse” is a leering “Police Academy” clone that’s well-stocked with scantily clad women but low on the staples of every good farce--manic energy and clever jokes. It’s about the turmoil created by three sexy female firefighters assigned to a firehouse full of lustful, sexist clods. Some of the broad, racy humor does work.

Academy’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare,” about a rock band being victimized by monsters in a secluded farmhouse, is a tawdry mixture of horror, sex and rock music. Due to clumsy makeup, some of the monsters are more funny than scary. Though basically a bad B-movie, some of the sequences have a sleazy charm that fans of camp horror flicks might find appealing.

OLD MOVIES: “I Never Sang for My Father” (1970, RCA/Columbia, $69.95), featuring outstanding star performances, is the best movie ever made about adults confronting their responsibility for aged parents. Gene Hackman plays a son burdened with a widowed father (Melvyn Douglas) he never really liked. If the son gets married and moves cross-country, what happens to the father, a well-to-do former executive who’s turned into an obnoxious old coot? The sister (Estelle Parsons) urges her brother to leave and tend to his own life. If you’re in this kind of situation or about to confront it, this depressing, uncompromising film may be painful to watch. In a career littered with first-rate performances, this may be Hackman’s finest.

Rene Clement’s “Forbidden Games” (Nelson Entertainment, 1951, $29.95) is an unsettling look at the ravages of war through the eyes of children. Set in France in 1940, during the bombing by Germany, it chronicles the efforts of a newly orphaned 6-year-old (Brigitte Fossey) to grasp the concept of death. With the help of a playmate (Georges Poujouly) in her adopted family, she conjures up creative cemetery games that help her get closer to the painful truth. The ending is a heart-breaker. You’ll marvel at Clement’s handling of the child stars, whose performances are amazingly natural and devoid of the usual kid-actor stiltedness. It was a winner of the best foreign-language film Oscar and is regarded by some critics as one of the best films ever made. Available both in French with English subtitles and dubbed.

The performances are the backbone of “Two Women,” (1961, Nelson Entertainment, $29.95). Director Vittorio De Sica guides Sophia Loren through the best performance of her career. She never approached this brilliance again because she never had a role quite as challenging. Set in Italy during the final weeks of World War II, the story focuses on the survival struggles of a poor resourceful widow (Loren) and her adolescent daughter (Elenora Brown), who endure, among other traumas, rape by Moroccan soldiers. The movie’s only real flaw is the ending, which is abrupt and leaves some crucial questions unanswered. Available both dubbed and in Italian with subtitles.

“The Ugly American” (1963, MCA, $59.95) is an expensive bad movie that somehow manages to be absorbing. Maybe it’s because it seems to be, as those old movies ads used to shriek--”torn from today’s headlines.” Marlon Brando plays a well-meaning American ambassador to a Southeastern Asian country, Sarkhan, who inadvertently helps the communists with his blunders. You keep watching to see if he ever wriggles out of that big mess. The political preaching at the end is a bit much. Brando is never believable as the ambassador but that doesn’t ruin the movie.

CHARTS (Complied by Billboard magazine) TOP VIDEOCASSETTES, RENTALS 1--”Mannequin” (Media).

2--”Blind Date” (RCA/Columbia).

3--”Hoosiers” (HBO).

4--” ’Crocodile’ Dundee” (Paramount).

5--”Burglar” (Warner Video).

6--”An American Tail” (MCA).

7--”Angel Heart” (IVE).

8--”Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (Paramount).

9--”The Bedroom Window” (Vestron).

10--”Raising Arizona” (CBS-Fox).

TOP VIDEOCASETTES, SALES 1--”An American Tail” (MCA).

2--” ’Crocodile’ Dundee” (Paramount).

3--”Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (Paramount).

4--”Jane Fonda’s Low-Impact Aerobic Workout” (Lorimar).

5--”Callantics” (MCA).

6--”Top Gun” (Paramount).

7--”Lady and the Tramp” (Disney).

8--”Return of the Jedi” (CBS-Fox).

9--”Jane Fonda’s New Workout” (Lorimar).

10--”The Godfather” (Paramount).