Cinefile

“Who’s Harry Crumb?” Well, he’s a bumbling detective on the case for Tri-Star. And who better to stumble into solving the mystery of a kidnapping than John Candy. Paul Flaherty directs for producer Arnon Milchan. To start in Vancouver mid-April. . . . Ted Danson is set to play an actor cast as a tough Manhattan cop in a movie-within-a-movie. Titled “The Hard Way,” it’s a summer start for Universal with Arthur Hiller directing from a script by Daniel Pine. Now, for the good stuff. To prepare for the role, the actor hangs out with a Popeye Doyle-ish cop--one guess who’s being asked to play the part.

Writer-director Luis Valdez will go behind the cameras this summer for Paramount’s “Blue Heaven,” about a troubled teen-age romance inside a mental institution. Ex-psychologist Maxine Herman wrote the screenplay. . . . Blasts from the past: Martin Hewitt, Brooke Shields’ co-star in Zeffirelli’s “Endless Love” and Joe Dallesandro, a fixture of the Andy Warhol films, team up in Smart Eggs’ World War II adventure “Operation: Paratrooper,” heading for Yugoslavian locations later this month . . . .

It’ll be director Bruce Beresford “Driving Miss Daisy” when the film version of Alfred Uhry’s award-winning play about the relationship between a black chauffeur and his elderly employer goes before the cameras for MGM later this year. However, preceding that, Beresford will start the thriller “Her Alibi” for Warners starring Tom Selleck. It begins next month. . . . Career changes in the works for producer Larry Turman and writer Jim Kouf. Turman’s set to make his directing debut with “Johnny Destiny Turns on the Radio,” a film noir without a murder according to the future auteur. Trans-World is producing the yarn by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone scheduled for a summer shoot. Kouf, who wrote “Stakeout,” is in pre-production on “Waiting for Salazar” for Disney. Set in Montana, where Kouf resides, it’s a comedy about two guys with plans to rob a bank. . . .