‘Heart’ Failure?

Is Orion Pictures--coming off a disastrous summer at the box office--dumping “Heart of Dixie”?

Set in 1957 on a Southern university, the $8-million drama chronicles a young woman’s awakening to the first rumblings of the civil-rights struggle. Production began on April 4, 1988--the 20th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. Orion originally planned to release the pic last April.

“But then the studio decided it had to distance our movie from ‘Mississippi Burning,’ ” said director Martin Davidson. “The studio thought it would be perceived as another civil-rights picture from the perspective of the white person.”

Orion finally opened “Heart” in Los Angeles, New York and other major cities last week with no TV spots and only meager print ads--following three weeks’ release in the South, where it had been promoted. The pic wasn’t even given the customary screening for critics in Hollywood. Turns out that some of them liked it (KABC-TV’s Gary Franklin chided Orion for hiding the pic, which he awarded a “9”).

Star Ally Sheedy got on “The Tonight Show,” “Arsenio Hall” and “Good Morning America”--but her personal publicist arranged it, not Orion’s publicity department.

“Orion kept saying that this movie needed tender loving care,” director Davidson said. “But I don’t think it ever had a chance. When I heard they were going to release it regionally, I knew it was the kiss of death.

“When the film didn’t open well, we got buried.”

Meanwhile, the studio recently opened “Erik the Viking,” starring Tim Robbins, and written/directed by Monty Pythoner Terry Jones, in Seattle and Austin, Tex.

No dates are set yet for major cities, the studio acknowledged.