Will History Sink ‘Red October’? : Movies: Hollywood wonders if <i> glasnost</i> -era audiences will care about Tom Clancy’s quintessential Cold War saga of a renegade Soviet sub commander.

Will moviegoers rally to a Cold War thriller in the aftermath of the Big Thaw?

The question hovers in the air like nuclear fallout, as Paramount Pictures readies to launch its $35 million-plus screen adaptation of Tom Clancy’s best-selling novel, “The Hunt for Red October.”

Starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin, and directed by action meister John McTiernan (“Die Hard”), the film surfaces Friday at 1,225 theaters across the country.

Originally due in the fall, the movie’s release date was pushed forward to take advantage of what has been a sleepy new film year. As Barry London, president of Paramount’s motion picture group notes, the studio has had notable successes during this time of year--including last year’s release of “Pet Sematary” and “Major League,” which accounted for combined ticket sales of more than $108 million.

“To our way of thinking, the time was right,” explains London.

This after a marketing assault that kicked off last fall with teaser trailers attached to the saturation release of the Eddie Murphy/Paramount comedy, “Harlem Nights.” Then came a mid-January attack of billboards proclaiming, “The Hunt Is On . . . “--in Los Angeles and 15 other North American cities--plus a recent barrage of TV ads, heralding suspense and thrills, “from the director of ‘Die Hard.’ ”

Earlier this week, the hype for “Red October” coincidentally made its way in the headlines when the Soviet government newspaper Izvestia reported that a real-life mutiny took place on a Soviet anti-sub destroyer off Sweden in 1975, inspiring Clancy’s best seller. (Paramount publicists worked the phones to make sure reporters were aware of the breaking news story, and TV newscasts--including CNN--used convenient clips from the movie to illustrate their coverage.)

Meanwhile, early reviews trickled in. There were “thumbs-up” from both Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, with the latter predicting “tidal-sized waves of revenue.” But the news magazines were split. Time’s Richard Schickel admired the film. Newsweek’s David Ansen was disappointed. (The headline for his review: “Run Silent, Run Shallow.”) Mused Ansen: “Overnight the cold-war thriller has become a historical genre.”

In fact, Paramount’s marketing campaign plays down the film’s politics, which predate glasnost and perestroika --with a story line about a renegade Soviet captain who mysteriously and ominously heads his nuclear submarine toward America. When the entire Soviet naval fleet sets out in pursuit of the Red October sub, the wary United States becomes even warier.

The Us vs. Them scenario worked terrifically in 1984, when “The Hunt for Red October” was published. But what about in this, the era of Mikhail Gorbachev and the lifted Iron Curtain?

What’s a major motion picture with a Cold War theme to do?

For starters, says producer Mace Neufeld, “We’ve given our movie historical perspective.” Thus, a “crawl” (message) at the beginning of the movie squarely sets the story in pre- glasnost 1984.

The film makers also are touting certain elements in the script as metaphors for the very changes that have occurred in recent months.

With a nod to the film’s Soviet submarine skipper, Ramius (Connery), and CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Baldwin), who believes that Ramius is coming to the U.S. as a peace-minded defector rather than as an attacker, Neufeld adds: “The movie plays right into glasnost .”

Co-screenwriter Larry Ferguson echoes that sentiment--and likens the character of Ramius to Gorbachev: “The movie is what’s going on right now.”

No one cited such metaphors five years ago, when “Red October” shot to the top of the best seller lists--for nearly 100 weeks, with sales of nearly 6 million copies--making a literary star of first-time novelist Clancy. Among the book’s readers was President Reagan, who pronounced it “the perfect yarn.”

A Hollywood movie seemed inevitable.

Actually, Neufeld (“No Way Out”) optioned the book in 1983 when it was still in galleys.

So what took it so long?

“Simple,” says Neufeld, “Executives who are in a position to say yes (to a movie project) don’t really have time to read novels.”

As such, novels are typically synopsized for quick and easy reading for prospective Hollywood projects. But in the case of “Red October,” recalls Neufeld, the synopsis didn’t do justice to the book’s intricacies. “I knew I had to get someone to actually read the book.”

That someone finally turned out to be then-Paramount chief Ned Tanen--who put the script into development after Neufeld assured him that he’d already been promised military assistance.

Then came the challenge of the screenplay, for which Ferguson and Donald Stewart share credit.

It was Stewart--who received an Academy Award for his script for “Missing”--who “broke the back of the book,” which runs more than 400 pages, giving the movie its structure, says Neufeld.

Stewart, who did four drafts in nine months, also grappled with bringing CIA analyst Ryan into more of the action.

“He disappears for about 150 pages of the book. We couldn’t have anything like that happen in the movie. We had to hook him up with the plot,” says Stewart, who came up with the idea of putting Ryan through a perilous transfer from a helicopter to the U.S submarine Dallas (which he’s never aboard, in the book), and later, onto the Red October.

After several additional drafts--and screenwriters--Ferguson (“Beverly Hills Cop II”) entered the picture.

It’s Ferguson who reshaped Ramius’ motivations for defection.

“In the book,” explains Neufeld, “Ramius is very angry about his wife’s death--which was the result of (medical) malpractice. Then there’s the fact that he’s not an ethnic Russian--he’s Lithuanian.

“Within the context of the printed page, those things were reason enough for his defection. But cinematically, we didn’t think audiences would buy it. We had to give him a stronger reason.”

Ironically, Ferguson found the solution in the submarine itself--a “first strike” weapon that could trigger world calamity. “In effect, he is bringing the submarine to America so that it can be defused,” explains Ferguson. “Which means you have a Russian taking responsibility for world peace--and an American who is, fundamentally, reacting.”

It wasn’t until Ferguson completed his draft that McTiernan was hired to direct.

McTiernan had met with Neufeld years earlier--when his only directing credit was the decidedly off-beat 1986 thriller “Nomads,” in which ghosts of ancient nomads roam (and murder) across Los Angeles. It was during that meeting that McTiernan expressed interest in “Red October,” which he’d learned Neufeld had optioned.

McTiernan went on to direct the modest hit “Predator” (1987). Then came the critically-admired mega-hit “Die Hard” (1988).

“His stock shot up,” admits Neufeld, who then hired McTiernan to develop the military action picture, “Flight of the Intruder.”

Ultimately, McTiernan jumped from that project (for which he’ll be credited as co-executive producer) to “Red October.”

“It was a kind of fate,” says McTiernan, who confesses that he subscribed to “a secret agenda” during the making of “Red October.” That agenda: “You may think this sounds silly, but, I saw the piece as a second Russian revolution.

“To me, the emotional heart of the movie comes when the (Soviet) sailors sing their national anthem.”

Speaking of which: In the early scripts, all of the dialogue by the Soviets--with the exception of a final encounter between Ramius and Ryan--was going to be in Russian, with English subtitles.

But as development progressed, the film makers grew concerned that subtitles would detract from the action.

So it was decided that the Soviets would start out speaking Russian, and then make an on-screen transition to English. Cleverly, that transition takes place during a reading of the sacred Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita (“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”), that was quoted by nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, just before he conducted the first test of an atomic bomb.

One thing the film makers didn’t tamper with was the book’s largely male cast of characters. “We only had one early discussion about working in a female character--and it lasted about 10 minutes,” says Neufeld. He smiled, adding, “It would have been hard to drop Kelly McGillis into a submarine.”

(Women are not aboard U.S. submarines, which are combat ships. By the same token, they are not aboard Soviet subs.)

Throughout all this, the film makers kept in close phone contact with Clancy. “There are some things in the book that I wish had made it into the movie. But once I learned that each page of the screenplay comprised about one minute of screen time, I knew that my (manuscript) would have to be trimmed--and trimmed--to get it down to about two-hours’ worth,” says Clancy, adding, “Once I soaked my first handkerchief, I got over it--and realized ‘Red October’ had become their baby.”

As for how changing times have affected “Red October,” and the Cold War thriller genre that has become his specialty: “Everybody seems to be asking me that. Everyone seems to think I’m going to have to go out of business, because the world’s getting better.”

As Clancy noted, his last book, “A Clear and Present Danger” (which Neufeld is in the process of optioning), deals with the Colombian drug trade.

“There are always going to be bad guys in the world.”

Be that as it may, the bad guys right now aren’t the Soviets. Thus, Sean Connery at first turned down the role of Ramius--explaining to a startled Neufeld that the project wouldn’t do, because it depicted the Soviets as would-be invaders in an era of glasnost.

But, stressed Neufeld, that consideration had been taken care of--with the 1984 dateline that appeared on the first page of the script.

As it turned out, page one hadn’t faxed over properly. It was immediately re-faxed.

“In the end, we were ahead of the game,” smiles Neufeld. Indeed, Ramius’ eventual declaration to Ryan that “a little revolution now and then is a good thing, don’t you think?” was written roughly a year and a half ago.

Mused Neufeld: “Who’d ever have guessed.”