A Baltic Pall Over a Soviet Visit to L.A. : Movies: Lithuania crackdown worries film writers, but tours, screenings and rides with police will also mark this leg of their trip.

“For most of us, this trip is the most unusual event of our lives,” says Alexander Chervinsky, one of 10 prominent Soviet screenwriters in Los Angeles for the first American/Soviet Screenwriters’ Festival.

“At the same time,” he adds, “we’re deeply depressed. Because of the crackdown in Lithuania a few days before we left, some of us didn’t want to come. It seemed a strange time for a festival. But then, we decided that we could be useful by speaking out.”

And they are speaking out, despite possible repercussions upon their return. On the Persian Gulf war, which erupted five hours before they landed at LAX. On the threat to glasnost that, during the last four years, provided them with their first taste of creative freedom. On their beleaguered president whom, everyone agreed, is making an unfortunate move to the right.

“We filmmakers, the creative people, were the last defenders of Gorbachev,” notes Masha Zvereva, a high-ranking official in the Filmmakers Union and Independent Screenwriters Guild. “ Glasnost gave everything to us . . . we don’t care so much about butter and cheese. . . . I’m surprised that the position of Gorbachev changed so rapidly.”

Still, during their 3 1/2 weeks in the United States, they hope to immerse themselves in Americana--taking in the sights, eating well, hopefully mixing some business with pleasure. The primary goal: initiating U.S.-Soviet co-productions and getting a toehold in the international arena. Free enterprise, they’ve discovered, poses its own set of problems.

“These are the top filmmakers in the U.S.S.R. and they’d like to have their stuff seen by the rest of the world,” says festival director Linda Elstad. “They know the world market is an American market and they’ve got to figure out how to compete. It’s a real problem. How do you make a commercial film without compromising your soul . . . your national identity? How do you avoid running out and making ‘Rambo 17’?”

Their eight days in Los Angeles should provide the screenwriters with a few answers . . . emanating from the very top. For interspersed between a walk on Venice Beach, a stop at Beverly Hills’ Jose Eber Salon and a night at the Palomino Club are sessions with agents and executives at the highest rungs of the business. Orion Pictures will screen “Dances With Wolves” and Amblin Entertainment “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” Disney will show them “The Little Mermaid” and offer an insider’s look at its animation department.

The visitors, in turn, will show some movies of their own, many of them banned at one time or dealing with topics prohibited pre- glasnost . They will be screened at the Writers Guild of America West Theater (information: (213) 858-1346) and supplemented by seminars on topics ranging from censorship to the creative process.

Participating in the discussions along with the Soviets are screenwriters Ernest Lehman (“North by Northwest”), Anna Hamilton Phelan (“Mask”), Frank Pierson (“Dog Day Afternoon”), Lawrence Kasdan (“Body Heat”) and Roger Simon (“Enemies, a Love Story”) and WGA West Foundation president Melville Shavelson--all of whom journeyed to the Soviet Union last spring in the first leg of the American-Soviet exchange.

In an attempt to inject some grit into the glamour, a ride with the Los Angeles Police Department is also scheduled. “That’s one way to see the underbelly,” suggests Pamela Rosenberg, who organized the festival along with Elstad. “We have to be frank, to show them our best and our worst. There is life beyond our little film community.”

Simon, taking Chervinsky on his own customized tour last week, hit some of the city’s other hot spots: the Fairfax district to see Soviet Jews, Melrose Avenue and its trendy shops and Hollywood, where they checked out some Frank Lloyd Wright homes--one of them belonging to producer Joel Silver (“Lethal Weapon”).

Far more interesting than Disneyland, concluded Chervinsky, who’d visited the theme park on a previous trip. “For me, Disneyland is a headache,” he says. “It resembles somehow the Soviet Union, forcing people to be happy. It’s a very Soviet idea.”

After leaving Los Angeles on Friday, the group heads for San Francisco, Seattle, Tulsa (“to see the oil barons, cowboys and Indians,” they were told) and Washington before showing their films in New York City Feb. 4-11.

“Life is so oppressive for them now,” says Rosenberg. “We’d like to show them there’s an alternative. Is it cruel?, we asked ourselves. Not really. These people are intelligent. They don’t want to be blind. Besides, it gets their creative juices flowing.”