MOVIES - April 8, 1991

Clamming Up: Kevin Costner may dance with wolves, but the movie’s distributor, Orion Pictures Corp., won’t let his double “dance with clams.” Orion threatened to sue a Seattle seafood restaurant chain for its clam-dancing advertising campaign unless it pulled the television commercials and newspaper ads. The commercials for Ivar’s Restaurants and Seafood Bars showed a Costner-esque actor cavorting with another actor in a clam suit in a seaside meadow. In the commercial, bearded Northwesterners speak in Norwegian as they watch the man dance with the clam. Subtitles translate: “He is a newcomer. He has not yet learned our ways, but soon he will eat at Ivar’s.” The chain pulled the commercials last week.