Premiere for Altman’s ‘Player’

The Scene: Friday night’s premiere of “The Player,” Robert Altman’s new movie from Fine Line Features, held at the Directors’ Guild of America with a dessert buffet following.

The film is a brutally funny look at that amoral fungus known as a Hollywood executive--the only species of executive on Earth that commutes to work in a four-wheel-drive vehicle equipped with a car fax.

In Robert Altman tradition, it’s also studded with cameos by everyone in Hollywood except Macaulay Culkin and Angelyne. When was the last time you saw a $7-million picture with Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte and Cher?

The Analysis: Hollywood types love to watch other Hollywood types being skewered, provided they don’t recognize themselves on the same barbecue. So what better way to prove you’re a good sport than being a glorified extra in an Altman movie? (Talk was heavy at the party regarding which big-name extras maneuvered to get more screen time. A few forgot their training and actually stared straight into the camera.)

Who Was There (in the movie): Altman, Nolte, screenwriter Michael Tolkin, Cathy Lee Crosby, Paul Dooley, Teri Garr, Jeff Goldblum, Kathy Ireland, Sally Kellerman, Jack Lemmon, Dina Merrill, Mimi Rogers and Fred Ward.

Who Was There (not in the movie): Karen Allen, Anne Archer, Michael Bolton and Teri Hatcher, Powers Boothe, Dana Delany, Faye Dunaway, Elaine Joyce, Christine Lahti, Nicolas Roeg and Theresa Russell, Andrew Stevens, Peter Strauss, Andrew Strong, Bruce Weber, Chloe Webb and about 50 photographers and camera crews behind a rope. One man referred to the Fourth Estate holding pen as “Gulag journalism.”

Fashion Statement: Nolte wore an enormous coat that made him look like a Maine lobsterman, along with white pants that had at least two inches of spare cuff dragging the ground. (Photographers were desperate to get a shot of Nolte with his “Rich Man, Poor Man” co-star Peter Strauss, but no luck.)

Noted: With its major-league cast and Hollywood in-jokes, “The Player” has been the hottest ticket on the screening circuit for weeks. Some, though, just don’t get the message. One woman walked out of the screening, went up to a major star and said, “Where’s your son tonight? I’m his caterer you know.”

Quoted: “The Player” may be about ham-handed studio interference in the movie-making process but Robert Altman insisted, “We made the movie we wanted to make. No changes, no test marketing.”

Exit Line: Said one woman: “Poor Cathy Lee Crosby came all the way down here to see half her head on screen for half a second.” In a film of 31 speaking roles and 65 cameos, that wasn’t bad screen time.