A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : ‘SLIVER’ UPDATE : Remember That Great Idea to Show <i> All</i> of William Baldwin? Well . . .

The amount of male frontal nudity in “Sliver” is shrinking, apparently.

Sex scenes with Sharon Stone and William Baldwin were to have gone where no Hollywood film had gone before. The scuttlebutt was that one scene in which the actors writhe in front of a picture window would be more graphic than anything in “Basic Instinct.” Exploration of a man’s--not a woman’s--sexuality was to get more screen treatment.

Director Philip Noyce told Film Clips less than a month ago that “if you counted the square inches of flesh that are bared in the film, you could say that there are more male than female.”

But Noyce’s most recent cut, according to a source who saw the film at a research screening last Sunday on the Paramount lot, offers zero frontal nudity of Baldwin, although a male extra who is in the buff does walk toward the camera at one point.

“One two-second shot--that’s it,” the source said, noting that, otherwise, the movie is wall-to-wall sex--literally. The bathroom, the bedroom, the living room, seen on video monitors, standing up, lying on the couch, etc.

Stone plays a recently divorced woman who moves into a Manhattan high-rise--”Sliver” refers to the building’s narrow structure--and becomes involved with its owner, Baldwin, who she later discovers has placed hidden surveillance cameras in people’s apartments. He tapes tenants’ bathroom habits and favorite sexual positions. When murders occur, Stone gets suspicious.

The movie was adapted by “Basic Instinct” screenwriter Joe Eszterhas from the best-selling thriller of the same title by Ira Levin.

The source said the movie wavered in tone between “Last Tango in Paris” and Truman Capote’s “Hand-Carved Coffins,” a true-crime story about a detective on the trail of a serial killer.

Paramount is said to have contractually bound Noyce to deliver an R-rated picture. Attempts to reach Noyce for comments were unsuccessful. Sources said he was still working on a final cut. It’s due out May 21.