Like ‘Soul Train,’ Only With Snow

The Scene: Wednesday’s premiere of TriStar and Carolco’s “Cliffhanger” at Mann’s Chinese Theatre. A massive party followed at a lavishly decorated parking lot nearby. Since the mountain rescue saga marks Sylvester Stallone’s much-heralded return to the action genre, the evening drew sundry bishops in the Hollywood hierarchy out to stroke the ego, groom the fur and generally genuflect before the resurgent champion of the adrenaline bath/sweaty palm movie.

Who Was There: The film’s stars, Stallone, John Lithgow and Janine Turner; director Renny Harlin with Geena Davis; plus 1,500 guests, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Damon Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, James Woods, Peter Guber, Mike Medavoy, Mario Kassar, Mike Ovitz and Wesley Snipes, who, according to a witness who claims to read lips, used the word awesome six times during a brief conversation with Stallone.

Hollywood Moment: Arnold Schwarzenegger making a dramatic last-minute arrival. How do you say upstage in German?

The Buzz: How do you say blockbuster? Nobody claimed “Cliffhanger” was timeless art, but it’s the kind of roller-coaster ride of a film Hollywood does best. With a Finnish director. Or “the Mad Finnish Wizard of the action genre,” as Lithgow referred to Harlin.

The Locale: The parking lot was converted by Entertainment Lighting Services into a Rocky Mountains-esque habitat with pine trees and a snow-blowing machine that left arriving guests looking like they had dandruff.

Overheard: Since the film is extremely action-oriented, it has a dialogue-lite plot. “An evening of precious few words,” is the way one guest described the movie.

Dress Mode: Call it ‘90s after-work. A little bit business, a little bit romantic--macrame meets Armani.

Quoted: Stallone on high-altitude acting: “I turned to (my girlfriend) Jennifer and said, ‘Do you believe that’s me on that screen?’ I would never do that again. It was just at a point in my life when I really wanted to do something drastic.”

Pastimes: Forty guests, including Lithgow, doing the Electric Slide in unison on the dance floor. It looked like “Soul Train.” One woman said the dance hall routine is “the ‘90s hustle.”

Observed: There was a 40-foot wall being scaled by professional climbers. Stallone declined to attempt for the most practical of movie-star reasons: “That’s how you blow a whole myth.”