Oscar Parties Hang Tinsel on the Town : Movies: A-list talent fans out over L.A., while others covet choice invitations as an index of social standing in the biz.

If you think the Oscar race is competitive, try throwing an Oscar-night bash. Although the parties are plentiful, A-list talent is not. And, without it, your festivities lack credibility and cachet.

Still, a host of hosts are giving it a shot, well aware there’s goodwill, publicity and often money to be gained.

“The Academy Awards are an annual rite of passage, a social and economic boost in an industry in which the two are intertwined,” said Women in Film president Joan Hyler, an organizer of the group’s House of Blues Oscar Night Mardi Gras, at which director Taylor Hackford and Oscar nominee Helen Mirren (“The Madness of King George”) will serve as king and queen.

“Which parties you’re invited to--and which ones you’re not--say a lot about your standing in this town.”

To help ensure that the Governors Ball--held at the Shrine Auditorium after the March 27 telecast--is more than a perfunctory “first stop” for the glitterati, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has hired chef Wolfgang Puck to cater the $500-a-seat dinner.

Sixteen-hundred guests will nibble on Puck’s famed Jewish Pizza (smoked salmon with caviar), spring roll with lobster and, in honor of “Forrest Gump,” shrimp on a skewer . . . before sitting down to eat.

“People used to skip the ball,” said Alan Bergman, a three-time Oscar-winning lyricist, who is chairing the event. “But we’ve come back in the past three years. Winners like to see edited footage of their acceptance speeches projected on screens--their first glimpse of what is always a blurry moment. And guests like the sense of community, the fact we’re inclusive rather than exclusive.”

Not so Puck’s invitation-only affair at Spago, the first of what he and wife Barbara Lazaroff hope will be an annual gathering of friends such as Roseanne, Michael York and Sharon Stone. The restaurant was dark last year in memory of super-agent Irving (Swifty) Lazar, whose decade of Oscar-night Spago parties ended with his death in 1993. Puck will travel by helicopter to Spago from the Governors Ball.

In terms of prestige, there are two parties to beat: Vanity Fair’s, hosted by editor Graydon Carter and producer Steve Tisch (“Forrest Gump”), and the Elton John AIDS Foundation fund-raiser, which netted $200,000 for the charity last year.

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The Vanity Fair soiree will bring together a mix of the Hollywood, Washington and New York power elites. Mogul-at-large Barry Diller, former presidential Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers and media magnate S.I. Newhouse Jr. are said to be heading for Mortons, where they’ll rub shoulders with the likes of Jodie Foster and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The AIDS fund-raiser ($750 for the evening, $250 for the post-Oscar reception) is virtually sold out. Nominees Quentin Tarantino and Tom Hanks, not to mention the red-hot Hugh Grant (“Four Weddings and a Funeral”), have promised to stop by the Four Seasons Hotel, joining guests who will have watched the show on a 20-foot-tall screen.

Paramount Pictures will toot its own horn at Drai’s, holding its first Oscar dinner to celebrate a banner year led by the blockbuster “Forrest Gump.”

Not to be outdone, Miramax Films has booked the legendary Chasen’s, whose doors will close April 1. Miranda Richardson, Uma Thurman, Samuel Jackson and Dianne Wiest will be on hand to hail the company’s 22 nominations--seven of them for “Pulp Fiction.”

Building a party around a movie has its downside, however. “If ‘Gump’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’ win, everyone will be happy,” suggested an industry observer. “If not, it will be like Kathleen Brown’s gala on election night.”

A good cause is helpful in bringing out the stars. Mimi Rogers and Donna Mills will be at the Roxbury Club raising money for the Earth Communications Office--an organization using the media to raise environmental awareness. The Film League, a group providing affordable housing for elderly actors, will be feted at the grand opening of the Century Club in Century City. Warren Beatty, Lana Turner and Martin Landau are expected to show at the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel, site of Hollywood’s first alcohol-free Oscar party, which is sponsored by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency.

Academy Awards festivities pose their own set of challenges, said Lou Palumbo, whose Elite Group is handling security for the Vanity Fair, Women in Film, and Elton John events. Insulating the stars is a world apart from protecting corporate executives--or even heads of state.

“Oscar fever brings out all of Hollywood and anyone interested in it--overzealous fans, paparazzi and the press,” Palumbo said. “And because everything is so well advertised and high profile, the operation is far from covert.”