HOME ENTERTAINMENT : ‘Baywatch the Movie’ a G-Rated Endeavor

What’s the major appeal of “Baywatch,” the syndicated, hourlong TV series about lifeguards on an upscale L.A. beach, starring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson? A smash hit overseas, it’s been called the world’s most popular TV show.

Is it the scripts? Is it Hasselhoff’s acting? No way.

Let’s face it. For many viewers--many male viewers, at least--it’s the chance to oogle Anderson and the other bikini-clad beauties who populate that beach. “Baywatch” is simply a paradise for girl-watching.

But the TV show, geared to a general audience, can’t be too racy. So maybe in a “Baywatch” episode made for video, there’d be some steamier sequences--even nude scenes.

That may be in the minds of some consumers when they encounter “Baywatch the Movie: Forbidden Paradise”--a direct-to-video, rental-priced tape due in stores Tuesday.

But these folks are in for a big disappointment. You see more of Anderson than usual--instead of that one-piece red swimsuit, she wears bikinis--but that’s as racy as it gets. And she leaves early in the 90-minute movie, which is about the lifeguard crew’s trip to Hawaii to learn new rescue techniques.

This movie, which should be the summer’s big direct-to-video hit, is as G-rated as the TV show. Not that LIVE Home Video, which helped finance the movie, wanted it that way.

“We were hoping for something racier for video,” said Jeff Fink, LIVE’s senior vice president for sales and distribution. “But the producers and David Hasselhoff felt it’s a G-rated show and, whether it’s on TV or on video, they wanted to keep it that way.”

It turns out, though, there’s an advantage to keeping it clean.

“Certain video retail outlets won’t handle R-rated product,” Fink explained. “But because this is G-rated, we can get the tape into those places now. So we can get more product out to more locations with this rating.”

This isn’t the first “Baywatch” episode on video. About a year ago, LIVE put out two 90-minute episodes, priced at $10 each. But they had already appeared on TV. “Baywatch the Movie” is the first to be available on video before it plays on TV. It will be telecast in the fall.

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Lana Turner: Many retailers have set up display shelves of tapes starring Lana Turner, who died last week. She was an old-line movie star, one whose stardom was based more on her beauty than her acting talent. So she didn’t make many quality movies.

As you’re rummaging through those Turner sections, if you spot MGM/UA’s “The Bad and the Beautiful,” grab it. This 1952 drama, co-starring Kirk Douglas and Gloria Grahame--who won a best supporting actress Oscar--is one of the best ever about Hollywood in the days of the star system. In her finest performance, Turner plays an actress who, like the other characters, has a love-hate relationship with an exploitative producer, played by Douglas.

Turner was in another exceptional movie, MGM/UA’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” the lurid, absorbing tale of a deceitful wife who plots with her boyfriend (John Garfield) to kill her husband. Her role as a conniving sexpot in this 1946 movie helped define Turner’s image.

She also made four soap operas that are, naturally, very contrived, but still very entertaining--like reading a good trashy novel. If you’re in the right mood, you can’t go wrong with “Weekend at the Waldorf” (MGM/UA, 1945), “Peyton Place” (CBS-Fox, 1957), “Imitation of Life” (MCA, 1959) or “Madame X” (MCA, 1966). But in these movies, it’s the tawdry plots, not Turner’s performances, that keep you interested.

Prominent Turner movies you should skip:

* “Honky Tonk” (MGM/UA, 1941): In this Western, Turner plays the wife of a gambler (Clark Gable) trying to go straight.

* “Green Dolphin Street” (MGM/UA, 1947): In 19th-Century New Zealand, two sisters (Turner and Donna Reed) covet the same man (Van Heflin). Bad romantic costume drama.

* “Homecoming” (MGM/UA, 1948): Badly written soap about a married doctor (Clark Gable) and a nurse (Turner) in a wartime romance.

* “Betrayed” (MGM/UA, 1954): In this silly World War II tale, a Dutch underground member gets involved with a soldier (Clark Gable) and is suspected of Nazi collaboration.

* “Sea Chase” (Warner, 1955): John Wayne co-stars in a laughable drama about a German sea captain on the run. Turner stiffly plays the love interest.

* “The Prodigal” (MGM/UA, 1955): Plodding, overwrought biblical drama.

* “By Love Possessed” (MGM/UA, 1961): Flimsy melodrama, set in a small New England town, about a married woman (Turner) having an affair with her husband’s law partner (Efrem Zimblast Jr.).

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Foreign Movies: The best of the releases in the last few weeks is Hallmark’s “Eat Drink Man Woman,” a Chinese film that was nominated for a foreign language film Oscar. It’s a touching comedy/drama about a tough-minded father who’s living with three unmarried daughters--and not coping well with them. Excellent movie.

Miramax’s “Queen Margot,” starring Isabel Adjani in the title role, is about the love life of the passionate queen in 15th-Century France. It’s sumptuous, lavish, violent and teeming with lurid sex, but at 2 1/2 hours, it’s too long. Still, mostly an entertaining, literate costume drama.

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B-Movies: The plot twists in WarnerVision’s “Judicial Consent,” are very predictable, but it’s still better than most erotic thrillers because of an interesting heroine, a tough judge (Bonnie Bedelia) who has an affair with her young law clerk (Billy Wirth).

Triboro’s comedy “The Nutt House” isn’t worth renting, even though the sexy co-star, former porn queen Traci Lords will undoubtedly lure male renters. Full of feeble slapstick, it’s about twins--one an evil politician and the other a multiple-personality disorder--both played by Stephen Kearney.