You’d Have Thought There Was a Sale

The Scene: Friday’s premiere of Fox Searchlight’s “Paradise Road,” the story of British and Australian women in a World War II Japanese prisoner of war camp, at the Motion Picture Academy. A party followed at Saks Fifth Avenue. The connection between gritty film and Beverly Hills department store was vague. Maybe when you get out of a POW camp, the first thing you want to do is shop.

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Who Was There: The film’s stars, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand and Julianna Margulies; writer/director Bruce Beresford; plus 1,000 guests including George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Richard Dreyfuss, Tess Harper, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sam Waterston, Jacqueline Bisset, Jennifer Beals and Searchlight president Lindsay Law.

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Quoted: Bruce Beresford on inherent problems of the genre: “Any scene, no matter how intimate, has a hundred extras and most of the cast in the background. What are you going to do? It’s a prisoner of war camp. It’s not like they’ve got some other place they can go.”

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Oscar Aftermath: McDormand said winning the best actress award would have minimal effect on her acting life. “Let’s face it, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean that great woman roles have been written in the last few weeks. What you have is a little gold man who’s lovely.”

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Observed: The fire marshal shut the entrance when the first floor became adhesively overcrowded. This was not popular with those still outside. “There was an undignified crush at the door,” said British law student Hagar Russ. “In Britain you only see scenes like that at football matches, parties for adolescents and the January sale at Harrods.”

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Pastimes: Proletarian males learning how much good socks cost, and attempts to be on good behavior and not spill champagne on the cashmere sweaters. “I feel like I’m in my grandmother’s living room and something will get soiled,” said one guest.

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Chow: Nicely lavish buffets, nothing POW camp theme-ish. As McDormand said, “you’re not going to get a bunch of people to eat grubs and rice after a movie.”