Tinsel And Truth TALES FROM THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS

By Richard Zoglin

"You movie people, you're a bunch of spoiled brats!" yells a man whose car has just been rammed by a star's convertible. Yes, we nod in agreement, and they're phony too, and beneath the glamour not very happy. Tales from the Hollywood Hills, a trio of short-story adaptations set in Tinseltown during the 1930s, trots out all the beloved stereotypes while flavorfully recapturing Hollywood's legendary golden age. Then, boldly, the mini-series abandons the legend and goes for a more subtly shaded truth.

Three star-quality performances help. In Natica Jackson, Michelle Pfeiffer plays a pampered screen beauty who falls for a married man. John O'Hara's tale has a bitter twist, and Pfeiffer adds her own tasty mix of sweetness and vinegar. A Table at Ciro's, from a Budd Schulberg story, resorts to broader caricature, as some familiar Hollywood types (washed-up director, naive ingenue, swaggering Latin lover) gather at a dinner hosted by a powerful studio mogul. But Darren McGavin plays the bigwig with such bemused dignity that the character seems brand new.

As a seedy hack screenwriter in Pat Hobby Teamed with Genius, Christopher Lloyd may have the toughest job of all; the invitation to ham it up is virtually flashed in neon. Cobbled together from three stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the episode is a bit sketchy and disjointed, but Lloyd fills the screen with a funny yet carefully modulated portrait. Watch him try to con a tourist couple by rattling off a list of bogus screenwriting credits, casually mispronouncing Ninotchka. Or, slumped on a couch, lamenting to a friend (Dennis Franz) that he has come up empty on a script the studio needs that afternoon: "Put a fork in me, Lou, I'm done." Cut and print.