WHEN HOLLYWOOD CALLS

By JEFF GREENFIELD

Did you hear about the real-life journalists who played themselves in that movie about mankind's first encounter with extraterrestrials? No, I don't mean the gaggle of CNN anchors and correspondents who appear in Contact. I mean the three prominent newsmen who were featured in The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 1951 classic. In that film's opening moments, the descent of the flying saucer to Earth is breathlessly reported by NBC's H.V. Kaltenborn, radio commentator Elmer Davis and muckraker Drew Pearson. Then as now, the producers believed the presence of journalists would lend an air of authenticity to their otherworldly plot.

It's the same belief that led the producers of Dave to cast a herd of Washington newsies in that political satire, including NPR's Nina Totenberg, journalist-historian Richard Reeves and the McLaughlin Group. And TV buffs will remember Walter Cronkite's walk-on at the end of a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode more than two decades ago. With Contact, however, the journalistic community's sensitivity to the blurring of the lines between news and entertainment has caused some sober second thoughts. CNN president Tom Johnson said last week that in the future such appearances will probably be banned, bringing the cable network in line with the longtime policies of CBS, NBC and ABC.

I can understand such sensitivity, especially since the studio that's distributing Contact is part of the same conglomerate that owns CNN (and TIME). As a stuffy journalist, I can only hope that the discontent with the "blurring" of news and entertainment might also take root in the world of prime-time news programming, in which dramatic music, hyped-up promos and film-noir lighting techniques are multiplying like hostile extraterrestrials.

But there's a part of me that regards this NO TRESPASSING sign with a distinct pang of regret. Most of us who sign our name to a story or appear on camera have more than a touch of ham in us, and I am no exception. In fact, I can watch even the most revered of movies and think, Hey, I could be playing myself in that film.

Take, for instance, Casablanca. A fine film, to be sure; but in today's world, could we really expect an internationally known freedom fighter like Victor Laszlo to leave a hotbed of international intrigue without the press's following his every move? No way. How much more credible would that movie be today if a veteran journalist--me, for instance--showed up for the finale on the tarmac. "Ted, I think--yes, that is Victor Laszlo approaching the airplane... He seems to be with two other people... There's a woman, a very attractive dark-haired woman, and... I believe the man wearing the trench coat is the proprietor of a popular gathering place here in Casablanca who goes by the name of Rick... No, Ted, no last name is available to us. It's just Rick. You know, like Madonna or Roseanne... Now Rick and the young woman are exchanging a few words... They both look very serious, almost grim, probably talking about the increasingly uneasy international situation... I can only make out a few words, something about 'a hill of beans.' That may be some kind of code, Ted."