Desperate Hours for MGM

By Richard Behar.

How's this for action-packed cinematic adventure? Scene: the Los Angeles set of MGM-Pathe's comedy-thriller Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. It's the final phase of shooting, and volatile screen star Mickey Rourke has had enough. "Screw this!" he blurts out. "If I'm not going to get paid, then I'm not going to work!" Members of the film's production crew threaten their own wildcat strike five days later if they aren't paid. The panicked studio rushes paychecks to the set -- by messenger.

Such drama is no longer rare at MGM-Pathe, the company formed when the mysterious mogul Giancarlo Parretti acquired MGM last fall. Parretti smiled broadly for the cameras as guest of honor at a $250-and-up-a-plate charity dinner last month, shortly after asking studio creditors to take their long- delayed payments in weekly installments. He then flew to Europe in a frenzied quest for fresh capital.

How tight are things at MGM? The studio has delayed the release of two completed films, Delirious and Thelma and Louise, because it doesn't have the money to pay for prints and advertising. Such postponements are "unique and embarrassing," says Peter Bart, editor of Variety, Hollywood's top trade magazine. You can't blame Mickey Rourke and those crew members for worrying: some studio employees have seen their paychecks bounce. Parretti needs about $250 million to cover operating costs, future marketing costs and release of the films now held up. To raise the money he is appealing to European investors and such banks as Credit Lyonnais, which has already extended a $125 million credit line to MGM.

Parretti has faced ballooning troubles since acquiring the studio. He has been slapped with two lawsuits, one just two weeks ago, by producers who claim he sold the rights to shared properties -- the Pink Panther films and the James Bond films -- too cheaply. In January a court in Italy upheld an old conviction for fraudulent bankruptcy that Parretti has been fighting for nearly a year. The entrepreneur has also been shamed in Hollywood's most public court, the box office. All the films MGM has released since the acquisition (including Rocky V, Not Without My Daughter and Desperate Hours) have been disappointments or outright flops.

Counting Parretti out would be a mistake. After all, he bought MGM from Kirk Kerkorian for $1.4 billion despite deafening gossip that he would never come up with the dough. He has a long history of being dismissed and then, as an MGM insider puts it, "pulling a rabbit -- even a roaring lion -- out of the hat."

Parretti pins his latest woes on his being looked upon as an outsider and an Italian. Such bellyaching doesn't wash with Hollywood veterans, many of whom were on hand at last week's paparazzi-and-stars dinner in Parretti's honor by the National Council on the Aging. Parretti won the group's recognition after dining with council chairman Daniel Thursz and wondering aloud what the highest donations tended to be. "Oh, a few hundred thousand, I guess," remarked Thursz casually. A day later, Parretti promised the charity $500,000 -- to be paid in five installments.

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante/Los Angeles