Lone Pine Festival Honors Movie Days

The California town of Lone Pine, 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles, will celebrate its legendary movie past with a two-day Movie Festival and Arts Celebration, Oct. 6-7. Film crews have come to Lone Pine over the years to make everything from Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson silents and Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy Westerns to major features such as "Gunga Din," "How the West Was Won" and "Star Trek V." Among the personalities scheduled to make guest appearances at the festival are Roy Rogers and Glenn Ford. There will be guided tours of the striking Alabama Hills that were shown in dozens of films, plus screenings of movies filmed in the Lone Pine area. For program information, write Sierra Film Festival, P.O. Box 111, Lone Pine, Calif. 93545. For motel and camping information, call the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce at (619) 876-4444.

Mexican guarantee: Mexicana Airlines has launched new all-inclusive vacation packages from Los Angeles to nine Mexico beach resorts offering only five-star or better hotels--all with a double-your-money-back guarantee. Destinations included in the packages are Acapulco, Cancun, Cozumel, Huatulco, Istapa/Zihuatanejo, Los Cabos, Manzanillo, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. If any promised component of the land package is not delivered, Mexicana promises to refund double the difference between what was provided and what was promised. Call (213) 646-9500.

More Mexico: The Mexican government, through the Mexican Ministry of Tourism and FONATUR, has announced a joint venture with two major Japanese companies to build one of the largest hotel complexes in Mexico on the coral island of Cancun. Investors in the venture are Japan's Aoki Construction Corp., the Industrial Bank of Japan, the Mexican government and Mexico's bank for foreign trade, Bancomext. When completed in 1996, the $220-million development will include a 1,000-room hotel, 18-hole golf course, 400 condos, a marina and a shopping center. The hotel and golf club are scheduled to open by November, 1993.

Foreign office: Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has established its first tourist office outside the country, in the United States. Address: Myanmar National Tourist Office, 2514 University Drive, Durham, N.C. 27707, (919) 493-7500.

Quiz time: Take any cultured pearl being sold today on the world markets and it's very likely that the heart of that pearl, the nucleus, came from . . . guess where? Answer below.