Mario Kassar

Mario F. Kassar, the maverick producer of mega-budget movies who resigned as chairman of Carolco Pictures in November when the ailing company filed for bankruptcy, has landed at Paramount Pictures with a three-year deal to produce movies, the studio announced Wednesday. The deal was described by sources as a conventional "first-look" arrangement in which Paramount has first shot at films Kassar brings to the studio.

Carolco Pictures Inc. and its flamboyant chairman, Mario Kassar, are notorious for their free-spending ways. Carolco pays such stars as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone top dollar, throws lavish parties and courts the hottest directors and writers. It gambles on big-budget films, most recently the Schwarzenegger vehicle "Terminator 2," this summer's top box-office smash with $159 million, and counting.

In "First Blood" released in 1982 and "Rambo: First Blood Part II" released in 1985, Sylvester Stallone's machine gun-toting, all-American avenger waved the flag and defeated evil while grossing an awesome $390 million at the box office. Along the way, Rambo became for some people an icon of renewed American patriotism. Meantime, the films' producers had the ironic good fortune of avoiding U.S.

At the end of "Terminator 2," Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg character discovers that blinding brute force doesn't always ensure survival. Carolco Pictures Inc., the freewheeling production company that made the movie, recently has learned the same lesson. Carolco has been forced into deep cuts in its operations, despite its success with "Terminator 2" and other audaciously ambitious action movies.

I am repulsed by the jury's finding of liability in the trial of the Los Angeles Police Department Special Investigations Section officers shooting of four armed robbers ("Gates, Special Unit Found Liable for Robbers' Deaths," March 31). These criminals had engaged in a reign of terror, robbing many stores and endangering many lives. The jury disbelieved the allegation that the robbers would point realistic-looking pellet pistols at the SIS officers.

Peter Hoffman sits on the 130-foot, canoe-bottomed motor yacht South Paw, moored near the Palais de Festivals. A strong breeze ruffles his hair and in the distance thousands of people crowd the Croisette as the Hollywood executive ponders the Cannes Film Festival. "I think the festival is less important," Hoffman said. "There was a time when winning the Palme d'Or, best director, were important.

Exactly who was Jose Menendez? The Hollywood community and police investigators have been furiously pressing that question since Menendez--a relatively little known entertainment executive whose career nonetheless connected with some of the biggest names in show business--was shot dead with his wife, Mary Louise, in their Beverly Hills home last Sunday night.

Sylvester Stallone will try his hand at comedy in a new film with John Candy. Carolco Pictures Chairman Mario Kassar announced today that John Hughes will direct Stallone and Candy in a comedy about feuding neighbors entitled "Bartholomew vs. Neff." An original story by Hughes about two neighbors whose friendship disintegrates as they battle to the finish, the film is scheduled to begin production in the summer of 1991, shooting in the Chicago suburbs.