Zanuck Co

Marvin M. Mitchelson, the Los Angeles "palimony" lawyer, has lost a round in a malpractice suit brought against him by Genevieve Gillaizeau, a former client, who claimed that Mitchelson botched her forgery challenge to Darryl F. Zanuck's will by allowing the statute of limitations to run out before filing papers in court. Zanuck, co-founder of 20th Century Fox, died in Palm Springs at the age of 77 in December, 1980.

Driving Miss Daisy (The Zanuck Co.). Shooting in Georgia. Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, Dan Aykroyd, Patty Lupone and Esther Rolle are all taking cuts in pay to bring this Pulitzer-prize winning play by Alfred Uhry to the big screen. Tandy's an elderly Southern Jewish woman who must contend with the black man her son hires (against her will) to drive her about. Producers Richard and Lili Zanuck. Director Bruce Beresford. Screenwriter Uhry. Final Notice (Wilshire Court). Shooting in Toronto.

If it were possible to make a good movie from a bad script, you'd be wise to turn to a miracle worker like Andrew Davis, who once made a good movie from one starring Steven Seagal ("Under Siege"). That feat earned Davis the directing assignment on "The Fugitive," which may be the best action thriller of the decade, and now he's back with "Chain Reaction."

When Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein opened a show of his paintings recently, celebrities crowded a downtown gallery. Leonardo DiCaprio rubbed elbows with Marilyn Manson. Beck chatted with Kevin Smith. Mena Suvari stopped for a photo op, and Sean Penn lent his cool. For a recent transplant, Helnwein attracted much Hollywood. Beyond the paintings, actor Jason Lee was the reason for the high celebrity quotient.

Walter Hill should have been born 25 or 30 years earlier and become a movie director when Westerns, those featuring the kind of romanticized, dime-novel tales debunked in Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven," were appreciated. Hill has a genuine passion for the Old West, Hollywood's Old West, made with a dash of history and a wagonload of legend, and he showed what he could do with that material in his crafty 1980 "The Long Riders."

There's only one Clint Eastwood (more's the pity) but two kinds of Clint Eastwood movies. Alongside steely-eyed, hard-bitten items like "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Unforgiven," Eastwood has periodically directed softer, more sweet-natured ruminations like "Honkytonk Man" and the underappreciated "Bronco Billy." His latest, "True Crime," has elements of both.

Breathe deeply, because spring has popped--with flowers and with a breezy social scene that demands vigor. Last Friday, the International Committee of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. tango-ed up a storm at the Regent Beverly Wilshire to honor Argentine Consul General Juan Sola and his wife, Maria. The night after, it was pick and choose or try to make several parties: At the Museum of Natural History, the city's social elite gathered at the traditional fund-raising Dinosaur Ball.