`HEAVEN'S PRISONERS' GETS OUT OF PURGATORY.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

When moviegoers see Alec Baldwin's ``Heaven's Prisoners'' starting May 10, little will they realize the level of behind-the-scenes frustration in the movie.

The film, which co-stars Teri Hatcher, Mary Stuart Masterson and Eric Roberts, finished principal production at the end of '94 - just as the financially plagued Savoy Pictures ``got out of the movie producing and releasing business,'' noted filmmaker Phil Joanou.

``I was devastated. We all were,'' he said. ``I don't think I got up from the floor for five hours. Everyone had worked so hard.''

Joanou found himself trying in vain to get funding for - and decisions made about - every post-production element from sound mixing to music. ``We wanted to use about 10 blues songs and we needed to get rights. ... We wanted George Fenton, who scored `Gandhi' and `Dangerous Liaisons' to do the score, but we lost him.'' For awhile.

``Prisoners'' wound up ``sitting in limbo for about five months,'' before Joanou finally received funding to complete the picture. He was able to reschedule Fenton, get the tunes he wanted (a soundtrack album's coming out) - and get a release slated when New Line took on distribution of ``Heaven's Prisoners'' at the end of last year.

There is ``a silver lining to the dark cloud,'' the director said. ``While the film was held up, Teri Hatcher was growing and growing in popularity. I knew her first playing the part of Claudette'' - the sultry Cajun wife of Eric Roberts in the feature - ``and I was flabbergasted when I first saw her playing Lois Lane. Now people are having the reverse experience.''

Hello again: Look for George Hamilton to rebound from his failed ``George & Alana'' TV talk show with an hourlong action/adventure series in which he will star as ``a rogue'' - natch. He created the concept for the show himself, and now, we hear, several studios are bidding on it.

Though ``George & Alana'' didn't last that long, it apparently has made Hamilton hotter than he's been in years. Indeed, his reps at Agency for the Performing Arts are fielding a number of different offers for Hamilton.

The write of it: Brett Butler's autobiography is coming out of the gate a bit slower than was hoped. ``Knee Deep in Paradise,'' which hit the stands in mid-April, will finally find a notch - in the 12th-place slot - on the May 12 New York Times best-seller list.

Butler has not had a happy life, ``Paradise'' is not a cheerful tale, and these days the celeb books that make it big are those of the comedy vein, a la Tim Allen's, Ellen DeGeneres', Paul Reiser's, etc.

Feeling punchy: Naomi Judd proved she's not the fightin' kind during production of the May 7 episode of ``3rd Rock From the Sun'' - in which she goes toe-to-toe with Kristen Johnston, ``3rd Rock's'' male alien in a female human body. ``I've never hit anybody in my life,'' Naomi let us know. She said that when she attempted to feign a punch and ``they saw me do my little tiny fist with my thumb sticking up, they went `uh-oh' '' - and promptly got a stunt man to coach her for the scene.

On the other hand, Mama Judd proved she does have a way with a practical joke. Just before the episode began taping before a live audience, she fibbed to Johnston she'd torn a contact lens. ``I said, `I can't see very good. I know I'm supposed to graze your cheek in this fight scene. ... God almighty, I hope I don't really connect.' She looked worried, but I was totally kidding her.''

The inside track: Hot r&b vocalist Chantay Savage almost passed on the chance to do the remake of the disco classic ``I Will Survive'' - a disc that's on its way to being No. 1 on the r&b charts.

``RCA offered it to me to do as a soundtrack single for the movie `The Perez Family,' '' recalled Savage. ``I turned it down because I didn't want to do a disco remake.'' But after thinking it over, she said, she told them she would sign on if she got creative control. She got it. Savage, who wrote and co-produced most of the tunes on her RCA Records ``I Will Survive (Doin' It My Way)'' album, will be on tour from May through December throughout the States with a few dates over in the United Kingdom.

MEMO: The Celebrities Column appears Monday through Friday.