DOGGED BY FILM; '97 MOVIE HAS TONGUES WAGGING.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Journalists camped out at President Clinton's vacation home on Martha's Vineyard were watching a satellite feed of the movie ``Wag the Dog'' on Thursday when word came that a major announcement was imminent.

The president, hounded by a sex scandal, was going to war in real life just like in the movie.

It was yet another ironic bit of life following art - whether by coincidence or design.

First released late last year and distributed widely in January, just as the firestorm about the president's relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky ignited, ``Dog'' once again had tongues wagging throughout official Washington and media centers Thursday.

In the satiric film, a presidential spin-doctoring team played by Robert De Niro and Anne Heche recruits a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to stage a phony international crisis with Albania to distract press and public attention from a sex scandal involving the president and a Brownie-like Firefly Girl.

When Clinton announced that the U.S. military had struck suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan on Thursday - three days after finally admitting to the American people that he and Lewinsky had had an improper relationship - suspicions that Hollywood was once again wagging Washington were immediately rekindled.

Except, typically, in official Hollywood.

New Line Cinema, which produced the movie based on Larry Beinhart's novel ``American Hero,'' was deluged with press inquiries about the parallels between ``Dog'' and current events. So were publicists for the major talents who made the film.

No New Line executives wanted to discuss the matter. De Niro, a producer of the film, also declined comment. Hoffman was said to be vacationing with his family on a boat, perhaps somewhere in the Mediterranean, and unreachable. An assistant to playwright David Mamet, who co-wrote the film's screenplay, said ``I almost didn't pick up the phone because I knew what this call would be about. I spoke to David earlier today and he has no comment on the matter.''

`A real situation'

Simon Halls, a spokesman for the film's director, Barry Levinson, another of its producers, Jane Rosenthal, and several of its performers, summed up Hollywood's general response: ``This is a real situation here and nobody wants to comment.''

In an interview with the Daily News conducted in February, however, Levinson was quite vocal about the life-follows-film parallels. At the time, America was rattling sabers against Iraq over Saddam Hussein's blocking of weapons plant inspections.

``The moment footage of Monica Lewinsky in that beret hit the news, we became part of the lexicon with `Wag the Dog' syndrome,'' Levinson said. ``It's pretty surrealistic the way this movie parallels real life, from the sex scandal and rumors of war running in the paper side by side right down to the shot of our Firefly Girl in a beret and Monica Lewinsky wearing a beret.

``It's eerie. There's never been just a sort-of connection. It's exactly there. I keep waiting for Rod Serling to suddenly appear in my kitchen and start narrating: There's this film director and suddenly real events are happening because of a movie he made . . .''

Of course, the similarities end at a certain point. No true military action occurs within the film - it's all faked on Hollywood soundstages - and there were no threats or events, such as the recent Africa embassy bombings, to provoke America's response.

Still, ``Dog'' appears more prescient with each passing day.

``I guess `Wag the Dog' will go down in history as probably the most perspicacious film of the 1990s,'' said Leonard Maltin, ``Entertainment Tonight'' film critic and editor of the annual ``Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide.'' ``But we don't know the whole story. Obviously, though, it's rare for life to imitate art as strikingly as this one seems to have.''

Maltin's caution

Maltin cautioned against making glib connections between film and reality.

``It's improper for the media to make these connections when people are dying over this,'' he said. ``Of course, it comes in a week when we're all living in the theater of the absurd. But I wish people would remember where the real story is.''

Author Beinhart dreamed up much of ``Dog's'' scenario in his source novel ``American Hero'' - which, however, did not involve a sex scandal and was based on the premise that the Persian Gulf War was manufactured in order to get George Bush re-elected president.

``An issue in the book was whether it was fact or fiction,'' Beinhart said. ``The book claimed it was more real than reality, and obviously the movie has more than come true. Now that they've actually killed people, though, I don't feel as pleased and facetious as I intended to be. It's a reminder that as funny as government is, the bottom line is that they do get to kill people, which there's nothing funny about.''

Beinhart expressed no regret, and denies any responsibility, for possibly inspiring Thursday's strikes.

``I and the movie reflected this event, rather than inspired it,'' he said. ``If anything, I think it made them hesitate several times, especially about going after Saddam Hussein again. They probably figured back then that everyone would say they pulled a `Wag the Dog.' ''

Speaking earlier this month, ``Dog'' co-star and longtime Clinton supporter Heche recalled feeling awkward about meeting the president around the time the Lewinsky scandal broke.

``He had just seen `Wag the Dog'; he was really lovely about it,'' the actress noted. ``He said, I don't even know if I can comment about that movie.''

Heche was reminded that, during the initial promotional interviews for ``Wag the Dog,'' she related that Hoffman once made up a completely different story about what the movie was about when the president asked him to describe it.

``I'm sure he wished that Dustin's version was true,'' Heche said of the president.

Daily News movie critic Glenn Whipp contributed to this story.

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Photo

PHOTO (color) Dustin Hoffman, left, Anne Heche and Robert De Niro starred in ``Wag the Dog,'' a film that some say parallels Thursday's attacks.

New Line Cinema