FILMS/SNEAK PEEK: SCREENWRITING SHINDIG LEAVES 'EM LAUGHING.

The ambitious three-day Words Into Pictures screenwriting conference held at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel ended with a bang Sunday when more than 1,000 people flocked to a comedy panel featuring Hal Kanter, Carrie Fisher, Tracey Ullman, Robert Townsend, Carl Reiner, Garry Marshall and Lowell Ganz, all competing for laughs - and getting them.

``This is more entertainment than I've had on a Sunday in as long as I can remember,'' enthused Reiner. ``I feel like I'm on the Larry King show without Larry interrupting.''

The event overall was well-organized and enriching, with its solid success credited partly to the skill of its executive producer, Laura Edwards. Edwards had originally shied away from the job, but was finally persuaded to take it on, reported scribe Tom Schulman, chairman of the Writers Guild Foundation, which presented the event as a way to raise the public profile of screenwriters and build community.

The attendance of 1,000-plus people exceeded expectations, Schulman said, and organizers are mulling the possibility of staging a second such event. Schulman, an Oscar winner for his original screenplay ``Dead Poets Society,'' noted, ``If there was one quality the forum's more than 200 panelists (who included top writers, producers, directors, studio heads and agents) had in common, it was fight.''

``Everyone at every level has to fight to get their movies made,'' Schulman observed. ``I've never seen so much tenacity in one place.''

`Spec' script bible: Among the new tools for writers offered by vendors at the event was one in particular that should be of high interest to writers trying to tackle the difficult market for ``spec,'' or unsolicited screenplays. ``The Spec Screenplay Sales Directory,'' written and published by entrepreneur Howard Meibach, is a comprehensive listing of more than 300 spec screenplay sales that took place during the past three years. Listed and cross-referenced are the log line, genre, writer, sale price, agent, buyer, sale date, production company, executive's names and other information pertinent to the sale.

``I put this together to help writers, to help them understand what the market is buying and give them information so they could target their screenplay to a specific agent or a company that might have bought this kind of material before,'' said Meibach, 41, of Santa Monica, who's a writer himself and has optioned two of his scripts.

``Also, it will help them avoid writing the exact same screenplay that's been purchased recently.''

Published by Meibach's do-it-yourself company, which is called In Good Company, the directory is current up through May, costs $29.95 and is available in bookstores such as Dutton's in North Hollywood and Brentwood, Larry Edmund's, Book Soup and Enterprise Stationers in Hollywood.

A more comprehensive edition, with listings going back to 1990, is also available for $59.95. Information: [phone].

Course in cool: Hepcat film fans looking for some summer fun might want to dial up some babies and make a few dates for the American Cinemateque's biweekly cinema crash course in Swinger Style, to be taught by the masters, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Ann-Margret and Tony Curtis.

First up 7:30 p.m. June 19 at the Raleigh Studios Chaplin Theater in Hollywood is ``A Guide for the Married Man,'' featuring Walter Matthau back in 1967 as a married man with a yen for something extra, with theme music by the Turtles. Stoli martinis will be served up at a post-screening party. Tickets are $10 to the public and $7 for American Cinemateque members. For $5, you can get into the party only. The series continues with the Rat Pack classic ``Ocean's Eleven'' on July 10. Information: [phone].

The dirt on Dern: So what's up anyway with Laura Dern and Billy Bob Thornton? Jeff Goldblum's not telling, but Dern might, if you put the question to her June 21, when the actress appears for ``A One Night Stand With Laura Dern,'' the kickoff of a new series hosted by the American Cinemateque at the Raleigh Studios in Hollywood. First up at 8 p.m. will be a screening of ``Citizen Ruth,'' director Alexander Payne's fierce comic satire of the abortion debate starring Dern as a glue-sniffing mother-to-be. Dern, who also appeared in ``Wild at Heart'' and a recent well-known episode of ``Ellen,'' will be present for a discussion afterward.

`First Wives' reunion: Tickets are now on sale for the 21st annual Crystal Awards Luncheon presented by Women in Film to honor exceptional women in the entertainment industry. This year's honorees are Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler, who all appeared together in a recent movie that did pretty darn well with audiences, particularly women of a certain age. The event is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 13 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Century City. To reserve tickets, call [phone].

Little Oscars: The 24th annual Student Academy Awards will be presented 6 p.m. Sunday at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theatre, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills.

Finalists from throughout the nation will be present to accepts trophies and cash grants, followed by screening of the award-winning films in each of four categories: documentary, dramatic, animation and alternative.

The event is free to the public on a first-come seating basis, but reservations are required. Please call the academy at [phone], Ext. 129 or 130.

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Photo

Photo: Carl Reiner helped make some 1,000 people laugh at the Words Into Pictures comedy panel.