HOLLYWOOD DOES ITS PART TO MAKE JOBS.

Byline: Burt Prelutsky Local View

FOR good and for ill, Hollywood has often been in the forefront where America's values, mores, fashions and even politics are concerned.

Clark Gable didn't wear an undershirt in ``It Happened One Night,'' and deep-sixed an entire industry. Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart went through a carton of Camels in every scene, and the entire nation lit up.

All that was required was that leading men stopped wearing hats to leave everybody in the country, except for cowhands and Orthodox Jews, bareheaded.

Hollywood, almost to a man and woman, is anti-gun ownership - except for those Barettas in the hands of their bodyguards, is opposed to the three-strikes law, is against capital punishment and in favor of illegal immigration - and so the politicians they finance and campaign for take a blood oath to the prevailing agenda.

But, as with so many things, there is some good mixed in with the bad.

For instance, people in Hollywood spend lavishly on homes, landscaping, security, travel, automobiles, clothing, publicity, nannies, entertainment, therapists, trainers, detox, Botox, rehab, plastic surgery, lawyers and property settlements, doing way more than their part to keep money circulating.

Lately, I have become aware that Hollywood has once again found a worthy cause. This time it has geared up to battle unemployment in its ranks.

There are, after all, only so many movies that can be made in a single year, Ben Affleck being only human. So, while they have already tried to deal with the ongoing problem by hiring 10 or 12 writers to write, rewrite and polish a typical script, that still leaves a great many others on the sideline. I refer to those people who, through no fault of their own, are unable to write, rewrite or polish, even a shopping list, but are otherwise deserving of employment and an honorable niche in the cinematic food chain.

Hollywood, as well known for its heart as its headlines, has found a way to deal with this tragic oversight. And, as with so many of its good works, it's carried it off without a lot of hoopla.

I am stating for the record that the current practice of assigning producing credit to everyone who comes within spitting distance of the set is no mere whim or accident, but is, in fact, an act of charity.

I suspect there are people who find it ludicrous that while ``Spirit'' bestows producing credits only on Mireille Soria and Jeffrey Katzenburg, and selfish Rick McCallum hogs all the glory for ``Star Wars, Episode II,'' ``Insomnia'' spread it out among George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh, Tony Thomas, Kim Roth, Charles J.D. Schlissel, Paul Junger Witt, Edward L. McDonnell, Broderick Johnson and Andrew A. Kosove. ``About a Boy,'' clearly up to the challenge, doled it out to Nicky Kentish Barnes, Debra Hayward, Liza Chasin, Hardy Justice, Nick Hornby, Lynn Harris, Jane Rosenthal, Robert DeNiro, Brad Epstein, Jim Bevan and Eric Fellner.

I repeat, some people might find this current practice ludicrous. But not I. Two movies, 20 producers. I think those numbers say it all.

If only every employer hired 10 people to do the job of one, what a world this would be!