Infomercial suit alleges dirty dealings.

The people who appear in infomercials wear technicolor sweaters and grins that are whiter than polished tile. Which makes it all the more ironic that behind the scenes, where the cameras aren't running, the infomercial industry is a legal snakepit.

Infomercial companies exchange lawsuits the way schoolkids swap lunch snacks. Several of the biggest players in the business are suing each other over the patents on abdominal exercise machines; meanwhile, the president of the industry's trade association is suing the president-elect over another gadget.

But stranger and more vicious is the battle between Mid-Wilshire-based Marketingworks Inc. and Santa Monica TV production company Barbour/Langley Programs Inc., a feud bursting with allegations of fraud, kickbacks, breach of contract and intimidation by armed men.

Marketingworks was founded by Chas Salmore, a former commercial director and production company executive who recognized a niche in 1991 and formed Marketingworks to exploit it. The company's focus is using infomercials to market videotaped episodes of popular TV shows.

According to materials from the company's P.R. firm, Marketingworks posted sales of $22,000 in its first year of business. Sales hit $595,000 by 1995, and then rocketed to $31 million in 1996.

A big part of that growth was generated by a 1995 joint venture between Marketingworks and Barbour/Langley, which produces the reality-based TV show "Cops" for Fox Television.

"Cops" consists of actual footage shot during police ride-alongs.

The show's camera crews sometimes pick up footage too intense to be aired - even on Fox. Hence the creation of "Cops: Too Hot for TV!," which Marketingworks has been rolling through infomercials and retailers.

"Too Hot" sold a reported 750,000 units, and the case file says the series of "Cops"-related videos has generated $25 million in sales to date.

But the relationship between the two companies soured when Barbour/Langley officials became convinced that they were being cheated by Marketingworks.

According to the Barbour/Langley lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 5, Marketingworks allegedly made secret deals with contractors - such as retail distributors and media buyers - to overcharge the joint venture for expenses, then to pay a percentage of the overcharges back to Marketingworks.

Marketingworks countersued on March 6, claiming among other things that Barbour/Langley slandered Salmore to his business associates and broke its fiduciary duty to the joint venture.

Further, Salmore filed a deposition claiming that a man armed with a pistol came to his offices and began taking photos in order to intimidate him - a man Salmore says is employed as a courier for Barbour/Langley.

Barbour/Langley President Scott Barbour conceded that he sent a messenger to the office of Marketingworks to take pictures, because he was informed that Salmore was destroying documents and he wanted photographic evidence. He said he had no knowledge of the courier being armed.

"I think what this case is really about is that my client has made a significant amount of money in net profit participation that Barbour/Langley doesn't want to pay," said attorney Jay Statman, who represents Marketingworks.

Barbour/Langley isn't the only production company unhappy with Marketingworks. Last May, West Hollywood-based Davis/Panzer Productions Inc. filed a suit against the company that contains very similar allegations.

Davis/Panzer produces a syndicated action/adventure TV miles called "Highlander," and hired Marketingworks to advise the company on telemarketing services for a catalog of "Highlander"-based products, including videos.

According to the Superior Court lawsuit, Davis/Panzer ended the relationship after Marketingworks allegedly made secret deals with telemarketing vendors.

Marketingworks allegedly recommended these vendors to Davis Panzer after convincing them to overcharge the production company and pay a percentage of the overcharges back to Marketingworks. That case is scheduled for trial July 2; no trial date has been set yet for the Barbour/Langley case.

Salmore declined to comment on the cases, except to say his company is still going strong despite the loss of its biggest client and its No. 2 executive, former Executive Vice President Darrel Griffin, who, according to documents filed by Marketingworks, is now working for Barbour/Langley.

Barbour said Griffin does not work for him and never has. He called the countersuit from Marketingworks a smokescreen.

"(The infomercial industry) is a gang of liars and thieves," Barbour said. "Fifty percent of the business is probably corrupt."

The industry does seem to be unusually litigious. One of the biggest infomercial suits, which is wending its way through federal district court in Los Angeles, involves Chester, N.J.-based Precise Exercise Equipment Inc., which claims it invented the abdominal exercise machine that over the past two years has become a ubiquitous sight on late-night television.

Although a half-dozen companies that used infomercials to market knock-offs of the product have settled with Precise Equipment, seven lawsuits are still pending - against giant industry players such as Guthy-Renker Corp. of Santa Monica and Philadelphia-based National Media Corp.

Meanwhile, National Media and Guthy-Renker have countersued each other over the rights to another exercise machine, the Fitness Flyer.

Steven Dworman, who owns a West L.A.-based electronic retail consulting firm, publishes an industry newsletter called the Infomercial Marketing Report that is so packed with lawsuits it sometimes reads like a recruiting manual for the Bar Association.

He says about half the original members of the industry's trade group, the National Infomercial Marketing Association, have quit the organization in disgust over the conduct of their fellow members.