LIGHTS! CAMERA! VALLLEY! `MAGNOLIA' PUTS US BACK IN SPOTLIGHT.

Byline: Steve Carney Staff Writer

Since the dawn of moviemaking, the San Fernando Valley has served as a chameleon-like backdrop - a setting for alien planets, Western landscapes and even itself in some rather unflattering portrayals.

In fact, the world has gotten a skewed and often bizarre view of the Valley from the images created by Hollywood in such TV shows as ``The Brady Bunch'' and films including ``Chinatown,'' ``Encino Man,'' ``Valley Girl'' and ``Boogie Nights.''

And now comes ``Magnolia,'' a film opening Friday with its own agitated view of the Valley - a place where everyone seems to be on the fringe of fame, either by choice or chance, and mainly because of where they live.

The latest from ``Boogie Nights'' director Paul Thomas Anderson, this kinetic epic swirls around Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood, and traces several hours in the lives of an array of Valleyites.

Anderson, a Studio City native, said he ``wanted to make the epic, the all-time great San Fernando Valley movie.'' All the movie's characters are easily found here, Anderson said, adding, however, that he hopes their wrenching tale is ``not entirely specific to the Valley.''

While some of the Valley's allure for filmmaking and television lies in its proximity to Hollywood, it also makes so many cameos because it offers such a wide spectrum of people and places.

``The Valley is diverse. It's got everything,'' said Morrie Goldman, vice president for communications of the Entertainment Industry Development Council, the joint city-county agency that issues film permits. ``It's not the typical stereotype of suburbia - it's ethnically diverse, it's economically diverse.''

The Valley: A blank canvas

Starting as far back as 1910, pioneering directors such as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille filmed in the Valley because it was close to their studios and its then-open spaces and variety of landscapes could be made to look like anywhere in the world, said film historian Marc Wanamaker.

``Then in the '40s and '50s, the Valley started to have its own identification,'' Wanamaker said. With a postwar real-estate boom that gave rise to suburbia, there was finally enough going to have the Valley be a setting itself, he said.

For example, in the 1945 Joan Crawford drama, ``Mildred Pierce,'' her title character ran a restaurant on Glenoaks Boulevard in Glendale. That portrayal reflected the growth of women in the work force taking place in the Valley, and being reflected elsewhere in the country.

Later ``The Brady Bunch'' television show and movies and ``E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial'' showed off the Valley at its suburban pinnacle.

``Chinatown'' and its sequel, ``The Two Jakes,'' gave gritty, fictionalized accounts of the Valley's growth in the first half of the century, while ``Boogie Nights'' and ``2 Days in the Valley'' have revealed its modern seamy side.

``When they filmed `E.T.,' they were looking for a slice of suburbia,'' Goldman said. But since then the plots have evolved as the Valley has, becoming more complex, more diverse, less white-bread. And the Valley has become a character itself.

``The Valley is developing its own identity and its own sense of community, and I think more of that is going to show itself in stories with a specifically Valley setting,'' Goldman said.

But the characterization isn't always flattering.

Valley girls, a metaphor

In the 1980s, most of what the rest of the country knew about the Valley came from the vapid, clothes-crazy, mall-haunting Valley girls in the movie of the same name, and others.

In the recent Gen-X caper movie ``Go'', one character tells a hysterical friend, ``Don't get all 818 on me,'' a reference to the Valley's area code.

This season on ABC, the oh-so-L.A. comedy ``It's Like, You Know'' devoted an entire episode to spoofing the Valley. The main characters joked about it being too suburban and un-hip, lacking in character or culture. And as they descended into its shimmering heat, they prepared as if they were headed for the desert. Or hell.

In ``Magnolia,'' Anderson deems the Valley worthy of a biblical plague.

The director of 1996's ``2 Days in the Valley,'' John Herzfeld of Studio City, said he used the Valley as a metaphor, a region looked down upon by Hollywood and the rest of L.A. His characters, in turn, were ``in need of a comeback, a second chance, a shot at redemption.''

In ``Magnolia,'' the characters include the troubled daughter of a beloved game-show host, a preteen rapper hoping to make it big, an aging television producer and his trophy wife, an empathetic male hospice nurse, and a misogynistic sex guru/infomercial star.

They're people clawing at the edge of celebrity they once held, or hope to gain, or they're fighting to maintain what they have left, or they're simply standing by as supporting characters in others' 15 minutes of fame.

It shows the Valley as a place where prospective child stars are more interested in an M.O.W. (Movie of the Week) than in P.E.

``At one time it was the image of the suburbs,'' said Goldman, of the film-permitting council.

``(Now) it's a combination of urban sprawl and suburbia. It's not strictly orange groves anymore.''

HOORAY FOR VALLEYWOOD

A selection of movies set in the San Fernando Valley area:

``Mildred Pierce'' (1945) - Joan Crawford plays a woman running a Glendale restaurant, fighting with her daughter over the same man.

``Chinatown'' (1974) and ``The Two Jakes'' (1990) - ``Chinatown'' and its sequel feature fictionalized accounts about the growth of the Valley from the beginning of this century, with boom periods brought on by water and oil, respectively.

``E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982) - E.T., the ultimate outsider, lands in suburbia - here portrayed by a neighborhood in Tujunga - and finds that aliens are apparently not welcome there.

``Valley Girl'' (1983) - A modern-day Romeo and Juliet, in which Valley girl Julie falls for a Hollywood guy played by Nicolas Cage - until their friends from opposite sides of the hill interfere.

``La Bamba'' (1987) - Tells the life story of Ritchie Valens, who came from a Mexican-American migrant family in Pacoima to become a pop star, until he died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.

``Safe'' (1995) - Julianne Moore portrays an affluent Encino housewife who becomes allergic to the chemicals, fabrics and other everyday substances in her home. She eventually must flee her toxic surroundings for a climate-controlled bubble in the New Mexico desert.

``The Brady Bunch Movie`` (1995) and ``A Very Brady Sequel'' (1996) - Took the slice of suburbia that was the 1969-1974 ABC series and transferred it to a big-screen spoof of that lifestyle. A house in Studio City portrayed the Brady home in the series, while the house featured in the movies is in Van Nuys.

``2 Days in the Valley'' (1996) - A comedy-drama about 10 Valleyites searching for renewal and redemption, whose lives collide due to a bizarre murder plot hatched by hit men Danny Aiello and James Spader.

``Boogie Nights'' (1997) - Paul Thomas Anderson's tale about the pornographic movie industry in the Valley, focused on a pseudo-family of regulars with a producer played by Burt Reynolds at its core.

``Magnolia'' (1999) - Anderson's emotional three-hour spin through the lives of a dozen Valley residents with intertwining lives, centered around Magnolia Boulevard.

Big Valley, many stories

Think you can write the great Valley screenplay? Give us your best pitch in 25 words or less. Don't forget to tell us where in the Valley it's set and your name, address and telephone number. We'll print the best of the ideas. Address your answers to ``Valley Screenplay,'' in care of Daily News Features Department, 21221 Oxnard St., Woodland Hills, CA 91367 or fax us at [phone]. Or you can log on to www.dailynews.com and fill out our form.

Staff Writer Bob Strauss contributed to this story.

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 photos

Photo: Tom Cruise stars with Jason Robards Jr. in ``Magnolia,'' the latest of many movies to portray life in the Valley.

Box: Big Valley, many stories (see text)

(2) Hooray for Valleywood (see text)