THE OTHER TRUMAN SHOW `INFAMOUS' TAKES A DIFFERENT LOOK AT THE FLAMBOYANT SOCIAL-CLIMBING AUTHOR OF `IN COLD BLOOD'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

When Truman Capote wrote ``In Cold Blood,'' his ``nonfiction novel'' about the brutal murder of a Kansas farm family, he expected to earn fame and notoriety.

But the author could not have guessed that two movies about his effort would be made at the same time, some 40 years later -- and that one of them, ``Capote,'' would be nominated for a slew of Oscars and win one for Philip Seymour Hoffman, the actor who portrayed him.

The other movie, ``Infamous,'' was released Friday after a calculated, nearly yearlong delay. It stars British actor Toby Jones as Capote, and Sandra Bullock as his lifelong friend Nelle Harper Lee (played by Catherine Keener in the other film).

As ``Infamous'' screenwriter-director Douglas McGrath drolly acknowledges in the film's press notes, these two-of-a-kind movie coincidences happen -- though rarely when their subject is as specific and rarefied as this one.

``Who knew that Dan Futterman, the gifted screenwriter of `Capote,' and I would be in the same predicament as those people who made the competing asteroid-hitting-the-earth movies?'' McGrath writes.

But since they were, ``We knew right at the beginning that there was somebody else on the racetrack with us -- and that they had Philip,'' McGrath says. ``First of all, if you're going to make a film about Truman Capote, the person who plays him has to be great. But I also knew that we couldn't have someone who was less good than Philip. And that takes out most people, because he's so superb.''

An astonishing resemblance

A long casting search finally led McGrath to Jones, who is best-known in theatrical circles for the long-running British revue, ``The Play What I Wrote.'' Short and fair-featured, Jones bears a remarkable likeness to Capote, although for most of his life, the comparison had never been made.

``He's not a big figure in the U.K. pantheon of writers,'' Jones explains. ``I've been told I look like a young Orson Welles and Claude Debussy, but not him.''

Still, a more accurate-looking Truman couldn't help but mitigate the Hoffman effect. And since McGrath's movie was based on George Plimpton's book, ``Truman Capote,'' an oral history in which many of the writer's wealthy New York friends recounted their impressions of him, casting Harper Lee became just as crucial a matter.

``The person who played Nelle needed to have the things I believe Nelle Harper Lee had, which are warmth, intelligence, wit, a sense of humanity about her and a kind of accessible quality,'' McGrath recalls.

``Sandy has all of those qualities. Nelle Harper Lee is our guide to the film, and people feel like they know and relate to Sandy, and that was essential.''

``I think she was his truth, I think she represented his childhood,'' Bullock says of Lee, who, after publishing her only novel, ``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' returned to the small Alabama town where she and Capote had grown up together -- and where she has remained, out of the public limelight, to this day.

``But he couldn't hide from her the world that he wanted, which wasn't a world that she agreed with. His validation came from the new world, not from the real world,'' Bullock adds.

Capote's glittery new world of Manhattan socialites and exclusive watering holes is one of the elements that ``Infamous'' emphasizes more than ``Capote'' did. Or at least that's what McGrath hears. He has yet to see the rival production.

``I know a lot of the people on that film, and I like them very much,'' says the filmmaker, who has previously adapted Jane Austen's ``Emma'' and Charles Dickens' ``Nicholas Nickleby'' to the screen.

``I know from people who've seen them both that we probably have a more humorous take on things at the beginning, and I gather the other film doesn't go into his social circle in New York the same way we do.

``And I have a feeling, because it's asked of me many times, that, in our film, the physical relationship between Truman and Perry Smith is more explicit. Those, I think, would be the main differences. But I wouldn't trust me to tell you that,'' he adds.

Perry Smith was one of the two killers eventually executed for the murders Capote was writing about. He was certainly the one Capote got closest to during the many years Smith spent in a Kansas prison, although whether the men actually became lovers remains a question.

In ``Infamous,'' though, Jones and Daniel Craig, who plays Smith, do some pretty heavy making out.

``I didn't think I'd ever kiss James Bond,'' Jones cracks (Craig was tapped to play 007 in ``Casino Royale'' after ``Infamous'' wrapped). ``I feel unqualified to say whether he's a good kisser or not. Even though it looks intimate, I said no tongues; we had very strict ground rules.''

Like McGrath, Jones has so far avoided watching ``Capote.''

And fortunately, the Academy Awards airs at such an ungodly hour in England, Jones didn't have to watch them this year.

Pondering the `competition'

``But I was certainly made aware of it by a lot of sympathetic phone calls about what the results were,'' he says, laughing. ``I have to say, though, that even being compared with Philip Seymour Hoffman is very flattering. You don't have to dislike one film or like the other more. You can like them both; it's allowed.''

Bucking the party line, Bullock did watch ``Capote.'' ``I didn't see it until the beginning of this year, long after we'd finished filming,'' she says. ``And both of them are completely viable and fascinating. It's actually a great thing, and you get different sides of the same story. I think Catherine's fantastic,'' Bullock says. ``We laugh about it.''

Must've been cool to compare notes. Or maybe not. ``We didn't talk about our approaches to the character,'' Bullock reveals. ``Actors don't do that. When we're at a party, we're looking for the food and getting a cocktail.''

Regarding other practical matters: Would releasing ``Infamous'' late last year have been a better business move? The film opened to an unimpressive $452,966 in a 179-theater limited release over the weekend.

``It would have been possible, in that we were finished by November of last year,'' McGrath says of a 2005 opening. ``And there was a debate about it, but not a very long one, because unless we were going to open up Capote-plexes where you could have Capote movies on every screen, it just wouldn't have been the right way to do it. The studio was afraid that if they were released close together, we might cannibalize the audience,'' McGrath explains.

``Believe me, we've given it a lot of thought. I think this is the right way, but the timing question is a mystery,'' he adds. ``We may know something now, but we'll never know what that would've been like.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

[e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Tru lives

`Infamous' paints a more glittery picture of Truman Capote and Harper Lee

(2 -- 4 -- color) Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock, at right, and above as Truman Capote and his friend and fellow author Nelle Harper Lee in ``Infamous.'' The film also features Juliet Stevenson, below left, Isabella Rossellini and Sigourney Weaver as 1950s New York society trendsetters Diana Vreeland, Marella Agnelli and Babe Paley, respectively.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer