TILTING AT WINDMILLS.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

He travels around the world in search of heroism, romance and adventure, boldly challenging foes and turning a deaf ear to those who dismiss his quest as folly.

It's little wonder that ``Don Quixote de la Mancha'' is Robert Halmi Sr.'s favorite story. Halmi, the executive producer behind big-budget miniseries such as ``Merlin,'' ``The 10th Kingdom'' and now ``Arabian Nights'' and ``Jason and the Argonauts,'' admits he identifies with Miguel de Cervantes' adventure-obsessed and addled Spanish nobleman.

``Oh, yeah, windmills are my specialty,'' he said. ``Chasing rainbows and fighting windmills, that's all I do.''

Those windmills are probably the network executives Halmi publicly harps on about their programming choices (other than his own work).

``They have, like, blinders on, they're talking to the lowest common denominator,'' said Halmi, whose Hungarian accent still clings to his deep voice 50 years after he fled the Communist regime. ``They can't figure out anything original. If something is on one network, the other network has to copy it immediately.''

For most TV producers, such complaints and criticism would be seen as biting the hand that feeds them.

But it is ABC, NBC and cable networks who sit up on their haunches as Halmi's company, Hallmark Entertainment, dangles effects-laden miniseries with name stars re-enacting classic stories in exotic settings at a fraction of their production cost. (CBS executives and Halmi have cut ties and still snipe at each other, although neither wanted to discuss the origin of the feud.)

The secret to Halmi's success is twofold: He starts with familiar material, from the Bible (``Noah's Ark'') and mythology (``The Odyssey,'' ``Jason and the Argonauts''), to historic figures (``Cleopatra'') and classic literature (``Moby Dick,'' ``A Christmas Carol''). Then his business-minded son, Robi, sells his movies worldwide, using the proceeds of one to advance the production budget of the next. (Some draw parallels to those ``buy real estate with no money down'' schemes.) Hallmark Entertainment owns the broadcast and video rights and reruns the programs on its Odyssey cable network in the United States and Hallmark network abroad.

It's nice when the ratings are through the roof, as they were for NBC's ``Gulliver's Travels'' in 1996 (the first in Halmi's reinvented, easily recognized franchise), but even merely adequate numbers bring the networks back for more.

Programmers are drawn in by their spare-no-expense look, including those computer-generated giants, floods and ghosts that make a 30-second promo so eye-catching. All that for about one-third of the production cost. Instead of shelling out $10 million for a ho-hum two-parter, they can invest that sum in a lavish production with a large cast, the kind that excites viewers and advertisers.

``I can spend $30 million, $40 million, on '10th Kingdom,' or more,'' Halmi said, speaking from Singapore where he is overseeing yet another miniseries, ``The Monkey King,'' based on a Chinese myth. ``There's even a project now that I'm probably going to spend $65 million to $70 million on.

``It's not the money. If the money's well spent and you come up with something unique like '10th Kingdom' and 'Arabian Nights' or 'Jason,' you'll get it back.

``The U.S. license fees are a losing situation,'' Halmi said. ``I can be just as easy on A&E or Discovery or NBC - it makes no difference to me. The marketplace is the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is incredibly excited - much more so than the U.S. - about what I'm doing.''

Jerry Isenberg, a professor of film and TV production at USC's School of Cinema and Television and a veteran producer and programmer of TV movies, says the Halmis' European business background has served them well, allowing them to use foreign financing to subsidize U.S. prime-time programs.

Television critics were as impressed by ``Gulliver'' as its audience, praising the Lilliput and Brobdingnag mixing of miniature and gigantic actors. But sometime after the third or fourth Halmi sweeps megaproject, industry observers let out a chorus of ``here we go again.''

Literary purists and, in the case of ``Noah's Ark,'' students of the Old Testament, complain that Halmi tampers too much with the works he professes to love.

``Does doing 'Don Quixote' as a movie do a disservice?'' asked Isenberg. ``Yes, if the audience thought they were seeing the book. If they saw the movie, and it created interest in reading the book, then it would be doing a service. Whether the movie does the first or the second in a preponderance is a question of execution.''

As for last season's ``Noah,'' which drew flak for rearranging the chronological order of biblical events, Halmi responded, ``The Old Testament was written by who, and did it actually happen? Was there really a flood, was there Sodom and Gomorrah?'' He said he would not alter a New Testament account because it is a historic record, but ``if you are not blindly religious, then you can question the Old Testament on many levels.''

Halmi says he judges his movies' success, first and foremost, on his own satisfaction. His second priority is viewers.

``I don't particularly want to make any network executives happy, but I definitely want to get my audience happy,'' Halmi said. ``Lots of times, critics and executives kind of call me on the carpet, but somehow the audience comes back and bails me out.''

Halmi, the well-born son of the Hungarian royal family's photographer (his father) and a playwright (his mother), satisfies his appetite for great books with a well-stocked library that includes first editions. He worked as a magazine photographer through the '50s and '60s before dabbling in television production, making his first big splash with the Emmy-winning 1989 miniseries ``Lonesome Dove.''

The Halmis' RHI Entertainment was acquired by Hallmark Cards in 1994, providing the seed money for what has become a fast-growing enterprise bearing out their philosophy that great, time-tested stories have universal appeal.

The elder Halmi plays down his sales technique. ``It comes from casual conversation mostly, where I say, 'I would like to do this,' and they say, 'OK.' I don't spend too much energy on it.''

But network executives have described his pitch meetings as bewitching, with the producer vividly recounting the story (no doubt he would make ``Arabian Nights' '' Scheherazade proud), embellishing it with his vision of effects, sets, costumes and locations. As he talks, he leafs through one of those collectible volumes, pausing at their most enthralling illustrations.

Often he is well into pre-production before he has a U.S. deal. ``Maybe if I get you upset, I do it for myself - and the rest of the world,'' Halmi said.

Halmi, now 76, keeps up a frenetic pace. A few days after his Jan. 22 birthday, he underwent hip replacement surgery and was back at his New York office three days later - without painkillers.

``You die in hospitals,'' he said. ``Nobody gets really cured there. You get cured at home or working.''

His work ethic - he juggles some 20 projects in varying stages at once - is evident in the fact that, in just over four weeks' time, three Halmi events are premiering here: ``Don Quixote'' on TNT April 9, ``Arabian Nights'' this Sunday on ABC and ``Jason and the Argonauts'' May 7 on NBC. (Originally, NBC pitted ``Jason'' directly against ``Arabian Nights'' until, Halmi says, the ``single-minded, stubborn people'' at NBC reconsidered and moved theirs later.)

Among his future projects: Charles Dickens' ``David Copperfield'' (TNT, December 2000), James Gurney's ``Dinotopia'' (tentatively set for November 2001 on ABC), and the aforementioned ``The Monkey King'' (NBC, February 2001). He also hopes to mount ``King Lear'' and ``Faust.''

USC's Isenberg notes Halmi is partly to blame for the network mentality he criticizes, the desire to recapture past ratings successes with similar projects. ``If you spread the talent too thin, it gets transparent,'' he said. ``And television has through its history imitated itself to death and killed every genre it has.''

For all the critical comments he shrugs off or shoots down, Halmi agrees he may have passed the saturation point.

``I think maybe I'm doing too much of it, maybe because I'm in a rush to do lots of things because I have a limited number of years left to do them in. I'm sure if I were 30 years younger, I would go much easier and much slower.''

He says he may do fewer films per year ``but bigger stuff,'' but he won't retire.

``I can't imagine - to drop dead on a golf course,'' he grumbled. ``They're going to stuff you in a golf cart and take you away? What a horrible thought! I'd rather drop dead behind a camera or something.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) 'Arabian Nights' director Steve Barron, left, and producer Robert Halmi Sr.

(2) ABC's ``Arabian Nights'' is one of three Robert Halmi-produced ``events'' on television within a four-week period.

(3) NBC's ``Jason and the Argonauts'' cost millions, but, as producer Halmi says, ``If the money's well spent . . . you'll get it back.''

(4) Producer Robert Halmi Sr.