WORD OF MOUTHS YOU'D THINK IT'D BE OBVIOUS - PEOPLE WANTING TO GO TO THE MOVIES AND WATCH THEM IN SILENCE - YET SOME FOLKS APPARENTLY DIDN'T GET THE MEMO.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Los Angeles film distributor David Whitten and his wife, Suzanne, had long been looking forward to seeing ``American Beauty,'' so when they finally got the chance last year at the Loews State Theater in New York's Times Square, they wanted to savor the moviegoing experience. And they did - until some guy three rows behind them started talking incessantly to his girlfriend.

``And it wasn't even about the movie,'' Whitten complains. ``He was just trying to make a move on her.''

Whitten, confronted with a situation that too many moviegoers find themselves in these days, initially took appropriate action. He shushed the talker. When that failed to stop the steady stream of yakking, Whitten's wife turned around and politely asked the man to ``please be quiet.'' After a response from the talker that cannot be printed in a family newspaper, Whitten walked over to the guy and asked, ``What is it going to take to make you be quiet?''

Whitten says the young man then grabbed his arm, which prompted the 5-foot, 6-inch, 53-year-old Whitten to lose his cool and hit the man on the head with a plastic soda bottle. The talker's response: He punched Whitten in the face, breaking his glasses, bloodying his nose and fracturing an eye socket, putting Whitten in the hospital.

``I shouldn't have hit him with the bottle,'' Whitten concedes. ``But shouldn't I be able to go see a movie without a bunch of loud, disrespectful people ruining it for me?''

It's a question I often ask myself. Theater owners recognize that there's a problem, although nobody wants to go on the record to talk about it (presumably because it would be bad for business). But as the manager of one Valley multiplex admitted off the record, ``You can try to educate people, but there's always going to be a few idiots who don't care what anyone thinks. The problem is, as time goes along, the idiots seem to be increasing in number.''

Being a movie critic, I'm lucky enough to see most of the films I review at private screenings. But from what I see (and hear) when I do see a movie in a regular theater, things are going from bad to worse. If it's not some guy behind you explaining the movie's socio-political meanings, then it's a cell phone ringing - and being answered! - by the woman sitting next to you.

Pacific Bell recently did a survey showing that 59 percent of respondents say they'd rather go to the dentist than sit next to a person with a cell phone in a movie theater.

The problem is that the other 41 percent of respondents probably own cell phones and use them to make their dinner reservations just as Hannibal Lecter is enjoying his climactic meal on screen.

``People are treating movie theaters like extensions of their own homes,'' says author and etiquette expert Peggy Post, the great-granddaughter-in-law of Emily Post. ``Anything goes these days. And what good is a dirty look going to do? It's dark. They can't see you.''

The offenders fall into several camps, each objectionable in his or her own special ways:

THE PROUD PARENTS: Texan Rob Lyon remembers watching ``Me, Myself & Irene'' at a multiplex just outside of Dallas one Saturday night. A baby began crying, the mother did nothing, and the audience grew restless. After repeatedly being asked to remove the bawling infant, the mother screamed, ``Why don't you people shut up?''

Eventually the manager came and removed the mother and child. But not before a 10-minute commotion had ruined the movie for everyone else.

The lesson for Mom and Dad: Spring for a sitter. Or wait for the video.

THE SPOILER: He's the guy who has seen the movie before and has now returned in order to see it again, glean additional insights and generously provide running commentary for his neighbors. He's almost always accompanied by . . .

THE SPOILER'S FRIEND: This is the person who always wants to know what happens before it happens. Ten minutes into the movie, he'll ask, ``So what happens at the end?'' To this person, I want to pass along the following news flashes: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, Thelma & Louise drive off a cliff, and the Planet of the Apes ... it was Earth all along!

THE GOURMET DINER: This is the moviegoer who drowns out the film by loudly crunching popcorn kernels or the person who brings a sack dinner to the theater and spends half the movie unwrapping it or the idiot who slurps his soda long after all 64 ounces are gone. It goes without saying this moviegoer also talks with his mouth full.

Theater chains, who make the bulk of their profits off of concessions, are more than happy to cater the meals. General Cinema, in fact, is tinkering with the idea of a full bar, bistro menu and - get this - waiter service. So not only will you have to deal with the guy behind you kicking your chair (with his skull) because he's just consumed a six-pack of beer, but there may soon be a waiter blocking your view while he's making change and waiting for a tip.

THE LOST SOUL: Sometimes people buy a ticket for a movie they think they want to see and quickly find out it isn't their cup of tea. Then they make everyone around them suffer.

It's the group of elderly women who bought tickets to ``Eyes Wide Shut'' because they thought Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman make such a cute couple. Or it's the teen-agers who wandered into ``Traffic'' after a day of shopping at the mall, and then giggling through all the film's uncomfortable moments.

Memo to the lost souls: Refunds are offered at the box office. Take them up on the offer.

THE NOSTALGIST: For these people, everything on the screen reminds them of something that happened in their own lives. And they must share it.

Years ago, I watched ``Field of Dreams,'' sitting in front of a nostalgist. She chattered on about Fenway Park, Iowa cornfields and J.D. Salinger until I turned around and assured her that if she kept talking, I'd do my darnedest to create a new memory in her life, one that she can reflect on the next time she sees a movie about a talkative audience member being bludgeoned to death. (Note: Last summer's hit comedy ``Scary Movie'' features such a scene, in which the audience murders a woman who wouldn't shut up during a showing of ``Shakespeare in Love.'')

So what can be done? AMC Theaters (``Silence is golden!'') spokesman Rick King advises that if you're sitting next to chatterboxes, size them up and, if they look receptive, politely ask them to be quiet. If they look like they were just paroled from prison, go find the manager.

Post believes movie theaters could follow the lead of legitimate theaters and post signs outside doorways that ask people to turn off their cell phones before entering.

``That would cut down on some of the anger,'' she says.

Post adds that she thinks most people aren't aware they're being rude. ``Sometimes, people just aren't thinking,'' she says. ``A courteous reminder will snap them out of it.''

Whitten, fully recovered from his fractured eye socket, takes a more pessimistic view.

``I remember watching a movie at the Toronto Film Festival, and this guy next to me was having a conversation on his cell phone with another guy in the same theater,'' Whitten says. ``I told him to knock it off, that he was being rude, and he says to me, 'What do you mean I'm being rude? I'm talking on my phone. I could be yelling at him across the theater.'

``That's what moviegoing has deteriorated to. It's a bunch of loudmouths who want to be the center of attention. And there's nothing that can be done.''

Me, I don't believe that. I'm still out there in the trenches, trying - quietly - to spread the word. At a screening of the John Travolta turkey ``Lucky Numbers,'' a woman sitting behind kept describing, quite loudly, everything she saw on the screen.

When I turned around and asked her to keep it down, she huffed, ``My friend can't hear so good!'' To which I replied, ``Well then, stop talking to her.''

The rest of the movie passed in silence. When my wife and I stood up to leave, the woman looked me directly in the eye and said, ``Thank you for letting me not talk during the movie.''

I took her words at face value. Maybe this woman had discovered the magic of watching a movie in silence. Only later did my wife tell me that she saw her give me the finger as I walked up the aisle.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) SHHH!!

Why can't people SHUT UP in movie theaters?

(2) no caption (man with tape over his mouth)

Photo illustration by Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer