Daily News from New York, New York • 68

The greening of Hollywood a Kerrn It Co. In the reel world MoviesBy KATHLEEN CARROLL 0r tm i my III i um i '-f- 'iSinifi''fafiiritmiTiiiiiiil i -I, I 1 552X15- har1" Directed by James rrawier. At tht Zieateld. Runnlm time: I hour, 3 minutes. Rated c7 The Muppets, those amazingly lifelike puppet creations of Jim Henson, now venture into the reel world with a thoroughly delightful movie that takes an adoring look at Hollywood.

Yes, even those tough old Muppet critics, Statler and Waldorf, who offer their cutting comments from their balcony seats at the close of every Muppet TV show, found something to like about "The Muppet Movie." "I like the movie so far," Waldorf grudgingly admits as he joins his fellow Muppets for a special preview of the picture. "It hasn't started yet," says Statler, his straight man. "That's why I like it grunts Waldorf. As "The Muppet Movie" starts, Kermit the Frog Is seen in his native habitat a Florida swamp, when who -should appear but a Hollywood agent (Dom De Luise) wno just happens to have a copy of Variety containing an ad announcing "open auditions for frogs wishing to become rich and famous." Kermit, needless to say, leaps at the chance and he begins his cross-country trek, riding his bicycle and later driving in an assortment of vintage automobiles (Even with Kermit fully exposed to the camera, it's impossible to tell how Henson controls his movements and the visual effects he achieves are truly remarkable) while picking up such prominent members of the Muppet troupe as Fozzie Bear and the Great Gonzo and occasionally pausing to croak a song. "The Muppet Movie" is then a combination road picture and movie musical that spoofs almost every Hollywood cliche from the shootout (Kermit has a showdown with his nemesis, a fast- food entrepreneur, hilariously played by Charles Durning, who wants to nire him as spokesman for his product French Fried Kermit the frog In "The Muppet K' not easy being green, but he's lovable.

Brooks, who is threatening to turn Kermit's brains "into Frog Legs, on the very street where "High Noon" was filmed) to one of those fanciful montage sequences in which the lovers moon over each other in a series of romantic settings. The lovers, in this case, are Kermit and Miss Piggy, who, like any true star, has only to make an entrance to automatically liven things up. Miss Piggy, playing a beauty contest winner who immediately sets her sights on "Kermie" and thoroughly overwhelms him with her aggressive personality, effectively steals the show, particularly the scene in which she lauches a karate attack against a real swine, a mad doctor, played with his usual manic intensity by the inimitable Mel gucx-cuuuie. However, with the exception of Brooks' wacky scene and Steve Martin's funny bit as a snooty waiter, the cameo appearances by such stars as Bob Hope and Richard Pryor tend to slow the action down just as the bland musical numbers by Paul Williams and Kenny Asher interrupt the flow of the movie. Still "The Muppet Movie" should entrance both young and old as the Muppets further endear themselves with their crazy antics, their playful puns and their very human characteristics.

I 1Q J4 ''Ma ft; rpuKKsCa TJMra Gveratt1 MoviesBy ERNEST LEOGRANDE their reason for being eventually just trailing off. The movie moves along encouragingly at first, aglint with bright comic moments, like Streisand's emphasizing her famous nose by sniffing out perfumes or arriving, in widow's black and catatonic face, to sign away her business. As it moves into training camp and boxing ring, however, the movie, with Streisand (a never-ending fashion plate) setting th THE MAIN EVENT. Barbra Streisand. Ryan O'Neal Rated Running time: I hour, si minutes.

It obviously seemed like a cute idea to producer Barbra Streisand, hunting for a new vehicle for herself: The head of a perfume manufacturing company loses AO mm Wti. unrelentingly at making itself liked. Its tactics eventally are high-pressure exhausting. WW Eastwood and Larry Hankin in "Escape From behind bars, but not for long rs! iici uuainess, retaining just one asset, the contract of a non-fighting prizefighter whose only purpose has to been to provide her with a tax shelter. She decides to get solvent again by becoming his manager and turning him into a winner.

He resists, they scrap a lot but, naturally, they fall in love. "The Main Event," however, turns out to be an excess of cuteness, a tireless series of jabs to the ribs, comedy delivered with a drubbing. Streisand's co-star is Ryan O'Neal, with whom she was matched in "What's Up, Doc?" Like that movie, "The Main Event" wants to recreate the screwball romantic comedies of the 1930s, a witty, sophisticated slugfest between the sexes. Well, it's good to see Streisand reclaiming herself from the dramatic excesses of "A Star Is Born," in which she presented a carved granite personality, its force reducing Kris Kristofferson to a helpless pulp. Here she can once again concentrate on the comic sense, with its finely tuned timing, that is so much a part of her talents.

If only she didn't feel obliged to give so much of it, always to be on, twinkling and mugging and reacting. Gail Parent, co-writer of the screenplay with Andrew Smith, wrote for "The Carol Burnett Show," but Burnett's comic world operated as ensemble playing in which star could be subordinated to situation. Visually speaking, O'Neal and Streisand make a good team, but his slapstick here is self-conscious and this holds down the comic i interplay. like sees a flower, he crushes it, to emphasize that any attempt to escape from The Rock, even in the esthetic comfort of a flower, is never to be. Granting the familiarity of the setting, the simplicity of the story and the predictability of characters' actions, this viewer still must acknowledge that producer-director Don SiegeL working from newcomer Richard Tuggle's screenplay and filming at the actual, site, has created a neat and suspenseful vehicle for Eastwood's established screen personality.

His face and body weathered by time and trial, Eastwood in Alcatraz shines with stony cynicism and indomitable self-confidence in his sense of moral right Tuggle's screenplay, adapted from a book by J. Campbell Bruce, is based on a true story, and that's something else to take into consideration in evaluating the movie. Beneath the screen conventions lie the actualities, that prison life under such conditions can strip men of their humanity and exert intolerable pressures on mind ajid body that have nothing tdJ with rehabilitation. don't intend to, Alcatraz was clqsed in 1963 and has been turned1 intoy a tourist attraction with vis- itors advised-to wear comfortable shoes 1ut trii Yz Eastwood, Patrick McGoohjn Directed by Don Sieoel. Forum and Trans-lux East.

Runnlm time: 1 hour, 52 minutes. Rated PG. The warden surveys the steely-eyed face of the new prisoner standing before him. He glances down at the man's file and reads "J.Q. Superior." He senses that this is a man to be reckoned with and well he should, since this man is Clint Eastwood.

The title of "Escape From Alcatraz" tells it all. Eastwood has come in only to get out and the substance of the movie is how he achieves the escape. Along the way we encounter a gallery of stereotypes from the annals of prison movies: a huge homicidal brute with evil designs on Eastwood; a kindly older man known as Doc who paints to provide himself with a spiritual outlet; a pragmatic, quiet black who tends the prison library and warns Eastwood, "The Rock. either brings out your stren'th. it breaks you." Then there is the cold-hearted warden, played by Patrick McGoohan, buttoned up in his vested suit, who looks down on the prisoners from his God-like position and Intones, "We don't make good citizens but to -a mm aarmnJF r- iiiiiuiuui iiiayu 9 uieais trainer, Patti D'Arbanville as his Liueh girlfriend nd Paul Sand as Streisand's lawyer and Streisand and Ryan O'Neal In fnpmpi- hiiafawHb.anwtf on the hoTchofcfcouf Va.