TAKING THE LONG VIEW OF SLAPSTICK

It is not every actress who can emerge from a baggage conveyor looking disheveled, baffled and incipiently hysterical yet retaining an aura of sexy and endearing charm.

But Shelley Long and Bette Midler both achieved such split-level effects then and throughout “Outrageous Fortune,” which is still prospering in first release.

They, and the film, reaffirm an old truth, which is that the most successful comedy always builds on character. If an uninteresting person slips on a banana peel, you may, if compassionate, wonder if there has been orthopedic damage. Or, if civic-minded, you may be outraged at the slovenliness of the streets and demand to know who is in charge.

But even though the slipped-on banana peel is the very essence of the slapstick joke, you may not even laugh unless the victim’s character has been established. The joke, that is, is the accident personalized.

As it moves along, “Outrageous Fortune” becomes ever more a succession of slapstick jokes, physical and verbal. (Can you have slapstick dialogue? I think so.) It was in fact a little too outrageous for some observers, but it seemed to me to work most excellently well, because Long and Midler had created essentially sympathetic if larger-than-life characters to whom slapstick things were certain to happen.

Another ancient truth confirmed by the film is that comedy is the hardest art of all, born of long apprenticeship, bruises and stolid audiences. Long, who is 37, has been at it hard since she left Northwestern.

By the time she made her film debut in 1980 in Rob Cohen’s tale of Harvard undergraduate pals, “A Small Circle of Friends,” she had produced film strips and done three years as a co-host and field reporter on a Chicago television magazine show, producing segments as a singing waitress or a circus clown. She was later a member of Second City.

“It’s a great town to learn in,” she says. “You can say, ‘Gee, I guess I’ll try that.’ I knocked around a bit, did a lot of things. I worked in industrial films and finally even evolved a contract to do films for Encyclopedia Britannica to encourage reading.” Then came television, and, in time, the movies.

She had her first taste of doing strenuous slapstick playing opposite Ringo Starr in “Caveman.” “There we were, in very rugged terrain, running around in our little furry boots,” she recalled the other day. “It was like ‘Outrageous Fortune.’ I told myself I will survive and I will be funny doing it.

“When you read a script, you don’t really think that when it says you climb the mountain, you climb the mountain . And you don’t think about the weather in New Mexico, where we shot ‘Fortune.’ You have to dig deep just to have the endurance to keep going. Stamina is an important part of acting. I’m not sure anybody tells you that loudly enough.”

Her ability to play character comedy had been clear enough in the early films, but was demonstrated to a wider audience than any of the films had found in the TV series “Cheers,” for which she received an Emmy in 1983. After five years, she has resigned from the series to concentrate on the movies.

She took a full-page ad in the trades to thank cast and crew for the swell times and to countermand printed rumors that there had been frictions on the set, which she denies.

“It was a wonderful, invaluable experience,” she says. “I learned so much from the producers, the crew, from Ted (Danson) and the other actors. I’m trying to use the lessons on writing, producing and acting in my own films.” She has a development deal at Touchstone Films (the new moniker for the mature Disney films), where she made “Outrageous Fortune.”

“The days of sitting around the dressing room are numbered. I find that being involved in production is helpful to my acting. It contributes to my seeing the choices .”

She is likely next to do “Hello Again” with director Frank Perry.

Like the character of Laurie in “Outrageous Fortune,” Long is purposeful to the point of solemnity. On the fame that has come her way with “Cheers” and “Outrageous Fortune”: “It doesn’t prevent you from functioning, but more of your life is suddenly a work environment. It’s nice to have the feedback, but you have to keep control of that environment. You do want those private moments.” Then she smiles, quite unsolemnly.