They Loaded Up the Film and Shot in Beverly

Return of the Jed: “The Beverly Hillbillies” TV series that ran on CBS from 1962 to 1971 barely set foot in the city it was named for. The opening credits showed the Clampetts driving north on North Beverly Drive beneath the street’s tall palm trees, but that was about it.

The city has landed a much meatier role in the movie version of the tale of Ozark rustic Jed Clampett, who accidentally strikes oil, makes a bundle and then sets out to embrace the arriviste lifestyle in the gilded enclave. The 20th Century Fox film opened Friday.

One early scene takes place at the Beverly Hills Civic Center, as Milburn Drysdale (Dabney Coleman), president of the fictional Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, mollifies Jed (Jim Varney) after Drysdale’s all-too-efficient assistant, Jane Hathaway (Lily Tomlin), calls the Beverly Hills Police to report apparent intruders at the Clampett mansion--who of course turn out to be the tattered-looking Clampetts themselves.

Several other scenes were shot on Beverly Hills streets: Jethro Bodine (Diedrich Bader) drives Drysdale’s Rolls-Royce on Rodeo Drive; a homeless man wipes the Clampetts’ windshield and then seeks a tip, and a Beverly Hills High School student receives a fax in her convertible.

The high school also plays a role in the film. Following an establishing shot of the exterior, the action shifts inside to the math department hallway for a scene in which Drysdale’s teen-aged son Morgan (Kevin Connolly) guides Elly May Clampett (Erika Eleniak) through her first day of school.

Let the record show, however, that in real life the high school does not have an automated teller machine or a roving cappuccino-maker. These embellishments were installed just for filming.

And a time-saving tip for those who would comb Beverly Hills in search of the Clampett mansion shown in the movie: don’t bother--it’s in Pasadena.

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Two on the town: When Santa Monica Councilmen Paul Rosenstein and Ken Genser were named to co-chair a design group for the Civic Center some months back, City Hall watchers sat back and waited for the blood to flow.

Though the two have long played in a regular poker game, that had not stopped them from sparring almost weekly at council meetings over slow-growth politics.

Genser, a militant opponent of most forms of development, rarely passed up an opportunity to carp at Rosenstein’s more middle-of-the-road philosophy on the subject. Rosenstein fought the repeated attempts to paint him as the developer’s best friend just because he didn’t meet Genser’s litmus test.

We’re talking loggerheads here.

But when the two sat down with the group to come up with a design for the Civic Center, conventional wisdom went out the window.

Rosenstein reports that “to my surprise and delight,” the working relationship with Genser was smooth and collegial. Compromises were made by all.

Both he and Genser described the workshops facilitated by San Francisco architect Boris Dramov as an educational process. The process led them to a design they could agree on.

At last week’s council meeting, when the design was presented, Rosenstein and Genser found themselves uncharacteristically on the same side of a key growth issue. As co-chairs, they even sat next to each other.

Genser played the strange-bedfellows alliance for a laugh. When Rosenstein said, “I agree with Councilman Genser,” Genser retorted, “As he always does.”

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Head of the class: Veteran Legislature-watcher Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee has rated Assemblywoman Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) as one of the “freshman standouts” in the legislative session that concluded last month.

Thanks mostly to reapportionment, the 80-member Assembly had an unusually large contingent of 27 first-termers after the 1992 election.

In a recent column, Walters wrote that Bowen “personified the freshman class pledge to jerk the Legislature into relevance--a promise that was at least partially fulfilled--and she became a player by sheer force of will.”

Other distinguished members of the Class of ‘92, Walters said, were Democrats Louis Caldera of Los Angeles, Martha M. Escutia of Huntington Park and Valerie Brown of Sonoma, and Republicans Jan Goldsmith of Poway, Bernie Richter of Chico and Curt Pringle of Garden Grove.

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Council meetings this week:

* Beverly Hills: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. 450 N. Crescent Drive. (310) 285-2400.

* Culver City: no meeting. (310) 202-5851.

* Los Angeles: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. 200 N. Spring St. (213) 485-3126.

* Malibu: no meeting. (310) 456-2489.

* Santa Monica: no meeting. (310) 393-9975.

* West Hollywood: 7 p.m. Monday. West Hollywood Auditorium, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. (310) 854-7460.

Staff writers Steven Herbert and Nancy Hill-Holtzman and correspondent Jamie Simons contributed to this report.