Honey,I Sent the Kids to Oxford

The fax lines were rattling, the tabloids were tattling, the gossips were thrown for a loop. Not since Arthur Miller wed Marilyn Monroe had Hollywood seen so unlikely a marriage of high and low popular art. This time the betrothed were two companies recognized as the best in their very different lines of moviemaking: Merchant Ivory Productions, the independent team responsible for such stately dramas as A Room with a View and Howards End, and the Walt Disney Studios, ace hucksters of no-brow cinema. Disney agreed to co- finance and distribute Merchant Ivory's films for the next three years.

Studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg has promised his new producers total artistic freedom. In Hollywood, though, where Disney is notorious for tinkering with every aspect of production, cynics wondered when the honeymoon would sour. And what films might the Merchant Ivory team make for Disney? The Importance of Being Ernest Scared Stupid? Three Men and a Portrait of a Lady? Howard the Duck's End?

Yet the deal made sense from two angles: quality and quantity. Katzenberg, / who thinks today's movies are worse than ever, was truly touched by the art and heart of Howards End. He also knows that Disney, like any big studio, needs product, and Merchant Ivory is the most prolific of boutique moviemakers, producing over 30 films during their 30-year partnership.

Their first Disney venture, Jefferson in Paris, will be out next year. If the role of Thomas Jefferson is given to, say, Merchant Ivory veteran Christopher Reeve and not, say, Pauly Shore, even Hollywood insiders will agree that this dangerous liaison could also be the beginning of a beautiful marriage.