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Lucky Numbers | numbers
WHEEL TROUBLE Travolta knows which way the wind blows in ''Numbers''
Richard Foreman
This movie from the director of ''Sleepless in Seattle'' and ''You've Got Mail'' has been called a ''romantic comedy'' in the press. Now Ephron wants to set the record straight: ''There is almost not a romantic bone in this movie's body. It's very dark. It's not at all the sort of thing that I've ever done. People are killed in it.'' No, it's not the kind of thing you expect from Ephron, who left the writing to Adam Resnick (HBO's ''The Larry Sanders Show''), whose script is loosely based on a true story: In 1980, a group of bumblers in Pennsylvania tried to rig the state lottery by weighing down the numbered Ping-Pong balls with paint. ''My script is completely unsentimental,'' says Resnick. ''No one falls in love.''

Instead, Travolta plays a weatherman who owns a limping snowmobile dealership and gets seduced by the wicked Crystal (Kudrow), the lottery's sequined evening gown wrapped Vanna White. ''She has no morals,'' says Kudrow. ''I liked that.'' The first scene Kudrow and Travolta rehearsed together? An orgasm, naturally. Kudrow remembers it this way: '''Hi, nice to meet you. All right, so let's start here: John, get on the bed. Lisa, you are straddling him.' Isn't that somethin'? But he really made it comfortable for me.'' GOOD SIGN ''Sleepless in Seattle'''s mastermind goes ''Heartless in Harrisburg.'' THEN AGAIN Travolta's last movie was a little disaster called ''Battlefield Earth.''


Posted Aug 11, 2000 | Order Article Reprints