Was 'Three' prelude to breakup?

HOLLYWOOD

The un-

easy prophecy of "Three Into Two Won't Go" won't be missed by the vulturous at heart.

and Claire Bloom portray the breakup of a contemporary marriage. It is cueball hard in its narrow focus, and the ironies tumbled intc place when Steiger and Miss In the film, Rod Steiger Bloom, the bull and the butterfly, fell into their own marital discord earlier this year.

(Married 10 years, they filed separation in May, Miss Bloom reportedly sought a divorce in Mexico, and now she's planning to marry Hillard Elkins, the Off-Broadway producer of "Oh! Calcutta!")

"THREE Into Two Won't Go," filmed last summer in the brave new world of a

London suburb, thus arrives-

out subliminal kitchen warfare is grist for the mill. Julian Blaustein, who produced for Universal under duced for Universal under Jay Kanters old European umbrella, said "they seemed delighted to be able to work together. As far as I could see, there was no clue to their breakup."

Unlike the Burtons, the Steigers started late playing husband and wife, their first husband and wife, their first such venture occuring in such venture occuring in two of the three segments of “The Illustrated Man,” which they completed two months before starting

"Three Into Two Won't Go."

It was while finishing "The Illustrated Man" a year ago April (the month he won the Oscar for "In

told a Hollywood writer that Claire Bloom "is a perfectionist and I'm a slob. I'm crazy about our house in Malibu and she loathes it. She likes parties and I don't."

THAT COMMENTARY rings with sufficient identity, although short of the contentious and crackling dialog, perhaps one of the best features of “Three Irto Two Won't Go."

Working from a screenplay by Irish novelist Edna Andrea' Newman, Director O'Brien, from the novel by

Peter Hall, former managing director of The Royal Shakespeare Company, had to wrestle with a couple of

on the screen with the irrelThe Heat of The Night"), script changes.

evant notoriety of off-screen drama.

Whether Steiger, 44, and Miss Bloom, 38, were acting

that Steiger plopped into the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills, flaunting that room's Hills, flaunting that room's dress policy, and amiably

Steiger forced one because "he wanted to make it clear at the end," said Blaustein, "that no one in particular was to blame for the marriage breakup," including 19-year old Judy Geeson, who plays a shattering catalyst in the story. Or as Blaustein put it: "The cuckoo who flys into the nest and fouls it up."

The other script change was fostered by Blaustein, who didn't want the film to conclude like the novel, with Miss Bloom and Miss Geeson kicking Steiger out of his house and remaining behind together.

"Frankly," said Blaustein, "I showed that script version to three advisers and each agreed.it suggested a Lesbian relationship. In the book, Miss Bloom's character was more maternal, full of matronly overtones."