Glasnost Fever

Paramount Pictures has instructed cast members not to talk about John Travolta’s dancing in “The Experts”--they want it to be a big surprise. But Travolta’s co-star, Kelly Preston, just couldn’t help herself.

She tells us his first screen dancing since “Staying Alive” is a “hot, funky, sexy number with me,” filmed to the recent Club Nouveau disco hit, “Lean on Me.”

The picture, pulled from last summer’s schedule, will be released Jan. 13 only in Texas and Oklahoma, according to a Par spokesman. He called the severely limited release a “marketing decision,” and wouldn’t comment on it further. Dave Thomas (“SCTV”) directed; James Keach produced with Jonathan Krane.

Preston’s description of the picture makes it sound like “ ‘Footloose’ Meets Glasnost”: “Travolta plays a Nebraska nightclub owner who gets kidnaped and brought to Russia, where he becomes my assignment (she’s a Ruskie spy).” Via hot dance music, she uses him “to bring Russian philosophy into Midwest America through the people (who to go) his nightclub.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds.”