Australian actress Greta Scacchi will take on...

Australian actress Greta Scacchi will take on her third high-profile American film role in a year when she co-stars with Tom Berenger and Bob Hoskins in a-yet-to-be-titled erotic thriller going into production under West German director Wolfgang Petersen later this month at the MGM/Lorimar/Sony-Columbia lot in Culver City. Scacchi co-starred with Harrison Ford in Alan J. Pakula’s “Presumed Innocent” last summer and is currently co-starring with Jimmy Smits in Gillian Armstrong’s “Distant Shores” (a.k.a. “Fires Within” and “Little Havana”). . . .

Marlee Matlin will star in the drama “The Man in the Golden Mask,” a film to be made in English by French producers in Mexico. Her co-star is Jean Reno (“The Big Blue”). The film, set to start in late February or early March, will be directed Eric Duret and produced for Adelaide Productions by Marjorie Israel. Meanwhile, Matlin’s own project, “Fox,” described as a fantasy love story, is in the late stages of development at Paramount. . . .

John Frankenheimer, whose political thriller “The Fourth War” is awaiting release, will next direct “The Year of the Gun” for independent producer Ed Pressman. The thriller about paranoia takes place in Rome in 1978, during the time of the Red Brigade terrorist group. The script, from a novel by Michael Mewshaw, was written by David Ambroise (the English writer responsible for “The French Revolution” mini-series). Production starts April 17. . . .

Ronny Cox (“Beverly Hills Cop”) and Michelle Phillips will play a psychiatrist and his wife in Frank De Felitta’s psychological thriller, “Scissors.” The film, which also stars Sharon Stone, Steven Railsback and Vicki Frederick, begins production this month at Sidewinder Studios in Culver City for producers Hal Polaire, Mel Pearl and Dan Levine. . . .

Matthew Modine joins the cast of Morgan Creek’s “Pacific Heights,” as Melanie Griffith’s boy friend. Michael Keaton plays a tenant who terrorizes the couple in their exclusive San Francisco digs. 20th Century Fox distributes the thriller, directed by John Schlesinger. . . . Director Charles Lane, whose black-and-white, silent “Sidewalk Stories” was acclaimed on the festival circuit in 1989, is busy preparing two new films. First up is “True Identity” for Disney and Sanddollar Prods. Written by Andy Breckman (“Moving,” “Arthur II”), the film draws its inspiration from an old “Saturday Night Live” sketch, which Breckman wrote and directed, that featured Eddie Murphy as a white man. This has been expanded into a script about a black man who, upon learning something he isn’t supposed to know, must disappear--which he does thanks to a makeup artist who changes his skin tone. Lane is currently polishing the script and is aiming for an early spring start. For Island Pictures, Lane is also preparing “Skins,” a project he has worked on for 11 years. . . .

Judy Landers (“Armed and Dangerous”) is set to star in Rumar Films’ “Club Fed,” a comedy about white-collar criminals in a minimum security prison. Nathaniel Christian directs from a Jordan Rush screenplay.