Good news for connoisseurs of film lore and footnotes to the movie industry [BY] By Daniel M. Kimmel

Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion, 8th Edition, by Leslie Halliwell. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 704 pp., illus. $42.50. What Italian actress said, ``Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti?'' When did Cary Grant make his last movie? What film featured both the Marx Brothers and Marilyn Monroe?

Even if you knew the answers are Sophia Loren, ``Walk Don't Run'' (1966), and ``Love Happy'' (1950), if such matters interest you, then the publication of the eighth edition of ``Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion'' is good news indeed.

This one-volume encyclopedia of film lore provides everything from filmographies of filmmakers and performers to listings of films on subjects ranging from the Alamo and airships to witchcraft and zombies.

Leslie Halliwell, who works for the British ITV television network, has written several volumes of movie history, two of which (``The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes'' and ``Halliwell's Movie Quiz'') have been combined with the new edition of the ``Filmgoer's Companion.'' This makes it not only a useful reference source, but a book that's lots of fun just to browse through.

If you spot the occasional error (``Nobody's perfect,'' as Joe E. Brown says in ``Some Like It Hot''), Halliwell is most obliging.

In his introduction he provides his London address and an invitation to write.

He'll do his best to see the correction is made for the ninth edition.

Daniel M. Kimmel reviews films for the Boston Ledger and the Worcester Telegram and is a frequent contributor to the Monitor.