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When he met Novelist Dashiell Hammett years ago, recalls Jason Robards, the hard-drinking author of The Maltese Falcon was overflowing with praise for his lover and protegee, Lillian Hellman. Now at work on a new film titled Julia, Robards portrays Hammett, opposite Jane Fonda as Playwright Hellman. But it's no love story. Based on a chapter from Hellman's 1973 autobiographical Pentimento, the movie tells the tale of Lillian and the childhood pal (played by Vanessa Redgrave) who pulled her away from writing to help spirit Jews out of Nazi Germany. So far, reports Robards, the collaboration between Activist Fonda, 38, and Trotskyite Redgrave, 39, has been honey-smooth. "They're wonderful girls," he says, "and very good friends."