The Graduate Student Association's efforts to bring "Dances With Wolves" to campus were quashed yesterday after a distributor of the Oscar-winning film allegedly broke its contract with the student organization.

Swank Motion Pictures, a college and university representative of Orion Pictures, canceled a Dec. 11 contract with GSA that would have brought the Orion-owned film to the University April 12-21. GSA and the Association of Residence Hall Students had scheduled showings for the next two weekends. The Student Union Board, the third campus organization that shows films, had not scheduled the film.

"I'm still not sure totally what's going on here. I'm still shocked by it," said ARHS Cinema Director Jennie Orr, who had just been told by the GSA film director that "Dances With Wolves" had been pulled from the agenda.

Frank Arlinghaus, the vice president of GSA, said Swank could not send the film because it must follow Orion's suggestions. He said Swank gave GSA no reason for the breach of contract, although the association has the country's largest college account and has had a good relationship with Swank for more than ten years.

Orion and Cinema World officials are not prepared to comment on the situation until a public conference at 4 p.m. April 11 in 314 Hammond. Swank representatives could not be reached by phone last night.

Arlinghaus said that GSA will notify by fax machine today the California production company of the film's director, Kevin Costner, in hopes Costner will intervene on the organization's behalf.

If Costner can not help or if Swank does not change its stance, Arlinghaus said a lawsuit will be filed against Swank, and possibly Orion and others responsible for the broken contract.

"Right now we're trying our best to bring it here, if it does not make it we will continue with our suit," Arlinghaus said.

Over the past few months a conflict between Orion and Cinema World, Inc., which owns all three downtown theaters, has prevented Orion releases from showing in State College. Residents wishing to see such Orion films as "Dances With Wolves" and "The Silence of the Lambs" have been traveling to other towns that do show the films.

"I believe that someone is trying to deal with the bad press in this community for not bringing ("Dances with Wolves") and our being shut out of it is directly related to that," Arlinghaus said. He said the association can not completely blame Cinema World.

"Our office has been told that someone is behind all of this, orchestrating this whole thing," Arlinghaus said.

GSA's contract was negotiated as a non-commercial release, Arlinghaus said. Commercial releases come before and are open to professional movie houses like Cinema World, Inc.

"Cinema World deals with commercial releases . . . they've had six months to bring this film to State College, and they have not," Arlinghaus said.

Cinema World, a Pittsburgh-based chain, operates 182 screens at 44 locations in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.