June 3, 1985

American communities, trying to deal with the effects of a technology that has moved the pornographic movie from the back street to the shopping mall and corner store, have begun to prosecute shopkeepers who rent videocassettes of sexually explicit films. The owners of two shops here, Arizona Home Video and Arizona Video Cassettes, face obscenity charges lodged by Maricopa County. They are charged with offering rental copies of movies such as ''Desires for Men,'' ''Divine Atrocities'' and ''800 Fantasy Lane'' along with such standard Hollywood productions as ''On Golden Pond,'' ''Patton'' and ''Police Academy.'' Officials in Cincinnati, Memphis and other communities have also acted to limit the availability of such films at rental outlets. Little Effort in New York In New York, New Jersey and Connecticut there has been no widespread effort against the shops.

Negotiators for scores of New York City's largest hotels and 14,000 striking employees yesterday agreed to resume contract talks today after a weekend of noisy picketing, disrupted hotel services and inconvenience for thousands of guests. There were no reports of widespread cancellations by tourists or changes in any of the hundreds of conventions, trade shows and balls scheduled this week. But the full impact of the walkout was not expected to be felt until the start of the business week today. Union and management officials expressed hope for a quick settlement, but each warned that hard bargaining lay ahead and that a failure to compromise would intensify losses and prolong hardships in the city's first major hotel strike in nearly a half-century.

The number of savings and loan associations that are effectively bankrupt - but still open - has increased fivefold since 1981, to more than 400, and industry leaders and Government regulators expect most will be forced to close or merge. Moreover, another 400 thrift units whose assets barely exceed their liabilities will also have a hard time surviving. In all, perhaps one-third of the 3,150 federally insured savings and loan associations now open are likely to disappear by the end of the decade, some experts estimate. Depositors should not be hurt, because the United States Government stands behind the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation -the agency that insures the deposits up to $100,000 each. The effect of the casualties will be most acutely felt by the F.S.L.I.C., whose pool of $4.7 billion in usable assets could easily be exhausted if a large thrift unit were liquidated, regulators say.

When Laura Hurwitt opened her letter of acceptance from the College of Wooster in Ohio last month, she found that she had been offered an unsolicited scholarship of $1,000 a year. To her father, who heads the breakfast foods division of General Foods, it struck a familiar chord. ''It reminded me of how we give out coupons good for 25 cents on the next purchase of Post Raisin Bran,'' said David F. Hurwitt, who lives in Darien, Conn. ''Laura was offered a 10 percent discount on a college education.'' The Hurwitts' experience was an outgrowth of major changes that economists say are blurring pricing policy differences between higher education and other extremely competitive industries such as the automobile industry or the airline industry.

It was a family affair, more or less. Randall Carlisle was tiptoeing across what was left of the roof of his parents' house. His father, Richard, was hunting for nails. His mother, Carole, was serving cold drinks in the front yard. Her brother-in-law, Tom Cummins, was on the scene despite a bandaged knee. And Jim Bellando arrived with a tarpaulin to cover the hole left after half the roof had been blown off.