''American Beauty,'' Sam Mendes and Alan Ball's singular view of suburbia, is video's top renter this week -- and that's with one hand tied behind its back. Walk into Blockbuster stores around the country and you will see only a fraction of the ''American Beauty'' boxes you might have. In some Blockbuster stores, you will find ''American Beauty,'' the Academy Award winner, only under the front counter.

The shortage has to do with revenue sharing. In the past retailers bought cassettes and kept all the rental proceeds. Now they buy the tapes at a much lower price, and share rental revenues with the studios. In that way they can afford to supply many more copies, thereby averting a major customer complaint.

For various undisclosed reasons -- and price was not the only factor -- Blockbuster and DreamWorks, which owns ''American Beauty,'' could not reach a revenue-sharing agreement. So Blockbuster bought ''American Beauty'' cassettes the more expensive old-fashioned way, which means fewer copies in its stores.

Since Blockbuster accounts for about 40 percent of the rental market, any sizable drop in copies available in its stores obviously depresses rental totals.

Other chains and stores are carrying a full supply of the film. A spokeswoman for DreamWorks said there were about one million copies of ''American Beauty'' in circulation. In normal circumstances Blockbuster might account for 400,000 copies, but then the overall total could well have been higher had the chain bought as many copies as usual.

Blockbuster will not disclose how many copies of ''American Beauty'' it displays. In urban stores 60 or more boxes may be on the shelves, but ordinarily the number would have been considerably higher. In some stores where ''American Beauty,'' an R-rated film, is not in such high demand, the relatively few copies are kept under the counter and must be requested.

A Blockbuster spokeswoman said that keeping the videos up front helped store managers explain the situation to customers individually, but she added that concealment was also for appearance's sake. ''We figured there would be so few up there, it would just exacerbate the situation,'' she said.

Canadians' Music

Three years ago Video Artists International, a distributor of classical music and dance videos in Pleasantville, N.Y., began to release programs from the archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Company's English-language network. Now it's the turn of the CBC's French network, which began its renowned music broadcasts in 1952. Next week Video Artists International will begin to release tapes by the pianists Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arau and Rosalyn Tureck; the violinists Joseph Szigeti, Christian Ferras and Ida Haendel; the singers Marilyn Horne, Leontyne Price and Jon Vickers; the conductors Igor Markevitch, Charles Munch and Josef Krips; and others.

In one of the broadcasts, recorded in 1976, the pianist Martha Argerich performs Schumann's Piano Concerto and music by Liszt and Ravel. Information: (800) 477-7146.

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