TALKING with outside observers and then with management about the Polaroid Corporation's travails is like living a corporate version of ''Rashomon,'' full of wildly different perspectives.

The outsiders -- meaning analysts and a handful of former Polaroid executives -- say long-expected new products like pocket-sized and single-use cameras are too few and are coming too late to bring in much revenue this year. Polaroid's chief executive, Gary T. DiCamillo, says the company's new products are flying off store shelves overseas.

Outsiders also say Polaroid, which started a new-venture group a few years ago to great fanfare, has now scrapped it, shelving most of its projects for lack of cash to support and develop them. Mr. DiCamillo's take: ''We are still a new-product company, but our new-product machine is located throughout the core business groups.''

And the outsiders say the same crying need for cash has Polaroid selling businesses that it was lauding just a year ago as exciting sources of growth. Mr. DiCamillo says instant photography products, particularly those aimed at younger consumers, are doing so well that management does not want to be distracted by anything else.

''The products we are focusing on are more successful than our wildest dreams,'' Mr. DiCamillo said. ''The marketplace is giving us clear indications of what will fly.''

Maybe the retail marketplace is flashing green lights, but the Wall Street marketplace has pretty much grounded Polaroid. Though it was able to raise $275 million through a recent debt offering, the company had to pay 11.5 percent interest, not much better than junk bond rates. Polaroid's stock, trading in the 30's in July, sank as low as $17 in January and now seems mired in the low 20's, closing Friday at $20.625.

''It looks like benefits from new products are just not going to accrue until 2000, so it's just too early to warm to the stock,'' said Jonathan Rosenzweig, an analyst with Salomon Smith Barney.

Polaroid certainly is having a tough time financially. In the United States, new bare-bones inventory policies at Wal-Mart Stores and other discount retailers have cut deeply into Polaroid's shipments of film. Emerging markets have gone from great hopes to nightmares: sales in Russia fell below $20 million last year, from $200 million in 1995, while growth has stopped in South Korea and Indonesia. ''Polaroid's products suddenly became unaffordable there,'' said a recently dismissed executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The company's 1998 results showed the damage: $1.8 billion in sales, down 14 percent from 1997, and $44.5 million in operating profit, less than a quarter of the 1997 figure. ''Clearly, the numbers we reported are not the ones we had in mind,'' Mr. DiCamillo said.

Apparently not. In July, with much hoopla, Mr. DiCamillo announced that various Polaroid executives would be buying stock. Those who did, however, have lost a small fortune by now. ''I can't imagine that they knew they were doing a kamikaze number,'' said Michael W. Ellmann, an analyst at Schroder & Company.

But there are financial bright spots, too. Polaroid has excess real estate on its books that could bring more than $50 million in much-needed cash. Domestic cost-cutting programs are on target, and plants are being shifted to China and other low-wage nations. Analysts say toy retailers have been impressed with inexpensive cameras, unveiled last month, that feature children's icons like Barbie and the Tasmanian Devil.

''You can't blame Gary for husbanding his assets when he's holding such really good cards on the consumer side,'' said Ulysses Yannas, an analyst with Mercer, Bokert, Buckman & Reid who is one of Polaroid's few Wall Street fans.

Indeed, even some critics see promise in the new products. ''I had thought Polaroid was circling the drain, but now I think there's hope,'' said B. Alexander Henderson, an analyst with Prudential Securities Research. Even so, he said, he cannot justify recommending the stock.

Polaroid can already point to some overseas successes. The Pocket Camera, which takes miniature photos and is meant for children and teen-agers, was introduced in Japan last spring and has sold so well that the company has had trouble keeping stores supplied -- which explains why it has not been rolled out in Europe or North America, Mr. DiCamillo said. The Joycam, another low-cost camera that uses instant film originally made for Polaroid's expensive failure, the Captiva single-lens reflex camera, is also selling out in Japan.

And the company is now test-marketing a small printer that turns out photographic-quality prints of images from digital cameras or the Internet. ''This is just the first of many digital hybrid products we'll be introducing,'' Mr. DiCamillo said.

STILL, analysts say the flow of new products is agonizingly slow. Polaroid's single-use instant camera, expected early in 1998, did not reach stores until late fall. (Mr. DiCamillo says the camera was delayed so that Polaroid could simultaneously introduce an inexpensive reusable camera of similar design.) Polaroid led analysts to expect the Pocket Camera to hit American shelves last year; now, it is unlikely to appear until August, if then. Two products, a single-use 35mm camera that gives thumbnail-sized instant proofs and an electronic instant camera, have been postponed indefinitely. Polaroid has been slow to introduce a new self-service kiosk called Make-A-Print Express to compete with the popular Image Magic machines from Eastman Kodak.

And analysts doubt that Polaroid is cheerfully giving up the four businesses it recently announced plans to sell: graphic arts, holography, polarizers and sunglasses. ''As recently as May, Gary was still seeing sunglasses as a valuable potential growth engine,'' Mr. Ellmann said.

To hear insiders tell it, Mr. DiCamillo had the same enthusiasm for the new-ventures group. Hamang Dave, a vice president responsible for incubating and eventually spinning off new businesses, quit last September. ''We had a dozen companies ready to spawn, but Polaroid was in no shape to take the early years of losses that any start-up company entails,'' said Mr. Dave, who is working on his own start-up, an Internet training company called TrainingNet.

Competitors, meanwhile, are circling Polaroid's core business. Fuji Photo Film of Japan, for example, is blanketing Europe with new instant photo products. Thomas Shay, a Fuji spokesman, said Fuji has no plans to market instant products in the United States, but analysts wonder if it is just a matter of time before it does.

And Mr. DiCamillo may be racing the clock, himself. His contract expires in November 2000, and though analysts do not think the company is in play just yet, takeover rumors are heard often.

''If Gary hasn't convinced the board that he's really got something here, they'll be peddling this company by the end of the third quarter,'' Mr. Yannas predicted.

If it is not in better shape by then, would anyone want to buy it? ''Polaroid is a megabrand,'' Mr. Yannas said, ''and that alone would be enough to get $25 a share.''

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