Sidney Poitier, Burt Lancaster and Richard Kiley...
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Sidney Poitier, Burt Lancaster and Richard Kiley star in the new two-part TV movie Separate But Equal (ABC Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m.) dramatizing the U.S. Supreme Court decision which desegregated the nation’s schools.
James Toback’s 1983 Exposed (Channel 5 Sunday at 8 p.m.) is a drenchingly romantic thriller, stronger in style than credibility and inspired by the view that the redeeming maiden of Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther” is an angel of death--that for Werther death is a redemption, his only salvation. Toback’s ambiguous angel is Nastassja Kinski, a beauty who captivates Rudolf Nureyev’s concert violinist and also Harvey Keitel’s Paris-based terrorist. Not wholly convincing but admirable for its wit, passion and bravura.
David Knell and Perry Lang play a pair of nice, pale, apparently virginal college youths on their first Ft. Lauderdale holiday in the 1983 Spring Break (Channel 11 Monday at 8 p.m.), a rambunctious little comedy as fun as a day at the beach.
For Where the Boys Are ’84 (Channel 11 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) producer Allan Carr cast actresses (Lisa Hartman, Lorna Luft, Wendy Schaal and Lynn-Holly Johnson) too old for college girls, clad them in flashy outfits, gave them blunt dialogue, all of which makes them seem like hookers. Right from the start there’s a crass tone that spoils what, in the 1960 original, passed for fun.
Lawman (Channel 13 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) is a good, solid 1971 western with Burt Lancaster in the title role as a marshal who upholds the law no matter what. While driving cattle through Lancaster’s town, rancher Lee J. Cobb’s men--Robert Duvall, Albert Salmi and J.D. Cannon--shoot up the place, killing a bystander.
The new made-for-TV contemporary western Another Pair of Aces: Three of a Kind (CBS Tuesday at 9 p.m.) stars Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson.
Mass Appeal (Channel 5 Thursday at 8 p.m.) is a mechanical, stage-bound drama starring Jack Lemmon in a showy role as an alcoholic priest trying to cope with a seminary gadfly (Zeljko Ivanek) and a hidebound monsignor (Charles Durning).
Jinxed! (Channel 5 Friday at 8 p.m.), a misfired 1982 comedy, is one of the most aptly named movies ever, offering the unsettling spectacle of a star (Bette Midler) bursting out of a story too scant to contain her. Actually, it’s supposed to be would-be singer Midler’s co-star Ken Wahl, a young blackjack dealer, who’s been jinxed.
Sillier than romantic, the 1984 Thief of Hearts (Channel 13 Friday at 8 p.m.) wastes Steven Bauer as a sleek San Francisco second-story man who falls for a high-tech interior designer (Barbara Williams) when he reads the drivel in her stolen diaries.
Support Your Local Gunfighter (Channel 13 Saturday at 6 p.m.) is a very broad, amiable 1971 comedy western directed by Burt Kennedy and starring James Garner as a con man who tries to pass off Jack Elam as a much-feared badman.
Channel 28’s vintage Saturday night double-feature is Howard Hawks’ memorable 1932 Scarface (at 9 p.m.) and Fritz Lang’s compelling 1931 masterpiece M (at 10:30 p.m.) with Peter Lorre, unforgettable as a tormented, compulsive child-killer.
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