NETWORKS UNLEASH THE BIG GUNS SUNDAY NIGHT

Steamy love, hot sex, animal passion, infidelity, desire, seduction, promiscuity, uncontrolled lust. Yes, World War II had it all.

You can always count on a big howl when TV rolls out another version of its Keystone Krauts, as ABC does in “Crossings.” The six-hour three-parter airs at 9 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday (on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42), colliding its first two nights with the CBS four-hour “Blood and Orchids” (9 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8).

And NBC (Channels 4, 36 and 39) escalates Sunday’s war of the Nielsens at 8 p.m. with a three-hour movie called “The Fifth Missile.”

“Crossings” is an Aaron Spelling production of a Danielle Steel novel about heavy hubba-hubba that begins on a transatlantic voyage in 1939 and just doesn’t let up.

Americans Liane DeVilliers (Cheryl Ladd) and Nick Burnham (Lee Horsley) get the hots for each other on a ship of drools en route to France. But Liane is married to Armand DeVilliers (Christopher Plummer), a French ambassador returning to Paris, and Nick is also married, to that bed-hopping tart Hillary (Jane Seymour).

And get a load of the intrigue. Nick is on an unofficial mission for President Roosevelt to scout the Nazis. And the patriotic Armand sacrifices his reputation to join the Vichy collaboration government as a spy for the Free French, while everyone except Liane wrongly believes he’s become a traitor.

Writers Bill and Jo LaMond and director Karen Arthur have really outdone themselves. France is his “mistress,” Armand tells his wife, “and unfortunately she is more in need of me than you.” Later he puts the blubbering Liane on a boat back to the United States and tells her, “I love you with all my heart.” Is this boffo stuff or what?

Meanwhile, who just happens to be returning home on the same boat with Liane? And do Nick and Liane sit on their hands this time? Not on your Nielsens.

As for the cast, Horsley continues to sound like James Garner (who at least is getting better roles these days), Plummer does Inspector Clouseau (“It appears that Stalin has jest rayassed his glass to Hitler”) and the guy with a bit role as Roosevelt sounds like Stan Laurel.

Yet Cheryl Ladd rises (a little bit) above the trivial material and Seymour is just about the best tramp this side of Joan Collins.

I did get a little bored waiting for Nick and Liane to finally get it on. But at last they kiss passionately, and the next thing you see are their toes, as the camera pans up their nude (except for a discreetly deployed sheet) bodies.

A little later they shower together. A little later they’re standing on a dock, and she says, “Just remember how much we loved each other,” and they embrace passionately.

A little later Armand’s son (Zach Galligan) is in Paris kissing the neck of his Jewish girlfriend (Joanna Pacula). Then he kisses her arm, then her lips. A little later we see them under the covers. “That was beautiful,” she says. “You’re beautiful,” he says.

War is hell.

“Blood and Orchids,” on the other hand, gets serious--at least in the beginning. It’s set in Hawaii during the 1930s against a background of power, deceit, corruption, sex, greed and racism.

The Norman Katkov adaptation of his own novel is initially about four innocent Hawaiian youths accused of beating and raping Hester Ashley Murdoch (Madeline Stowe), the socialite daughter of rich and powerful Doris Ashley (Jane Alexander).

Viewers see for themselves what really happened, though. The actual culprit is Bryce Parker (Matt Salinger), the naval officer who is Hester’s lover and the best friend of her husband, Navy Lt. Lloyd Murdoch (William Russ).

Doris knows the whole scoop, including that Heather is pregnant by Bryce. But Doris concocts a scheme that throws the blame on the four Hawaiians and requires a massive cover-up that reaches into the highest and snobbiest strata of Caucasian Honolulu society.

Meanwhile, fair-minded police Capt. Curt Maddox (Kris Kristofferson) begins unraveling the truth as the Hawaiians are defended in court by the inexperienced but feisty Tom Halehone (James Saito).

The first two hours of “Blood and Orchids” are utterly intriguing and hard-edged, stripping back Hawaii’s lush, languid exterior to reveal an ugly undergrowth of caste prejudice and bitterness that pits native Hawaiians against the American power structure and U.S. Navy.

Under Jerry Thorpe’s direction, Part I offers the richest melodrama of any miniseries on commercial TV this season. It’s tense, intelligent and involving, with characters to root for and others to despise.

Alexander is an exquisitely hard and haughty Doris Ashley. Early on, there is a wonderful fleeting sequence in which Maddox picks up Doris to take her to the police station. When she gets into the back seat as if he were her driver, he slams the door in disgust.

There are also nice performances by Kristofferson, Saito, Elizabeth Lindsey as the sister of one of the four Hawaiian defendants and Haunani Minn as Princess Lauhine, a remnant of old Hawaiian royalty.

After the first two hours, though, something happens, as if a shade had been pulled, blocking the sunlight.

CBS seems to have feared that viewers were not sophisticated enough to sit through an entire story that touched their minds as well as their emotions. So the focus in Part II shifts from the accused Hawaiians to a torrid affair between Maddox and Lenore Bergman (Sean Young), the gorgeous wife of a famous defense attorney (Jose Ferrer). She is artificially injected into the story like a silicone breast implant. In this case, though, bigger is not better.

Meanwhile, by the time “Blood and Orchids” finishes doing a number on the U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor--these lice were on our side?--you almost believe that the Japanese sneak attack in 1941 was justified.

Aloha and good riddance.