Queenie, Michael Korda’s witty and compassionate ...

Queenie, Michael Korda’s witty and compassionate roman a clef inspired by the life of Merle Oberon, his one-time aunt, has become a two-part TV movie, airing on ABC Sunday from 9 to 11 p.m. and Monday from 8 to 11 p.m. Mia Sara has the title role as a Calcutta-born half-caste beauty who becomes a legendary star while hiding her part-Indian ancestry, and Kirk Douglas is the movie mogul who launches her.

A Gathering of Old Men (CBS Sunday at 9 p.m.), adapted by Charles Fuller from the Ernest G. Gaines novel, tells of a racial incident in rural Louisiana which inspires a group of elderly blacks to unite in defense of their friend (Louis Gossett Jr.), accused of shooting a racist’s son. Richard Widmark co-stars as the local sheriff. West Germany’s gifted Volker Schlondorff directed.

Hands of a Stranger (NBC Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m.), another new two-parter, stars Armand Assante as an ambitious police officer whose obsession in uncovering the truth about the rape of his wife (Beverly D’Angelo) threatens his marriage and career.

The North Avenue Irregulars (ABC Sunday at 7 p.m.) is a pleasant, imaginative Disney comedy starring Edward Herrmann as a young minister assigned to a church in a community overrun by a gambling syndicate. It was inspired by the Rev. Albert Fay Hill’s experiences in New Rochelle, N.Y., in the ‘60s.

It’s John Belushi week on Channel 13’s 8 p.m. movie: National Lampoon’s Animal House (Monday), The Blues Brothers (Tuesday), Neighbors (Wednesday), Goin’ South (Thursday) and Continental Divide (Friday). Animal House, still the funniest of the raunchy contemporary comedies, is the best of the lot. Belushi had only a small role in Jack Nicholson’s Goin’ South.

The new TV movie Ghost of a Chance (CBS Tuesday at 9 p.m.) stars Dick Van Dyke as a narcotics detective who accidentally kills honky-tonk piano player Redd Foxx. Geoffrey Holder plays a heavenly emissary who gives Foxx a provisional reprieve.

Robert Altman directs Harold Pinter’s adaptation of his Dumb Waiter (ABC Tuesday at 10 p.m.), in which John Travolta and Tom Conti star as two hit men who discover a baffling presence in a supposedly deserted house where they await their unknown victim.

The Black Hole (Channel 5 Wednesday at 8 p.m., again 6 p.m. on Saturday), an ambitious 1979 Disney science-fiction epic, is long on special effects and spectacular production design but short on characterizations, with the exception of Maximilian Schell as a mad and bearded doctor who’s been running a fantastic spaceship for 20 years aided only by an army of robots.

In John Carpenter’s stylish, scary and utterly nihilistic Escape From New York (Channel 5 Thursday at 8 p.m.) it’s 1997 and the crime rate is so bad that Manhattan has been turned into one big sealed-off prison. Alas, the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) winds up there when terrorists take him hostage, and it’s tough guy Kurt Russell to the rescue. Crude, violent, brutal but undeniably vital and entertaining.

In the new TV movie Island Sons (ABC Friday at 9 p.m.) four brothers, played by Timothy, Joseph, Samuel and Benjamin Bottoms, struggle to preserve the family’s dynasty when their father disappears following an indictment for bribery.

Casablanca, which along with “Gone With the Wind” is the most beloved of American movies, airs Saturday on Channel 13 at 8 p.m.

Selected evening cable fare: Stevie (Bravo Sunday at 9); Wise Guys (Showtime Sunday at 9, Z Friday at 9); The Battle of San Pietro (Z Monday at 6:30); The Gig (Cinemax at 8 Monday and again on Saturday); The Buddy Holly Story (Disney Channel Monday at 9); 1984 (SelecTV Monday at 9); Elena and Her Men (Z Monday at 9); Curse of the Cat People (Z Wednesday at 6); Lost in America (SelecTV Wednesday at 7, Z at 7:30); UFOria (HBO Wednesday at 8); Year of the Dragon (Showtime Wednesday at 8); The Last Run (Movie Channel Thursday at 7); The Servant (Bravo Thursday at 8); Equus (Z Thursday at 9); McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Movie Channel Friday at 7); Breathless (1983) (Cinemax Friday at 8); Night of the Living Dead (USA Saturday at 8).