Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards star in...

Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards star in a new TV movie version of Inherit the Wind (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.), the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee drama inspired by the famous 1925 Scopes “monkey trial” in which a teacher was prosecuted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. Douglas, Robards and Darren McGavin play roles inspired by William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow and H. L. Mencken; those roles were played in the 1960 film version by Fredric March, Spencer Tracy and Gene Kelly.

The 1983 James Bond adventure, Octopussy (ABC Sunday at 9 p.m.), starring Roger Moore as 007, proves to be business as usual, not better and no worse than most of its predecessors. This time out a zealous Soviet general (Steven Berkoff) has hatched a diabolical scheme to force Western Europe to surrender to the Soviet Union. Mixed up with Berkoff in ways that become increasingly difficult to unravel are ace smuggler-entrepreneur Octopussy (Maud Adams) and an exiled Afghan prince (Louis Jourdan).

Another new TV movie, the comedy Hot Paint (CBS Sunday at 9 p.m.), stars Gregory Harrison as a struggling actor and John Larroquette as an unemployed salesman who inadvertently steal a Renoir worth $2.8 million.

The new TV movie God Bless the Child (ABC Monday at 9 p.m.) stars Mare Winningham as a young mother desperately trying to escape poverty; Dorian Harewood co-stars as a compassionate social worker.

The 1985 remake of King Solomon’s Mines (Channel 5 Tuesday at 8 p.m.) is a disappointing attempt to capture the breezy, comic-book aura of more recent adventure yarns--most obviously “Raiders of the Lost Ark”--but the result is mainly camp. Richard Chamberlain stars in this latest version of the H. Rider Haggard story, so memorably filmed in 1950.

Bonanza: The Next Generation (Channel 5 Wednesday at 8 p.m.) is a new TV movie starring John Ireland and Robert Fuller in a story of a new generation of Cartwrights who prepare to defend the Ponderosa against a strip mining project.

Hugh Wilson’s Rustlers’ Rhapsody (Channel 13 Wednesday at 8 p.m.), made in 1985, is an unjustly neglected joy, a sweet, affectionate spoof of old low-budget Republic and Columbia Westerns. Tom Berenger is perfectly cast as Rex O’Herlihan, the Singing Cowboy, who with his Wonder Horse Wildfire, made 52 Westerns “before the lights sort of went out.”

Tell Me a Riddle (Channel 28 Wednesday at 9 p.m.) is a deeply felt and remarkably affecting film about old age and death that is also a celebration of life and love’s miraculous powers of renewal. This tender yet unblinking adaptation of the Tille Olsen novella marked an outstanding feature directorial debut in 1980 for actress Lee Grant and was a personal triumph for its stars, Melvyn Douglas and Lila Kedrova.

The Bravados (Channel 5 Thursday at 8 p.m.), with Gregory Peck and Joan Collins, was the last Western of Henry King’s. It’s a brutal example of his favorite form: the revenge or pursuit Western, worth seeing despite a sentimental climax.

You’re better off watching Fonda in that 1969 landmark biker saga, Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (Channel 13 Thursday at 8 p.m.), which brought an extraordinary perspective to its depiction of a couple of peaceful hippie types (Fonda, Hopper) on an inevitable collision course with redneck America as they head from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras to celebrate a big cocaine sell. What makes this film so accessible is the presence of Jack Nicholson as an alcoholic lawyer whom they meet in a small-town jail and who joins them on their odyssey. In his star-making part, Nicholson is sympathetic as the most graceful of losers, a tattered Don Quixote.

Silence of the Heart (Channel 2 Thursday at 9 p.m.) is the outstanding 1984 TV movie starring Mariette Hartley as the mother of a teen suicide victim (Chad Lowe).

Friday evening brings three old TV movies: Curtis Harrington’s Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (Channel 11 Friday at 8 p.m.), which is surely the most fun; Missing Children: A Mother’s Story (Channel 13 Friday at 8 p.m.), which boasts another fine performance from Mare Winningham; and Torn Between Two Lovers (Channel 2 Friday at 9 p.m.), a romantic drama starring an elegant Lee Remick as a socialite coping with the effects of an unexpected affair.

When Richard Brooks filmed Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Channel 13 Saturday at 8 p.m.) 30 years ago, he was forced to tone down its homosexual implications, but it nevertheless remains memorable, especially for Elizabeth Taylor, at the height of her beauty, as the frustrated but determined Maggie, and for Paul Newman as her hard-drinking husband.

Walter Hill’s compelling Southern Comfort (Channel 9 Saturday at 10 p.m.) finds nine Louisiana National Guardsmen stumbling foolishly into a lethal confrontation with Cajuns in their treacherous bayou country. This is an impressively tense and stunning film; two of the guardsmen are played by Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe.