With the 1982 I Ought to Be...

With the 1982 I Ought to Be in Pictures (Channel 5 Sunday at 6 p.m.), Neil Simon wrote two of his most completely believable characters, a burnt-out screenwriter and his girlfriend, a studio hairdresser, and under Herbert Ross’ direction, Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret are wonderful. Unfortunately, Matthau’s obnoxious teen-age daughter (Dinah Manoff) turns up to become the film’s center of attention.

From Russia with Love (ABC Sunday at 8 p.m.), the second of the Bonds, remains one of the best. It finds Sean Connery’s 007 going up against a diabolical Lotte Lenya and a psychopathic bleached blond, Robert Shaw. All the usual ingredients have been blended in just the right proportions under Terence Young’s direction.

Red River (CBS Sunday at 9 p.m.), a new TV movie remake of the 1948 Howard Hawks classic with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, stars James Arness, Bruce Boxleitner and Gregory Harrison. The Western saga set against a thousand-mile cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail features such Western series veterans as Ty Hardin, Robert Horton, John Lupton and Guy Madison.

In Scandal in a Small Town (NBC Sunday at 9 p.m.) Raquel Welch plays a cocktail waitress whose fragile relationship with her teen-age daughter (Christa Denton) is severely tested when details of her dubious past surface.

The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission (NBC Monday at 9 p.m.) is a 1987 TV movie sequel to Robert Aldrich’s mordant “The Dirth Dozen.” The mission involves Telly Savalas, Ernest Borgnine and Vince Edwards in an attempt to rescue chemical--warfare scientists from the Nazis.

National Lampoon’s European Vacation (CBS Monday at 8 p.m.) finds Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and their kids on just as lousy a trip as their belabored, unfunny first outing, “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

Murphy’s Romance (CBS Tuesday at 9 p.m.) is one of the most satisfying, truly adult romantic comedies in recent years. James Garner won a well-deserved 1985 best actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a witty, strongly independent widowed pharmacist in a small Southwestern town who gradually discovers himself competing with the much-younger but wastrel ex-husband (Brian Kerwin) for the hand of Sally Field, a newcomer to the community who’s struggling to support herself and her son. It’s the most recent of the many first-rate collaborations between director Martin Ritt and writers Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., and it’s a gem.

Glitter (Channel 13 Tuesday at 8 p.m.), the two-hour 1984 TV movie that launched the series of the same name, is so much trashy behind-the-scenes silliness about a magazine devoted to the beautiful people. Morgan Brittany and David Birney are the star reporters.

Skillfully adapted by Jay Presson Allen from Ira Levin’s hit play and directed with zest by Sidney Lumet, Deathtrap (Channel 13 Wednesday at 8 p.m.) has a plot that’s absolutely undiscussible without spoiling the fun. It may be mannered, it may be hokey, but it certainly is entertaining. It’s set in a wonderful converted windmill country house, and it has a splendid cast: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth and Henry Jones. Enjoy.

In his bold, intelligent screenplay, Guy Gallo has given us the heart of Malcolm Lowry’s convoluted Under the Volcano (Channel 11 Thursday at 8 p.m.), and director John Huston has filled in its soul in a lean, immaculate, superbly crafted film, released in 1984. In a remarkable compression of time, the action now takes place in almost 24 hours, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1938, during the mystical Day of the Dead. Albert Finney is haunting as the alcoholic British ex-consul, on a rapidly accelerating downward spiral in a crazed search for salvation, and Jacqueline Bisset is fine as his newly returned wife, with whom he shares a fleeting hope of renewal. An extraordinary accomplishment, accessible and unpretentious, it is derived from a novel long regarded as impossible to film.

Also airing at 8 p.m. Thursday (on Channel 5) is another refreshingly adult film, the 1981 True Confessions, an engrossing, richly detailed portrait of corruption and ethnicity starring Robert De Niro as an ambitious monsignor and Robert Duvall as his brother, a tough LAPD cop, whose lives are blighted by a Black Dahlia-like murder case.

The Flame and the Arrow (Channel 13 Friday at 8 p.m.), a beloved vintage (1950) Burt Lancaster swashbuckler, casts him as a rebel leader in medieval Italy. Virginia Mayo is his leading lady, and Jacques Tourneur directed.

The Bank Shot (Channel 13 Saturday at 8 p.m.), which Gower Champion directed from Wendell Mayes’ adaptation of a Donald Westlake novel, is at best a very lightly amusing and never very suspenseful caper comedy, but it is lit with moments of wonderful and imaginative silliness. George C. Scott stars in this 1974 film as a lisping giant among bank robbers who is persuaded to escape from a maximum luxury prison for the caper.

Selected evening cable fare: Making Mr. Right (Cinemax Sunday at 7, Movie Channel Tuesday at 9, Showtime Friday at 8, Movie Channel Saturday at 7); Down by Law (Bravo Sunday at 8); Twice in a Lifetime (SelecTV Sunday at 8:30); That’s Life! (HBO Sunday at 9); The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Movie Channel Monday at 7); The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Cinemax Monday at 8); A Place in the Sun (Movie Channel Monday at 9); I Confess (Z Monday at 9); The Bride Wore Black (A&E; Tuesday at 6); Gandhi (Z Tuesday at 8:30); Swimming to Cambodia (Bravo Tuesday at 9); Travels With My Aunt (Z Wednesday at 7); Heaven’s Gate (Cinemax Wednesday at 8); Parting Glances (Bravo Wednesday at 8:30); Street Smart (Showtime Wednesday at 9); Over the Edge (HBO Thursday at 6); Thunder Bay (WTBS Thursday at 7:20); The Plough and the Stars (Z Thursday at 7:30); Hatari! (Cinemax Thursday at 9); Hoosiers (HBO Thursday at 9); The Power and the Glory (Bravo Friday at 8); Studs Lonigan (A&E; Friday at 9); Burke & Wills (Z Friday at 9); Nothing in Common (Cinemax Saturday at 6); Tin Men (Showtime Saturday at 8); Desert Hearts (Bravo Saturday at 9).