Holiday Season a TV Paradise for Film Buffs

TV or not TV. . . .

RETAKES: It’s movie-buff heaven on TV during the holiday season.

For the next few weeks, old and new classics will pour forth--for example, “From Here to Eternity,” on both cable’s TBS and KCOP Channel 13.

TBS offers the film--with Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed--on Dec. 27.

It’s part of a weeklong TBS package that also includes “Sergeant York” on Monday, “Casablanca” on Christmas and “On the Waterfront” on Dec. 26.

KCOP, meanwhile, airs “From Here to Eternity” at midnight on New Year’s Eve as the first entry of a commercial-free day of top films, ending with Jack Nicholson in “Chinatown.”

Then there’s “My Left Foot,” with Daniel Day-Lewis’ Academy Award-winning performance, which turns up on Cinemax on Thursday, Christmas Day and Dec. 30.

And you can also catch Judy Garland in “Meet Me in St. Louis” Thursday at 5 p.m. on TNT.

VCR owners--on your mark.

MODERN TIMES: With KTTV Channel 11 airing the Rose Parade without commercials, and KCOP offering its sponsor-free film festival, New Year’s Day is a fine example of the impact of cable and VCRs on traditional TV.

BOX OFFICE: NBC’s 83rd-place rating with a documentary about Robert Redford showed again that movie stars may be swell on TV in motion pictures, but they don’t draw much in television projects. TV creates its own stars.

HEAVY: Not many performers captured the spirit of film noir more than the wonderful Mike Mazurki, who died the other day but remains unforgettable as the pathetic goon Moose Malloy in the 1944 Philip Marlowe tale “Murder, My Sweet.” Catch it when it’s rerun.

DRAWING BOARD: Tough guy Ray Sharkey in a sitcom? Intriguing. He’s made an ABC pilot for a backup series tentatively called “The Ray Sharkey Show,” playing a street hustler who makes a death-bed promise to his father to take care of the family, running a grocery. “He’s very imposing, very close to the character,” says creator Ed. Weinberger.

TWIST OF FATE: We were shocked-- shocked --to see Josie (Joan Chen) suddenly become a virtual slave to Catherine (Piper Laurie) on Saturday’s “Twin Peaks.” Don’t fall for all the cult malarkey that you have to see every minute of “Twin Peaks” to really enjoy it. We watch it just when we can, and it’s a hoot any old time.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: After Madonna’s “Nightline” interview, the Jay Leno camp was wondering: “What’s next--a Persian Gulf special on the ‘Tonight’ show?”

CHECKERBOARD: NBC’s upcoming move to sandwich “Night Court” and “Seinfeld” between “Unsolved Mysteries” and “Hunter” on Wednesdays looks good on paper. And who could ask for more perfect continuity than comedian Jerry Seinfeld leading into Fred Dryer of “Hunter”?

MOVING TARGET: Does NBC’s planned move of “Dear John” to Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., replacing “American Dreamer,” mean that the network feels the Judd Hirsch sitcom has just about run out of steam?

DECISIONS, DECISIONS: Foolish of CBS to cancel its Charles Kuralt-Lesley Stahl late-hour entry, “America Tonight,” as of Jan. 18. It wasn’t doing that badly in the ratings considering CBS’ late-night, station-clearance problem. And CBS’ 11:30 p.m. replacement against “Tonight” and “Nightline,” starting Jan. 21, is a group of action-adventure series--the same formula that flopped before.

TYPECAST: Really, Anita Morris is much too good to be stuck in another of those routine sex-bomb roles in which she turned up in CBS’ “WIOU.”

VALUES: Now, let’s see, local TV has plenty of room for “Inside Edition” and “A Current Affair,” but there’s no place for “Teen Talk,” the prize-winning series canceled by KCAL Channel 9. Well, there should be. It’ll only bring honor to whoever picks it up.

RESEARCH: The 50-and-over crowd has latched on to NBC’s strong Tuesday lineup of “Matlock,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Law and Order,” which could turn out to be the network’s most successful new series.

DOUBLE TAKE: “Matlock” star Andy Griffith turns up in his old life Christmas Day--on another channel--when TBS launches the first of its fully restored episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show.” The episode, “The Christmas Story,” which co-stars Don Knotts, airs at 3:35 p.m. Other shows from the 1960-68 series will be rerun for a month starting New Year’s Day.

SILVER LINING: CBS, looking for some good news, must have taken heart from how well its two recent “Face to Face With Connie Chung” specials did in the ratings. Even the one on Thanksgiving night, when viewers usually tune out, scored nicely.

SLEUTH: Great premise: 1930s private eye does research for famous writers like Hemingway and Faulkner for their Hollywood scripts. Fiction, of course. Arts & Entertainment is doing it as a series, with Tony Peck (Greg’s son) as the detective.

DROPOUTS: No network scored big this fall, but NBC hollered loudest about its new shows, so it must be shaken by the fast flop of such entries as “Ferris Bueller,” “Parenthood,” “Working It Out,” “The Fanelli Boys” and “Hull High.”

TURNABOUT: Would you believe that NBC, once the cutting-edge network, now is third behind ABC and CBS in drawing the pivotal young audience of men between 18 and 49?

BEING THERE: “I know how to do anything--I’m a mom.” Roseanne Barr in “Roseanne.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .