Today’s News, Tomorrow’s Television : AMC Salutes Director William Wellman; CBS adapts Stephen King Story

Loretta Swit and Barbara Eden have been cast in NBC’s “Smithereens,” scheduled for broadcast in the spring. Kim Zimmer of “The Guiding Light” also stars in the movie about a woman who is being framed for the murder of her husband and terrorized by the crazed woman who actually killed him.

Beginning Saturday, American Movie Classics pays tribute to director William “Wild Bill” Wellman. Featured in the two-day salute is “The Ox-Bow Incident,” starring Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews; “Yellow Sky,” with Gregory Peck; “The Thunder Birds,” with Preston Foster and Gene Tierney, and 1927’s “Wings,” which was the first film to win the Oscar for best picture. Look for a young Gary Cooper in the World War I drama in a small but memorable turn as a doomed pilot.

Daniel J. Travanti and Jennifer Grey recently completed “Eyes of a Witness,” set to air March 24 on CBS. Filmed in Nairobi, Kenya, the drama deals with an American who travels to Africa to persuade his physician daughter to return home, only to be arrested for a murder he didn’t commit.

Tim Matheson and Brooke Adams star in the CBS movie “Sometimes They Come Back,” to be broadcast later this season. Based on the Stephen King short story, the psychological thriller finds Matheson as a high school teacher who returns to his hometown mistakenly convinced he has conquered his childhood trauma of seeing his brother murdered by brutal teen-agers.

Anthony Geary, who is checking in this month on ABC’s “General Hospital,” will not be returning in the role (Luke Spencer) that made him the hottest star in daytime. Rumor has it that Geary, who shed his curly Luke locks, will play another member of the Spencer clan.

Charles Shaughnessy, who plays super sleuth Shane Donovan on NBC’s “Days of Our Lives,” is moonlighting as big game hunter Lord Mosley on the new syndicated series “Harry and the Hendersons,” which premieres Sunday at 6 p.m. on KTTV.