TELEVISIONHistory Lessons: CBS News will bring back...

TELEVISION

History Lessons: CBS News will bring back “The Twentieth Century,” the landmark series recounting major world events, for cable’s A&E; Network. CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace will anchor 22 new episodes of the program, which originally aired from 1957-66 with anchor Walter Cronkite. The new show will feature CBS News coverage of such events as the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the moon landing, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Iran hostage crisis, the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, the AIDS crisis, Watergate, the sexual revolution, the fall of Saigon and the six-day Middle East war. The program is slated to begin airing next September.

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A Switch From Family Fare: Life has been “spiced” up a bit for some Connecticut cable viewers--and they’re not happy about it. TCI Cablevision of South Central Connecticut has been receiving irate calls from residents of four nearby towns since putting the adult pay movie channel Spice in the slot once held by family station Nickelodeon. The video portion of Spice is scrambled for customers who haven’t bought it, but the sounds can still be heard, which has caused quite a stir. A spokesman said TCI didn’t realize the gaffe until angry calls started coming in, and is now considering switching the channel alignments.

MOVIES

Pacino Back in Uniform?: It looks as though Al Pacino, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of a retired lieutenant colonel in “Scent of a Woman,” will soon play another military figure--Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the ousted Panamanian dictator. Industry sources say Pacino is in final negotiations with director Oliver Stone and Warner Bros. to play the title role in “Noriega,” scheduled to begin production early next year. Stone, who wrote the script and is also said to be directing and producing the big-budget film, toured Panama last month to scout possible film sites and meet former associates of Noriega, who is now serving a 40-year U.S. jail sentence for drug crimes.

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Student’s Slaying Inspires Japanese Film: A Tokyo producer is planning a movie about a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student who was shot and killed in Louisiana last year when he went to the wrong home while looking for a Halloween party. The $5-million film, scheduled for completion next fall, will concentrate on the impact of Yoshihiro Hattori’s killing on his parents. Hattori’s mother, Mieko, hopes the film will help bring stronger gun controls in the United States. Producer Norio Osada plans to contribute some of the film’s profits to a fund set up in Hattori’s memory to bring American high school students to Japan. The homeowner who shot Hattori was later found innocent of manslaughter.

THE ARTS

Warhol’s ‘National Velvet’ Rides to San Francisco: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has acquired Andy Warhol’s 1963 classic painting “National Velvet,” depicting a youthful Elizabeth Taylor on horseback. The museum purchased the 11-by-7-foot silkscreen-on-canvas at an undisclosed price from the Warhol Foundation in New York. Warhol, a Pop artist who was fascinated with celebrities, created the work from a “National Velvet” film still, repeatedly printing the actress’s image in black ink on a silver background, but varying the crispness of the shapes and the density of ink. The museum will put the work on view Jan. 9 in the exhibition “Beyond Boundaries: Art of the Sixties and Seventies.”

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On Tap in La Jolla: La Jolla Playhouse will present the premiere of “Therese Raquin”--Neal Bell’s adaptation of the Emile Zola novel--and a 50th-anniversary production of Mary Chase’s “Harvey” in its six-play 1994 season. Douglas Hughes, acting artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre and director of La Jolla’s recent “Glass Menagerie,” will revive “Harvey” for a mid-May opening. Michael Greif, a former resident director at the New York Shakespeare Festival and director of La Jolla’s recent “What the Butler Saw,” will stage “Therese Raquin” in June. Specific dates have yet to be announced.

QUICK TAKES

Garth Brooks, who sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” to open last year’s Super Bowl, won’t be back for this year’s event. The National Football League had asked Brooks to perform the Jan. 30 game’s halftime show, but negotiations broke down over money. Brooks had said it would cost $4 million to stage the show, about twice what the NFL wanted to spend. . . . Producer Moctezuma Esparza (“Gettysburg”), actor-director Andy Garcia (“Cachao”) and actors Ada Maris (“Nurses”) and A. Martinez (“L.A. Law”) received Outstanding Achievement in 1993 awards over the weekend from the Hollywood Chapter of the Hispanic Academy of Media Arts and Sciences. . . . John Walsh, host of Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted,” was honored by New York Mayor David Dinkins Monday for his contributions in “promoting the professionalism of correction officers and for making America a safer place.” Now in its seventh season, Walsh’s program has led to the capture of 277 fugitives.