Steve Martin has the depth with which...

Steve Martin has the depth with which to follow Spencer Tracy in the title role of Father of the Bride (ABC Sunday at 9 p.m.), the 1991 remake of the memorable 1950 Vincente Minnelli movie. Unfortunately, Martin’s flair for comic smugness is blunted in the misfired telling of this tale of a middle-aged man marrying off his daughter (Kimberly Williams). As a result, Martin Short, as an effete, snobbish wedding coordinator, steals the show. Even so, there may be enough laughs to please Martin fans.

The 1985 One Magic Christmas (KCAL Sunday at 10 p.m.), a modern Christmas parable from Disney that is set in Canada, is a film you approach gingerly because you want it to work, even though it doesn’t quite make it. Mary Steenburgen stars as a woman who’s endured too much to retain her Christmas spirit, but she has a little daughter (Elizabeth Harnois) who makes magical contact with both Santa and a Guardian Angel (Harry Dean Stanton, no less).

Sometimes the elements in a comedy fuse magically, and everything works. That’s the case with Ron Howard’s 1984 hit romantic comedy Splash (KTLA Monday at 8 p.m.), in which Tom Hanks falls in love with mermaid Daryl Hannah.

Twins (KTLA Tuesday at 8 p.m.), an overblown, self-destructing 1988 comedy-thriller wastes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as twins separated at birth.

The 1986 Ruthless People (KTLA Wednesday at 8 p.m.) is that delicious L.A. satire in which the lives of a nouveau riche Beverly Hills couple (Bette Midler, Danny DeVito) are turned upside down when a desperate young couple (Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater) kidnap Midler only to discover that DeVito doesn’t want her back at any price.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (ABC Saturday at 8 p.m.), the 1971 film of the late Roald Dahl’s children’s classic “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” has as its principal strength Gene Wilder in the title role. His performance as the nutty candy-bar maker from Bavaria is wonderfully sly and subtle in this tale of a worldwide contest to turn up five children to tour mysterious Willy’s mysterious candy works. Wilder’s presence helps offset Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse’s songs, which are not much better than perky, and a disappointingly literal factory set.

In the excellent, intimate 1991 The Quarrel (KCET Saturday at 11 p.m.), passion and principle collide memorably as two old friends and enemies (Saul Rubinek, R.H. Thomson), Holocaust survivors both, meet unexpectedly in a Montreal park on Rosh Hashanah. Complications are large, for like the Jewish culture it tries to encapsulate in 88 minutes, this film balances philosophical issues with the warmer, earthier bonds of life.