Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

MOVIES

Giving Credit: The Writers Guild of America this week voted to correct writing credits on 23 films written or co-written by those who were blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Among the films affected: 1963’s “Cairo” (screenplay by Joan Scott), 1955’s “The Naked Dawn” (written by Julian Zimet), 1952’s “Cry, the Beloved Country” (screenplay by Alan Paton and John Howard Lawson), 1957’s “An Affair to Remember” (screenplay by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart and Leo McCarey) and 1952’s “Ivanhoe” (screenplay by Marguerite Roberts and Noel Langley).

STAGE

SCR Lands a Tony: Tony Roberts, of Woody Allen movies fame, will star as a jazz-playing, millionaire heart surgeon in South Coast Repertory’s upcoming West Coast premiere of “Sidney Bechet Killed a Man.” No stranger to stage roles, Roberts, who starred on Broadway most recently in “Victor/Victoria,” makes his SCR debut in Stuart Flack’s black comedy Oct. 31.

POP & JAZZ

Saluting Jackie Robinson: Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, the Fugees, Luther Vandross, Sly and the Family Stone, the Isley Brothers and others will be featured on “Jackie Robinson Stealing Home--A Musical Tribute,” due in stores Tuesday on Sony’s Legacy Recordings. The ambitious CD, designed to salute Robinson’s “unique position as a source of black pride for at least three generations,” will blend the musical selections with a series of spoken interludes, including Robinson’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, play-by-play from the 1956 World Series and sound bites from Tommy Lasorda, Pee Wee Reese and Robinson himself.

Competition Continues: A California jazz artist has made a breakthrough in the 11th annual Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition after the state was completely shut out last year. Trumpeter John Daversa, 25, of Canoga Park is one of 15 musicians--and the only one from the West Coast--to make it to the semifinals in the competition, which focuses this year on trumpeters. The event concludes in Washington on Oct. 23-24. A companion program, the Monk International Composers Competition, was won by Jack Perla of Oakland for “Roman Candles.” The work will be performed in Washington on Oct. 24.

QUICK TAKES

James Cameron’s big-budget picture “Titanic” will have its world premiere Nov. 1 at the Tokyo Film Festival. The movie is scheduled to open in the United States on Dec. 19. . . . Cable’s Nickelodeon will carry its fourth annual “Big Help-a-thon”--an effort to encourage kids across the country to call in and pledge a specific number of hours to volunteer work--on Oct. 19 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event--with scheduled celebrity participants including Whoopi Goldberg, LL Cool J and Jonathan Taylor Thomas--will be seen live from Santa Monica’s Pacific Park. . . . The New York Daily News reported Wednesday that film star Arnold Schwarzenegger has been in talks about starring as the King of Siam in a stage revival of “The King and I.”