Movie Spotlight

Man of the House (NBC Sunday at 7 p.m.) is a serious 1995 comedy that works better when it’s serious. It cuts to the heart of a contemporary phenomenon all too familiar to countless youngsters, that of having to adjust to a stepparent or to a parent’s lover. An understated Chevy Chase couldn’t be better as a fearless Seattle-based federal prosecutor who faces his greatest challenge trying to win over the 11-year-old son (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) of his girlfriend (Farrah Fawcett).

The Stationmaster’s Wife (Bravo Monday at 5 and 11 p.m.; Tuesday at 9:35 a.m.) was adapted by R.W. Fassbinder from an obscure 1931 novel. His 1977 film is a familiar tale of a pompous minor official (Kurt Raab) undone by his sensuous, glamorous wife (Elisabeth Trissenaar). In Fassbinder’s hands, however, it emerges dazzlingly as a rueful study in human misery with which we can all identify, thanks both to the filmmaker’s compassion and outrageous sense of humor.

In our increasingly fragile and unpredictable world, the 1990 blockbuster Ghost (KTLA Thursday at 7:30 p.m.) certainly did strike a seductive chord: a lover (Patrick Swayze) from the afterlife hovering over his beloved (Demi Moore) to keep her from harm, trying to communicate the love he couldn’t express for her in life. But you have to get past the notion of Swayze as a corporate New York banker, a certain woolly-mindedness in the script and a production petrified to the point of stickiness. Whoopie Goldberg did, however, walk off with a best supporting actress Oscar as an extremely reluctant spirit go-between.

George Lucas’ archetypal 1977 space opera, Star Wars (KTLA Friday at 7:30 p.m.) has orphaned pure-of-heart hero Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) rescuing the princess in the Death Star with the aid of scruffy space rover Han Solo (Harrison Ford). It has moments that suggest “The Searchers” and Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress.”

As good an actor as Wesley Snipes is, he still isn’t enough to save Passenger 57 (NBC Friday at 9 p.m.) a standard-issue 1992 hijacking thriller. Though it is refreshing to see an actor of color as a straight-up action hero, even the kick Snipes’ performance imparts can’t stop this film from dutifully going where its predecessors have gone before.

The Snake Pit (KCET Saturday at 9 p.m.), starring Olivia de Havilland, deals with the traumas of mental breakdown and institutional recovery. Brave, off-trail, a breakthrough film in 1948, it now pales beside Robert Rossen’s more lyrical, enigmatic “Lilith.”