While NBC airs the first of five... - Los Angeles Times
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While NBC airs the first of five...

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While NBC airs the first of five installments of A.D. at 8 p.m. Sunday, ABC counters at the same time with the umpteenth rerun of You Only Live Twice, a fast, funny 1967 James Bond adventure starring Sean Connery. This is the one in which 007 goes to Japan to find out who’s hijacking spacecraft in an attempt to provoke war between the United States and Russia.

Airing earlier Sunday, at 6 p.m. on Channel 13, is Woody Allen’s wonderfully nonsensical Sleeper, in which Allen is put away cryogenically after minor but fatal surgery and thawed out alive 200 years later.

In the new TV movie Love Lives On (ABC Monday at 9 p.m.), Christine Lahti and Sam Waterston play parents who must help their rebellious, dangerously ill and pregnant teen-age daughter (Mary Stuart Masterson) decide whether to risk her own life or that of her unborn child.

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Airing Monday at 8 p.m. on Channel 5 is that most enjoyable historical drama, The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O’Toole as Henry II and Katharine Hepburn as his feisty Eleanor of Aquitaine.

At 9:30 p.m. Monday, Channel 2 has a rerun of Joe Kidd, a solidly crafted 1972 Clint Eastwood Western that forthrightly depicts injustices to Mexican-Americans. Robert Duvall and John Saxon co-star.

Guilty Conscience, a new TV movie, airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. on CBS. Anthony Hopkins stars in a dual role as a prominent criminal attorney and as The Prosecutor, who exists in the attorney’s mind as his adversary. This psychological suspense drama, written and produced by the reliable Richard Levinson and William Link, also stars Blythe Danner as Hopkins’ wife and Swoosie Kurtz as his mistress.

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Airing at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 5 is the fine historical drama The War Lord, starring Charlton Heston as a feudal knight intent on exercising his droit du seigneur .

The gimmick in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (CBS Wednesday at 9 p.m.) is so simple and so effective that it’s a wonder nobody ever did it before. What Steve Martin, director Carl Reiner and their writing partner George Gipe have done in their hilarious spoof of hard-boiled detective mysteries is to incorporate clips from ‘40s films so that Martin seems to be playing scenes with 19 stars as he stumbles through a caper as a private eye hired by Rachel Ward.

Thursday brings The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Channel 13 at 8 p.m.), a wry, warm and funny death-of-the-Old West fable that is one of the late Sam Peckinpah’s finest films. Jason Robards, Stella Stevens (never better) and David Warner star.

Elia Kazan’s poetic film of William Inge’s Splendor in the Grass, a poignant coming-of-age drama set in a small, repressive Midwestern town in the ‘20s, memorably teams Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. It airs on Channel 13 Friday at 8 p.m. and again on Saturday at 11 p.m.

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In the new TV movie Stormin’ Home (CBS Friday at 9 p.m.), Gil Gerard plays a divorced moto-cross racer driven by a fading dream of becoming a champion rider. Lisa Blount co-stars as Gerard’s 12-year-old daughter.

Mai Zetterling stars in Frieda (Channel 28 Saturday at 10 p.m.), portraying a German war bride who faces bigotry when her husband (David Farrar) brings her home to England.

Selected evening pay/cable fare: Robert Altman’s hourlong The Laundromat, with Carol Burnett and Amy Madigan, which premieres Monday on HBO at 10 and airs again Thursday at 10; Rope (Z Sunday at 6:30 and Thursday at 9); Head (SelecTV Sunday at 7); Romancing the Stone (Movie Channel Monday at 7, HBO Monday at 8, Showtime Wednesday at 8, Cinemax Thursday at 8, Z Friday at 9, Showtime Saturday at 8, SelecTV Saturday at 9); Mike’s Murder (Showtime Monday at 8, ON-TV Wednesday at 9); Swing Shift (ON Monday at 9 and Saturday at 6, Showtime Tuesday at 8); Saboteur (Z Tuesday at 7); Moscow on the Hudson (HBO Tuesday at 8, Cinemax and Showtime Friday at 8, ON Friday at 9); Repo Man (ON Tuesday at 10:30, SelecTV Friday at 9, Z Saturday at 9); Bye, Bye Brazil (Z Wednesday at 7); Winter of Our Dreams (Z Thursday at 7:30); Starman (SelecTV Thursday at 9); Valley Girl (Cinemax Thursday at 10).

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