Dead on arrival
WORLD has capitulated in no uncertain terms in the face of an onslaught of two decent films from the opposition. The best they can come up with in response to the double-whammy of Moonstruck and Buster is the deplorable Mannequin On The Move (World, 9.30pm), of which Variety magazine said: ''If this stiff ever shows any life, it will be a wonder indeed.'' Mannequin On The Move is the follow-up to Mannequin, a feeble and idiotic fantasy in which a window dresser falls in love with a mannequin who turns into a real live girl. In the sequel a window dresser discovers that a mannequin holds the spirit of a bewitched peasant girl who can only be freed through the power of true love. It is, if this is possible, even worse than its forerunner.
The peasant girl is cursed because long ago, in the Kingdom of Hauptmann-Koenig, she fell in love with a prince without the approval of the queen. The queen, conveniently an exponent of black magic, turned the girl, Jessie, into a wooden statue, a handicap she can only reverse by finding true love in another land. Now, it is 1,000 years later in Philadelphia.
Kristy Swanson plays the stiff and William Ragsdale is its suitor. Andrew McCarthy (Pretty in Pink), who starred in the first film, had the good sense to distance himself from this re-hash of cliches and tired jokes.
AS comedies go, even Herbie Rides Again (Pearl, 1.05pm) is in another class. This follow-up to The Love Bug was one of Disney's most successful films of the 1970s, a mixture of kiddie slapstick punctuated by some harmless over-acting from Stefanie Powers and Keenan Wynn, who plays the villainous Hawk.
Herbie enlists the help of all VW Beetles in San Francisco to stop developers building a skyscrapers where his owner's house stands.
The Herbie films were so popular that the Germans produced a rip-off in 1971 snappily called Ein Kaefer Geht Aufs Ganze. Their Herbie was called Dudu.
ONE decent tidbit World does throw up is The Climbers: By Fair Means (8.30pm), a BBC documentary in which mountaineer Chris Bonington unravels some of the history of a sport which has claimed more than its fair share of victims. Reinhold Messner, first man to climb all 14 of the world's 8,000 metre peaks became climbing's first superstar. But Doug Scott, who shuns the glamour, says there are hundreds of demanding 7,000-metre peaks that are being ignored because of the 8,000-metre preoccupation.
ON to the real business of the evening and Pearl's two main films, Moonstruck (9.30pm) and Buster (12 midnight).
It is difficult not to be swept up by Moonstruck, Oscar-nominated for Best Picture in 1987. A delightful romantic comedy, directed by Norman Jewison with a natty script and a tour de force performance by Cher as a young widow living with her very Italian-American family who falls for the unconventional Nicolas Cage.
Buster is the true story of Buster Edwards (Phil Collins) a Great Train Robber on the run. It doesn't compare to Moonstruck, but Collins is fun as the affable Cockney (now back in London running a flower stall having given himself up). Julie Walters plays his long-suffering wife. Buster attracted howls of derision in Britain for glorifying Edwards and ignoring his victims.
I CANNOT finish without saying something about Further Abroad (BBC, 6.35pm), simply because it is dedicated to my favourite beast, the pig. The pig, it has to be said, has an image problem, but Jonathan Meades sings its praises. The title of this Further Abroad episode is The Truth About Porkies, which for the uninitiated is a play on the Cockney rhyming slang for lies (''porky pies'' equals ''lies'').
