ACTOR Marlon Brando and author Irwin Shaw did not see eye to eye over The Young Lions (World, 9.35pm). In the film, based on Shaw's book, Brando makes his Nazi officer a sympathetic character. In the book he has no saving graces at all and, in the final confrontation, kills a Jew. Shaw later collared Brando and said he should not have made the German so pleasant. Brando, in not so many words, told Shaw to take his book and stick it where the sun don't shine. The film is a somewhat bloated adaptation, but has all the stuff a war movie should have; idealistic young soldiers, disillusioned older soldiers who have come to hate the brutality, and a Jew who becomes the victim of anti-semitism in the US Army. It follows three soldiers - one German, two American - from the time of their enlistment to the end of the war. Brando is a young German who believes in Hitler, and probably also in advertising extensively on World Channel. As he makes his way from occupied Paris to service in Rommel's infamous Afrika Corps, he comes to hate his uniform and everything it stands for. Meanwhile, in the US, a young Jew (Montgomery Clift) and a popular singer (played by a popular singer, Dean Martin) meet as draftees and become fast and firm friends. As the years of war go by the three men's fates grow closer, until they finally intersect outside a concentration camp. The Young Lions is draggy at times, but still a memorable product of its genre. Nice photography and the bonus of Maximilian Schell and Lee Van Cleef. WHEN The Vanishing (Pearl, 9.30pm) came to Hong Kong in 1993 it slipped in and out of the cinemas wearing carpet slippers, which was a shame. It is not a perfect thriller, but it is a disturbing, gripping and ultimately entertaining one. Jeff Bridges acts out of his skin as the nutcase who may or may not know something about the vanishing in question. The film is a remake of the 1991 drama from the Netherlands, which was directed by George Sluizer and starred some Dutch people. It became a minor classic and Hollywood, unable to leave a good thing alone, snapped up the rights and made it again with Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland and Nancy Travis. Sluizer directed, for the second time, and a jolly good job he did on the whole. The tension starts at the start and does not end until the end. Sutherland and his girlfriend are motoring along a quiet highway. They get involved in an argument, make up, then pull over at a gas station where she gets out to buy beer. She never returns, and three years later an increasingly degenerate Sutherland still wants to know why. THE winner of America's Funniest People (World, 8.00pm) will win dinner with Linda Evans, star of Dynasty, which is enough reason for many not to enter. This show was created by the people who created America's Funniest Home Videos. It features ordinary folks doing funny things, such as impersonating celebrities, lip-synching to their favourite songs, playing party tricks and getting their pets to do silly performances. A man from Portland, Oregon, offers impersonations of Ronald Reagan, Johnny Cash and Jack Benny. There are 12 more episodes to come, so don't say you were not warned. There are none of America's funniest people in Full House (World, 7.00pm). Instead there is Bob Saget as the widower father of three young girls and a phobia for cleanliness. John Stamos and David Coulier also star, as his live-in mates and helpers. WORLD continues its recently-acquired habit of airing new programmes at unwatchable times. The Secret Of The Black Dragon (2.35am) is billed as 'five thrilling hours which tell the story of an unbelievable voyage.' The voyage is from Augsburg, Germany, where the massacre of the Thirty Years Wars has just come to an end, through unknown mountains and tundra to a legendary Chinese river known as Black Dragon. Its purpose is to open new trade routes. Easier said than done when the weather en route is so cold that dead birds drop from the sky - frozen in flight. Julian Glover, Charles Brauer and Ritza Brown star.
