Stolen Kisses Movie 2, 10.30pm There is very little of interest on English-language terrestrial TV tonight. Macau Racing swallows the prime time slot between 8pm and 11.30pm on World, while Pearl features programmes about adventure racing and the total eclipse of the sun. There is also a movie called Barb Wire (Pearl, 9.30pm), starring Pamela Anderson, but there is no way I am highlighting that. Surprisingly, authoritative American reviewer Leonard Maltin gave this futuristic 'action thriller', starring the former 'Baywatch babe' two out of four stars, which I think is pretty generous. Though he did point out, 'Surely, pneumatic Lee is no actress but just a 15-year-old boy's fantasy figure'. So it's just as well that Movie 2 is showing a series of films this week to celebrate the works of French film critic-turned-maker Francois Truffaut (1932-1984). Tonight's offering, Stolen Kisses, is the third in the series on Antoine Doinel - Truffaut's cinematic alter-ego, a troubled adolescent from The 400 Blows (1959). It opens with the now-grown Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) sprung from military prison with a dishonorable discharge, drawn directly from Truffaut's own history of delinquency. But that is where the parallels end. Lovesick Doinel woos an unresponsive and serious-minded young violinist Christine (Claude Jade, above with Leaud) while he engages in a series of jobs - hotel night-watchman, private investigator, TV repairman - with mixed success and comic entanglements. But when he falls in love with the elegant wife of his client (Delphine Seyrig), Christine realises she misses Doinel's persistence and clumsy passes, so she embarks on a seductive plan of her own. Truffaut's comic confection is full of deadpan gags and screwball chaos, a world away from the heavy seriousness of The 400 Blows, and Leaud is endearingly naive as the determined Doinel, forging ahead with more pluck and passion than aptitude. One of Truffaut's best films - strong, sweet, wise and often explosively funny. With Chinese and English subtitles. (1968) Bette Pearl, 6.50pm After winning a Golden Globe Award for her guest-starring role in a TV action series, Bette (Midler, above) gives an excited acceptance speech in which she tries to make sure she thanks everyone involved. But, waking up in the middle of the night, she panics when she can't remember thanking her husband Roy (Kevin Dunn). And even though the college professor says he doesn't really care one way or another, Bette is distraught when the videotape reveals that she did, indeed, leave him out. Oh well, the predicament will no doubt give our diva another excuse to burst into another sensational number. Once Upon A Time In America Cinemax, 9pm Despite the similarity in title, some critics see this Sergio Leone-directed picture on the history of America, power and its relation to crime far more profound and involving than his earlier film Once Upon A Time In The West. While that Western was more of a genre picture, Once Upon A Time In America is a complex psychological portrait of two friends - played by Robert De Niro and James Woods - whose relationship spans the greater part of the 20th century. Elizabeth McGovern and Tuesday Weld are the women who form a major part of the psychological battleground their lives encompass as (in deftly edited sequences) we shuttle back and forth in time. Great performances from the two male leads, though this long, engrossing homage to gangster film doesn't make sense at several points and characters appear and disappear with amazing suddenness. Expect some violent scenes. (1984)