WHAT'S with the heroics, Hong Kong. It seems you can hardly turn on your television these days without the thoroughly politically incorrect but jolly entertaining sight of World War II baddies getting it where they don't like it, and pencil-moustachioed heroes teaching the Jerry a thing or two. From Kelly's Heroes to The Great Escape, it's been heroism with a mighty H. Quite why our programmers have decided to go for the war theme (and all those scratchy prints) escapes me, but I'm all for it. Now, how about a few classic Westerns, weepies and Hammer horrors? TODAY AFTER Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, All Of Me (World, 12.50 pm) is probably my favourite Steve Martin movie. The soul and spirit of crotchety millionairess Lily Tomlin somehow manages to get into the body of jazz-playing, screwy lawyer Steve Martin and the comedic results rival those of The Man With Two Brains. Martin's performance is one of his best - streets ahead of the inconclusive material he has been turning out lately.
MONDAY BUT enough foolishness. Let's get back to the stuff that keeps the chaps up at the China Coast Community off the grog. Reprising his The Desert Fox role as Rommel, James Mason returns as the bad guy in The Desert Rats (World, 9.30 pm). He's got his sights set on Richard Burton, a British commando leading an Australian detachment in the siege of Tobruk. As with last week's The Guns Of Navarone, they just about get away with the battle scenes despite the obvious studio sets.
WEDNESDAY BACK in 1978, Midnight Express (Pearl, 9.30 pm) gave international audiences their first real taste of the Oliver Stone approach to film-writing. This version of the Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) story - a young American faces brutalisation in a Turkish prison after being caught drug-smuggling - may not be that true to the original, but nevertheless makes for riveting, often sickening social protest. Also starring Randy Quaid and John Hurt, and directed by Alan Parker.
FRIDAY I'VE always been one to get steamed up about train movies, and they don't come any better than Von Ryan's Express (World, 9.30 pm). Unpopular American captain Frank Sinatra sets up an escape from an Italian POW camp during World War II in an uneasy alliance with Trevor Howard and his British soldiers. This one boils up to an absolute belter of a climax.
SATURDAY IN KEEPING with local logic, tonight brings Batman (Pearl, 9.30 pm), a fortnight after we thrilled to Catwoman and the Penguin in the superior Batman Returns. Tim Burton's first take on the Bat-theme took many people by surprise - his was a dark, brooding interpretation of the Bob Kane original, not the Wham! Kapow! camp-fest many expected, even though Jack Nicholson's manic Joker far outshines Michael Keaton's caped crusader. Danny Elfman's score and Anton Furst's production design are stunning, the Prince songs are incongruous. A confused effort.
