Longing For A Good Western? Try `Rio-Diablo'

"Rio Diablo," "CBS Sunday Movie," 9 p.m., Channel 7. --------------------------------------------------------------- If'n you've been a-hankerin' for an old-fashioned Western, the kind full of bounty hunters, stalwart heroes, damsels in distress and lots of ridin' and shootin', your prayers have been answered with CBS' "Rio Diablo."

It doesn't matter who wrote "Rio Diablo" or even who directed it - it's all familiar stuff that Western fans have seen dozens of times anyway. The biggest surprise is that Kenny Rogers plays a no-nonsense bounty hunter who would just as soon shoot a man as look at him. If you don't relish violence and gun fighting, then "Rio Diablo" is not for you.

Basically the film is another take on Old Gunfighter/Young Gunfighter plot: Rogers plays a bounty hunter named Leech who eventually joins forces with a greenhorn named Benjamin Tabor, through circumstances too complicated to explain here. While each professes dislike for the other, we know they'll eventually have mutual respect and that, in the final scenes, Benjamin will assume the mantle of his mentor - and that is precisely what happens, though not before numerous shootouts, the kidnapping of Benjamin's young wife and several outlaws try to get the better of Leech.

The movie gets off to a rousing start as the town of Rio Diablo prepares to celebrate Benjamin's wedding to Maria, at the same time Leech arrives in town with his latest criminal catch and the dirty

Walker Brothers decide to rob the bank. You can imagine the commotion when these three activities interact! That sets up the premise for the rest of the movie which is basically one long chase scene.

Outside of Stacy Keach, who plays a competing bounty hunter, and Bruce Greenwood, the most obnoxious of the Walker Brothers, the rest of the cast are better known as country Western stars. Besides Rogers, who gives a standard Rogers' performance, the film is enlivened by Travis Tritt, quite good as Benjamin, and, in a smaller role, Naomi Judd, who plays a bordello-owner who is sweet on Rogers (a diversion that comes to naught and serves mostly as filler).

While Rogers' "Gambler" films were more entertaining, "Rio Diablo" should please the undiscri-minating action fans. --------------------------------------------------------------- Why make this film? --------------------------------------------------------------- "They've Taken Our Children: The Chowchilla Kidnapping," "ABC Monday Movie," 9 p.m. Monday, Channel 4. --------------------------------------------------------------- We're back in docudrama country with this one, based on an occurrence in California several years ago when three dim-witted young layabouts decided to kidnap a rural school bus filled with children and hold them for ransom as a kind of get-rich-quick scheme.

Taken together, there wasn't a whole brain between them and while they did preliminary planning to facilitate the kidnapping, they hadn't thought beyond that - like how to deliver the ransom note.

One of the funniest scenes in the film, inadvertently so, concerns the kidnappers' inability to place a phone call asking for ransom: All phone lines in Chowchilla, Cal., where the incident took place, were swamped as the media descended upon the town, intent on shoving microphones in the faces of unhappy parents and asking how they felt.

In case you've forgotten the story, the youngsters and their driver, played by Karl Malden, eventually made their way out of captivity before anyone was seriously injured.

David Eyre, Jr., wrote the serviceable script, and Vern Gillum was the director. Most of the performers, except for Malden and Julie Harris, who plays his wife, are unknown but perform satisfactorily.

The kidnapping was a hair-brained idea and the perpetrators are so close to the Three Stooges, only dangerous, that sometimes "They've Taken Our Children" almost becomes comedic. It certainly wasn't to the people of Chowchilla, however - nor is the fact that all three kidnappers, caught and sent to prison, will be eligible for parole this year!