`The Yarn Princess' Sends Several Mixed Messages

"The Yarn Princess," "ABC Sunday Movie," 9 p.m., Channel 4. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "The Yarn Princess" is the movie that asks the question about whether love is sufficient when it comes to raising a family - or is it more important to have clean clothes, hot meals, continuous school attendance, daily routine and discipline?

It's easy to see which side scripter Dalene Young is on in this film which was "inspired by a true story." Jean Smart plays Margaret Thomas, a child-like woman, described as "developmentally slow," who is the mother of six boys, ages 2 to 17. She often behaves as if she were a child, too, and if their pets climb onto the kitchen table, if they don't go to school and if they seem to live on pizza, she isn't concerned. She loves them all dearly and that is what matters most to her.

Her husband, Jake, played by Robert Pastorelli, does his best to keep the household going, as well as holding down a job as a machinist, and the Thomas family would probably have gone along on its subsistence-level way harmlessly enough except that one day at work Jake has a mental breakdown and is diagnosed with schizophrenia. His medication leaves him unable to work - and if he doesn't take his medication he has violent fits. Suddenly, Margaret is forced to take on all the responsibility, for which she is clearly not capable.

Even though she is assigned a sympathetic social worker, Peggy,

played by Giuliana Santini, who tries to help Margaret cope, Peggy's boss goes ahead with plans to put at least some of the children into foster care. Eventually an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, played by Dennis Boutsikaris, who believes Margaret's rights as a parent have been violated, comes to Margaret's rescue and, in a courtroom scene, he helps her plead her case that loving her children should be enough.

There's a happy ending with the Thomas family installed in a better home and help provided for Margaret in dealing with her family - definitely a "feel-good" movie ending.

If you feel love is really all that matters, then you'll undoubtedly enjoy "The Yarn Princess"; there are others who will feel manipulated, in a calculated way, by this attempt to say a mother's love conquers all.

It's performed by a good cast, under Tom McLaughlin's direction. Smart, who has always played the naif to perfection, as she did for several seasons on "Designing Women," works hard to make Margaret Thomas a sympathetic character but it is Pastorelli's performance that is a standout. We're used to seeing him as the amusing painter, Eldin, on "Murphy Brown." Here his interpretation of a man suffering with schizophrenia is scary and utterly believable.

Will we be rescued?

"Search and Rescue," "NBC Sunday Night Movie," 9 p.m., Channel 5. -----------------------------------------------------------------

If you've ever had a particular yen to see Robert Conrad standing on a mountain top playing bagpipes, then this movie is for you - it's just one of the many things Conrad does in this pretty little "B" movie about life in the charming, rustic town of Bear Valley, Calif., in which nearly every citizen belongs to a volunteer mountain rescue team.

Two accidents are staged so we can watch the local citizens drop everything and go into action with helicopters, snowmobiles, skis, trucks and other gear to rescue those in peril.

The characters are likable, the actions commendable but the film is only mildly interesting and the actors wholly unmemorable, more like a live Saturday morning series for children. The most dangerous thing about "Search and Rescue" is that NBC says it is a pilot for a possible series. Maybe low ratings will rescue us from that fate.

`House' is back!

"The House of Eliott," 5 and 9 p.m. Sunday, A&E. -----------------------------------------------------------------

When actresses Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins created "The House of Eliott," a BBC/A&E TV series about two young London women who started a fashion empire after World War I, it didn't sound all that promising on paper.

But on the TV screen, done with the usual care and lavish touch of the best British series, "The House of Eliott" became highly popular - so much so that when the series ended last year, fans cried for more and so the third and final season of 10 new episodes begins this Sunday with the airing of two of them on A&E.

And for those who want their memories refreshed about the first two seasons, A&E is recapping Series I and II in an hour special at 4 p.m. Sunday, preceding the new season at 5, repeated at 9 p.m.

Marsh, who was an audience favorite on that much-loved "Masterpiece Theatre" classic, "Upstairs, Downstairs," knew what made that series work so well and many of the same qualities can be found in "The House of Eliott" - in the way it is constructed, in the range of its characters (and their social classes), attention to correct detail and the sense of history that colors everything about "The House of Eliot."

Once again Stella Gonet plays the older, more sensible Beatrice with Louise Lombard cast as the impulsive Evangeline. As the new season begins, the sisters are in New York in 1927, having launched a line of clothes for Sears Roebuck in America. Back in London, the Eliott sisters face a changing world - as pressure is brought on them to stop focusing exclusively on high-fashion couture for the wealthy and design a ready-to-wear line for the newly-emerging Middle Class.

Beatrice is also worried about her filmmaker husband, Jack, from whom she is separated - he seems to be missing in Germany - while she's also being wooed by an American executive. Evangeline has problems with a rather uncouth but eager businessman, Larry Cotter, who wants the two women to go into business with him, not to mention her trouble with a brash young designer, Grace Keeble, played by Melanie Ramsay, who signifies a whole new younger generation.

Throughout the first two episodes airing Sunday, there is a real sense that the world is changing as the 1930s approach. We see how it is affecting everyone, even those only remotely connected to the House of Eliott. It is this richness of detail, in all areas, that makes "The House of Eiiott" much more than just the soap opera saga of two sisters.

Murder night

"Janek: "The Wallflower Murders," 9 p.m. Tuesday, Channel 7. "A&E Mystery Movie: "The Mad Woman in the Attic," 6, 10 p.m. Tuesday, A&E. -----------------------------------------------------------------

If it's Tuesday, it must be murder night and CBS is favoring us with another mystery movie in which Richard Crenna reprises his role as New York police detective Frank Janek. This time there's yet another crazed serial killer on the loose who stabs his (or her) victims, then seals their eyes and mouth with glue.

One of the victims is Janek's god-daughter so he naturally throws himself into the case, which the FBI feels is its territory. Gerald DiPego wrote the script, based on a novel, and it is complex, convoluted and totally unbelievable. But it does have a wonderful over the-top performance by Tyne Daly as a psychiatrist.

It also repeats one of the flaws of all the Janek movies - Crenna's character is always having a Big Romance with a beautiful woman. Not only is Crenna not exactly a matinee idol, the romance is just clutter and has nothing to do with anything else. This time it's glamorous Helen Shaver as a Canadian forensic psychiatrist. Never mind - just watch for Daly's star turn.

"The Mad Woman in the Attic," written by Jimmy McGovern, starts out as a more interesting story although, towards the end, it doesn't make much sense, either.

At the center of this movie (and two more to follow on subsequent Tuesdays) is a new detective, "Cracker," the name for a forensic psychologist - they're big this season - named Dr. Eddie Fitzgerald ("Fitz"), played by comic actor Robbie Coltrane.

At least "Fitz" isn't busy having a romance - indeed he's a married man whose marriage is not going well - but McGovern has been so intent upon making "Fitz" a quirky character that the quirks often obscure the story and render "Fitz" obnoxious. I'll stick with Inspector Morse, thank you very much.