TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : ****Excellent ***Good **Fair *Poor : VIDEOCASSETTES

“Sweet Charity.” MCA. $59.95. In some ways, Shirley MacLaine’s ultimate role was as the naive, eternally romantic “dance-hall hostess” Charity Hope Valentine, modeled on Giulietta Masina’s role in Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria,” and sweetly subject to all the perfidies of man: respectively, a louse, a philanderer (Ricardo Montalban) and a moralistic neurotic (John McMartin). As Charity, MacLaine seethes with addled, bounding optimism; her singing is fair, her dancing good (she has superb partners in Chita Rivera and Paula Kelly) and her acting excellent. “Cabiria” has been updated to include flower-power and jet-set cliches, but this 1969 film is better than its reputation. Director Bob Fosse’s choreography reasserts the centrality of dance in movie musicals, and one number here--the grinding and gut-thrusting, dead-eyed and dead-pan sensual “Hey, Big Spender”--is a classic. (MCA transferred the dance numbers to a wide-screen, “letter-box” video format, so you can actually see all the choreography.) Information: (818) 777-4315. ***