Termcap/Terminfo & Ncurses

[armen]

I've recently installed redhat fedora core 3 on a dell poweredge server 
and I'm running into an unusual issue with what seems to be either 
termcap or ncurses or both. When I connect using PuTTY (claiming a 
terminal type of XTERM) on a windows-based system, ncurses applications 
behave more-or-less normally. When I run these applications inside 
screen, the vertical and horizonal line super-ascii characters appear 
as A's with an umlaut over them.
The real issue occurs when I connect from a FreeBSD system (claiming 
term type xterm-color.) When I run ncurses applications outside of 
screen, formatting is horribly broken, with columns displayed out of 
order, a constant stream of backslashes displayed across the input 
line, and with everything I type being escaped.
When I run the apps in screen (when connecting from FreeBSD) the 
formatting is off, but in a different way, and the input line is 
highlighted incorrectly.
I've tried replacing termcap and terminfo entries from a working system 
and I've tried setting different term types before I connect, but 
nothing seems to help.
I've also noticed that if I connect to the a working server from the 
broken one (via ssh) the apps format and display properly.
All components, including termcap/terminfo and ncurses are stock 
redhat-supplied installations and this problem exhibits itself in both 
redhat supplied and custom compiled ncurses applications.
Any help, advice, or insight would be greatly appreciated as I cannot 
seem to make any headway against this issue. I'd be more than happy to 
provide copies of termcap, terminfo files, inputrc files, etc from the 
working system (an older redhat variant for ppc) and the troublesome 
system if requested.
armen