MC can't find graphical characters

[<kynn panix com>]

Hello!  I just installed MC off my $HOME directory.  I've gotten it so
that running mc produces no error messages, but the display is screwed
up.  Instead of the "graphical charset" to draw the vertical and
horizontal lines, and corners and tee's, I get a weird-looking letter
"a" all over the place.

Is there some configuration I can tweak to obtain the correct display?
Alternatively, is there some simple test I can perform to ensure that
my terminal can even *display* the correct characters?  FWIW, TERM is
set to xterm.

Thanks!

kj