A Night to Remember. The R.M.S.
Titanic's voyage to disaster, with all the triumphs and hysterics reported in Walter Lord's 1956 bestseller. Done in stark documentary style, with skillful collaboration from Director Roy Baker, Scriptwriter Eric Ambler and Actor Kenneth More.
torn thumb. The familiar tall story and its tiny hero, tastefully refurbished by Hollywood. Grimm would never recognize its goofy love plot or its gay puppets, but the kids may like it better than the grim original.
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. Ingrid Bergman brings religion to the heathen Chinee, and the customers get a massive (2 hr. 37 min.) helping of highly flavored but somewhat indigestible missionary stew.
Auntie Mame. Rosalind Russell is terrific as the world's most celebrated aun-tique, but as far as the script is concerned, it's a bit of a shame about Mame.
He Who Must Die (French). A powerful Jules Dassin (Rififi) version of The Greek Passion, Novelist Nikos Kazantzakis' attempt to show how the life of Christ coincides with the lives of all men in a condition of continuous Calvary.
Separate Tables. Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Wendy Hiller and Gladys Cooper sit down to eat crow, served up by Playwright Terence Rattigan. The actors gnash away in splendid style, though in the end they seem to be left with nothing more than a mouthful of feathers.
TELEVISION
Wed., Jan. 7
Timex All-Star Jazz Show (CBS, 8-9 p.m.)." Just like the three previous all-star jam sessions. A real hep crew--Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa--blasting out cool tunes.
Kraft Music Hall (NBC, 9-9:30 p.m.). Uncle Millie (Berle) tangles with Aunt Tallu (Bankhead). In color.
Armstrong Circle Theater (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Sent to Europe on assignment, a magazine editor gets a last-minute order from his wife: "And Bring Home a Baby." A true story of a happy adventure in an international tangle of red tape.
Thurs., Jan. 8
Playhouse 90 (CBS, 9:30-1 p.m.). Dana Wynter and James Donald in The Wings of the Dove, Henry James's famed tale of young love and old prejudice in turn-of-the-century England and Italy.
Fri., Jan. 9
Walt Disney Presents (ABC, 8-9 p.m.). A relatively new plot for the student of shoot-'em-ups: this time the lead-slinging crew of bank robbers is bossed by a hardhearted dame. But the "Killers from Kansas" are finally nabbed by Texas Ranger John Slaughter.
Sun., Jan. 11
Johns Hopkins File 7 (ABC, 11:30 a.m.-12). Second in a series of discussions of men whose minds have changed the world. This time: Charles Darwin.
The Catholic Hour (NBC, 1:30-2:30 p.m.). A question-and-answer session in which Catholic Writer John Cogley of the Fund for the Republic and Jesuit Professor (English) Walter J. Ong of St. Louis University examine the tensions between Catholics and non-Catholics in the U.S.
Small World (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). Maria Callas in Italy, Victor Borge at home on his Connecticut farm and Sir Thomas Beecham in Nice form a talking trio.
The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). A well-planned tour of the U.S.S. Forrestal, conducted by the New York Times's Military Editor Hanson Baldwin.
The Jack Benny Show (CBS, 7:30-8 p.m.). Now that the old professional tightwad has paid the price, M-G-M has finally given him permission to put on his parody of that grisly thriller, Gaslight. With Barbara Stanwyck, Benny and Bob Crosby.
The Music Shop (NBC, 7:30-8 p.m.). Conductor Buddy Bregman introduces the country's top recording artists.
General Electric Theater (CBS, 9-9:30 p.m.). Lightfoot Fred Astaire, who triumphed in his NBC song-and-dance show last fall, comes back to television in a straight acting part. His vehicle: Man on a Bicycle, a comedy about a gallant rogue.
Mon., Jan. 12
The Bell Telephone Hour (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Adventures in Music, with Harry Belafonte, Renata Tebaldi, Maurice Evans, Duo Pianists Gold and Fizdale, the New York City Ballet and the Baird puppets.
THEATER
On Broadway
J.B. A search for the meaning behind modern man's agony, conducted by Archibald MacLeish in a 20th century restatement of the Book of Job. Despite dramatic shortcomings, the verse play is an impressive and moving effort. With Christopher Plummer, Raymond Massey, Pat Hingle.
Flower Drum Song. A routine but opulent and attractive Oriental excursion by those skillful Occidentals, Rodgers and Hammerstein. With the freshest lotus leaves on Broadway, Singers Miyoshi Umeki and Pat Suzuki.
The Pleasure of His Company. Cyril Ritchard plays a hilariously prodigal father who insists on being an altogether too cozy member of his daughter's wedding.
A Touch of the Poet. Eugene O'Neill's early American alcoholic innkeeper may be more gabby than necessary, but an evening with the doomed dreamer (Eric Portman) adds up to fine theater.
The Music Man. A bandstand musical about some wonderfully brassy lowans at the tuneful turn of the century.
My Fair Lady. After almost a three-year run, still an undiminished delight.
Two for the Seesaw. A kind of prose duet between a couple of Manhattan blues singers. Uneven but amusing and touching.
On Tour
My Fair Lady and Two for the Seesaw in CHICAGO and The Music Man in OMAHA are satisfactory copies of the Broadway originals (see above).
Li'l Abner. Al Capp's comic-strip Dogpatch set to music. In CINCINNATI.
Romanoff and Juliet. Playwright Peter Ustinov proves that his bland international farce would be lost without Actor Peter Ustinov. In CHICAGO.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Lady L., by Romain Gary. A slim blade of a novel, light and flashing, which slips easily in and out of the worlds of Edwardian fashion, Paris slums and political anarchism, slicing surely at the solemn pretensions of those who love humanity more than they love their fellow men.
Manuel the Mexican, by Carlo Coccioli. Against a Mexican-Indian backdrop, a Passion play unfolds in which the 21-year-old Manuel symbolizes both Christ and the ancient Aztec God, Tepozteco--proof, perhaps, that God and Dios are one.
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, by Nikos Kazantzakis, translated by Kimon Friar. With Apollonian clarity and Dionysian passion, Greece's late, famed man of letters challenges Homer with a sequel that is a modern epic of adventure, eroticism, and the universal quest for self-knowledge and God.
The Prospects Are Pleasing, by Honor Tracy. Home truths about Ireland and the eccentric posturings of the Irish, told with a sly smile by a writer who regards the old sod as nothing sacred.
Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote. The fictional season's most endearing bad little good girl, Holly Golightly, bewildered and a little afraid, in a lot of beds she never made.
Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery. Monty has discovered a new weapon--ink --and he splashes it on friend and foe.
Leyte, by Samuel Eliot Morison. One of history's decisive naval engagements masterfully recreated.
Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak. The book without a country that honors all humanity, by the great Russian poet who won 1958's Nobel Prize but was forced by Big Brotherland to refuse it.
Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. A comedy of horrors whose aberrant love theme and brilliant writing make it a kind of fictional black valentine.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak (1) **
2. Loiita, Nabokov (2)
3. Around the World with Auntie Mame, Dennis (5)
4. From the Terrace, O'Hara (3)
5. The Ugly American, Lederer and Burdick (4)
6. Exodus, Uris (6)
7. Women and Thomas Harrow, Marquand (8)
8. Victorine, Keyes (7)
9. Anatomy of Murder, Traver
10. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Capote
NONFICTION
1. Only in America, Golden (1)
2. Aku-Aku, Heyerdahl (2)
3. The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery (4)
4. Wedemeyer Reports! (3)
5. Beloved Infidel, Graham and Frank (5)
6. Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Boone (6)
7. The Affluent Society, Galbraith
8. The Proud Possessors, Saarinen (7)
9. Brave New World Revisited, Huxley (9)
10. Chicago: A Pictorial History, Kogan and Wendt (10)
** Position on last week's list.
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