Monday, Sep. 28, 1959
The Blue Angel. The 29-year-old Dietrich dazzler updated, with sultry Swedish Actress May Britt as the Berlin Lorelei whose siren song lures West Germany's Box Office Idol Curt Jurgens onto the rocks. Dietrich did it better.
The Magician (Swedish). Writer-Director Ingmar Bergman's latest public fantasy, full of sharp physical images and foggy symbols; the story of a mid-19th century Mesmer and his touring Magnetic Health Theater, whose members include his wife (Ingrid Thulin), masquerading as a male helper, his witch-grandmother, an ailing actor and an oversexed coachman.
The Man Upstairs (English). A demented scientist, with only his pistol and his twisted dreams for company, holes up on the top floor of a sleazy London rooming house and defies a world below that tries to coax him into coming down.
North by Northwest. Director Alfred Hitchcock's implausible but entertaining mystery, with Gary Grant as a Madison Avenue adman up to his immaculate collar in spies and counterspies, among them Eva Marie Saint and James Mason.
Anatomy of a Murder. Lee Remick and James Stewart are slickly professional in this adaptation of 1958's most physiological bestseller; yet even they cannot compete with a cinema newcomer from Boston named Joseph N. Welch.
The Nun's Story. A startlingly beautiful though spiritually slight study of convent life, with Audrey Hepburn as the Roman Catholic nun whose choice between love of God and love of mankind comes hard.
TELEVISION
Wed., Sept. 23 The VIP (NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.).* Mr. K. visits the Garst farm at Coon Rapids, Iowa. TV cameras will be sighting in from every angle, hopeful of shooting some well-cured country ham. They will be keeping the vigil all week, at all hours, on all networks.
Thurs., Sept. 24 Staccato (NBC, 8:30-9 p.m.). Pianist-Private Eye Johnny Staccato (John Cassavetes) has hardly slugged his way through his first two capers, but his style is already familiar: early Peter Gunn, with plenty of room for more polish. Still, Johnny is already smooth enough to take on a black-market baby racket.
Fri., Sept. 25 An Evening with Jimmy Durante (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Even though he is saddled with such guest stars as Lawrence Welk, Sal Mineo and Bobby Darin, the Old Schnozzola ought to be able to snort up enough enthusiasm to make this rare TV appearance worth the trouble of tuning in. Color.
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). Uncle Millie drops in on Lucille and Desi.
Sun., Sept. 27
Sullivan's Travels: Invitation to Mos cow (CBS, 7:30-9 p.m.). Produced in Moscow by Ed Sullivan, this slice of the State Department's cultural exchange program includes Singer Rise Stevens, Accordionist Dick Contino, Dancers Marge and Gower Champion, and, of course, Smiley himself. The Russians loved it.
Sunday Showcase (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). The network continues its impressive series of prime-time specials with another big one: What Makes Sammy Run?, Budd Schulberg's vitriolic story of a young heel on the make. With Larry (Flower Drum Song) Blyden, Barbara Rush and Sidney Blackmer. Act I, with the second coming up next week.
The Splendid American (ABC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). A retort to The Ugly American, the fictionalized expose of ineptitude in the U.S. foreign service. This dramatic documentary tells the accomplishments of Thomas Dooley, Ras Johnson and Clyde Searl in Red-menaced Laos. Narrated by John Daly.
Mon., Sept. 28
Continental Classroom (NBC, 6:30-7:30 a.m.). The new semester starts. First lecture: the University of California's Nobel Laureate Dr. Glenn Seaborg on The TV Chemistry Course. Color.
Shirley Temple's Storybook (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The child star has grown into a storyteller with a special appeal for children. She starts her new series with All Baba and the 40 Thieves. Nehemiah Persoff plays Ali.
Show of the Month (CBS, 8:30-10 p.m.) An old standby, Body and Soul. Ex-Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey, as technical adviser, will try to make Ben Gazzara look like the middleweight champion of the world.
Steve Allen Plymouth Show (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). New time, same old sparkle from Steve. With at least one engaging visitor: Pat ("Guido Panzini") Harrington Jr. Color.
Tues., Sept. 29 The Many Loves of Doby Gillis (CBS, 8:30-9 p.m.). Max Shulman's hot-shot teen-ager is right up with the times. He even has a beatnik pal. But anybody who loves money, cars and girls cannot be all bad. The Caper at the Bijou gives the new series a fresh start.
The Bing Crosby Show (ABC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). The Groaner could fill up the time by himself. But he has Louis Armstrong, George Shearing and Frank Sinatra to help him out.
THEATER
On Broadway
A Raisin in the Sun. There is no sun in this Chicago Negro tenement, but the characters who live there light up Lorraine Hansberry's first play with love, humor and dreams of escape.
J.B. Archibald MacLeish's anguished reappraisal of God's way with man, in a slam-bang staging by Elia Kazan.
La Plume de Ma Tante. This French revue is as funny and almost as silent as a Keystone Cops movie.
My Fair Lady still leads the musical field, with The Music Man a close second, and Redhead (Gwen Verdon up), followed by Flower Drum Song, just about rounding the box-office turn.
BOOKS
Best Reading
The Siege at Peking, by Peter Fleming. A vivid re-creation of the Boxer Rebellion, when a thin, red line of 400 defended the foreign compounds at Peking from 25,000 screaming besiegers for 55 days.
The Restlessness of Shanti Andia, by Pio Baroja, translated by Anthony Kerrigan. Hemingway claims to be a disciple of this late great Spanish novelist who tells a tale of high 19th century adventure (duels, mutiny, piracy) along the Basque seacoast in a dry, direct style full of stoic understatement.
John Paul Jones, by Samuel Eliot Morison. He had a murderous temper, the morals of a tomcat and a colossal ego, but he could fight a ship. A biography of the great naval hero by the ablest living chronicler of U.S. sailormen at war.
The Mermaid Madonna, by Stratis Myrivilis. Life is harsh, but the living of it sweet, in this island idyl of the wine-dark sea by one of Greece's finest novelists.
Lover Man, by Alston Anderson. Many an established author might envy this new writer these 15 expertly crafted stories about Negroes in a small Southern town.
On a Balcony, by David Stacton. The Pharaoh Ikhnaton's neuroticism was more significant than his monotheism if Author Stacton is to be believed in this astringent, superior historical novel.
More Than Meets the Eye, by Carl Mydans. A crack photographer shelves his camera and relies on the language of the heart to describe his Ulyssean voyages over the battlefronts of the last 2 1/2 decades.
Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury. This 616-page novel yawns for an editor's blue pencil, but New York Timesman Drury knows Washington from the inside.
Surgeon at Arms, by Daniel Paul, with John St. John. Blood, death and capture become moving realities in this British battle surgeon's account of a mission to outflank the Siegfried Line.
Best Sellers FICTION 1. Advise and Consent, Drury (2)* 2. Exodus, Uris (1) 3. The Ugly American, Lederer and Burdick (4) 4. Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lawrence (3) 5. The Cave, Warren (6) 6. Dear and Glorious Physician, Caldwell (5) 7. The Art of Llewellyn Jones, Bonner (10) 8. Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak (8) 9. The Tender Shoot, Colette 10. The Lotus Eaters, Green
NONFICTION 1. For 2-c- Plain, Golden (2) 2. The Status Seekers, Packard (1) 3. How I Turned $1,000 into $1,000,000 in Real Estate, Nickerson (4) 4. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (5) 5. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White (3) 6. The Years with Ross, Thurber (6) 7. Mine Enemy Grows Older, King (10) 8. Richard Nixon, Mazo (7) 9. 'Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Boone 10. The Great Impostor, Crichton (8)
* All times E.D.T.
* Position on last week's list.
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