The Cranes Are Flying (Russian), Director Mikhail Kalatozov's extravagant camera thaws away some of the puritanical morality of the Revolution and lifts one woman's crime and punishment into a whirling, vital love story.
Once More, With Feeling. In the screen adaptation of the Broadway comedy, Yul Brynner tends to break arms instead of tickling funny bones, but the late Kay Kendall shows that not only was she a lovely clown, but one with a touch of genius.
A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Prissy Professor James Mason, followed by Plucky Youth Pat Boone, Beautiful Widow Arlene Dahl, and a noble-souled duck named Gertrude, spends a year exploring some of the most preposterous yet wonderfully funny poppycock Jules Verne ever published.
Ikiru (Japanese). A hard-eyed, nail-by-nail examination of a common man's Calvary, and perhaps the finest achievement of Director Akira (Rashomon) Kurosawa, Japan's most gifted moviemaker.
The Magician (Swedish). Brilliant Writer-Director Ingmar Bergman uses his own magic to tell the haunting story of a 19th century Mesmer.
Our Man in Havana. Graham Greene's bestseller makes an amusing screenplay that first wildly spoofs espionage, then uses the dagger to tickle the ribs with social satire. Alec Guinness, Noel Coward.
Rosemary (German). The life and death of a high-priced prostitute add up to a biting, highly amusing commentary on West Germany's Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), effectively using masses of black Mercedes as a kind of silent chorus and some highly worth-Weill songs to underscore the satire.
TELEVISION
Wed., March 9
Music for a Spring Night (ABC, 7:30-8 p.m.).* The second program of the new series is called "Pas de Deux," features assorted ballet numbers ranging from a part of Sleeping Beauty to the Japanese Oshichi.
Fri., March 11
Walt Disney Presents (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Donald is caught in a mock-duck version of This is Your Life.
Sat., March 12
John Gunther's High Road (ABC, 8-8:30 p.m.). Jack the tripper is off this time to Tanganyika.
World Wide 60 (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). A layman's look at architecture. Host: Hugh Downs.
Sun., March 13
Johns Hopkins File 7 (ABC, 12-12:30 p.m.). With slow-motion camera and sensitive recordings, a Hopkins chemistry professor advances his thesis that all the universe is music.
Frontiers of Faith (NBC, 1:30-2 p.m.). Sir Cedric Hardwicke illustrates "The Grandeur and Misery of Man" with readings from Homer, the Bible, Shakespeare, Keats, Dylan Thomas, etc.
Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic (CBS, 4:30-5:30 p.m.). Fourth and concluding concert of the season: "Rhythm: The Heartbeat of Music."
The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). In the second installment of Japan's Changing Face, the program explains why the nation has become--in the words of a Japanese psychologist--"one huge broken family."
Sunday Showcase (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). A repeat of "Life in the Thirties."
Tues., March 15
The Arthur Murray Party for Bob Hope (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). In the manner of a Circus Saints and Sinners meeting, an all-star goon squad gathers to "roast" Hope, celebrating his tenth year on TV.
Alcoa Presents (ABC, 10-10:30 p.m.). An original script by Novelist-Screen Writer Don M. Mankiewicz follows a Swedish explorer into the Lower Sahara--and into the supernatural.
THEATER
On Broadway
A Thurber Carnival. An animated anthology of pen-and-pencil work by the most splendidly mad of modern humorists. In Thurber's often uniquely wonderful and instructive world, everyone is to some extent out of his mind. Among the kooks: Tom Ewell, Paul Ford, Alice Ghostley, Peggy Cass, John McGiver.
Toys in the Attic. Lillian Hellman's new play about a weak ne'er-do-well slaps a slumped, lethargic Broadway season into awareness, is written with power, insight and humanity.
The Deadly Game. Three retired European men of law nightly meet for dinner and a sort of moot-court parlor game. An American salesman happens in, is tried for his morally slipshod life. Adapted by James Yaffe from a Friedrich Duerren-matt novel.
The Andersonville Trial. In the dock: the Confederate officer who ran the deadly prison camp at Andersonville, Ga. Although never paying off on its promise, the play's bursts of eloquence and bouts of theater make a thought-starting evening on Broadway.
Five Finger Exercise. An English family's hopeless un-togetherness and snapping tensions nearly kill a stranger among them, in a play often deftly manipulated by Playwright Peter Shaffer, well staged by Director John Gielgud.
Fiorello! The early career of New York's colorful mayor comes alive as a bright and pleasant musical. With Spit-and-Image Tom Bosley.
The Miracle Worker. Although William Gibson's play about the young Helen Keller often lacks skill, it becomes a deeply moving theatrical experience through the performances of Anne Bancroft and 13-year-old Patty Duke.
BOOKS
Best Reading
The Owl of Minerva, by Gustav Regler. This first-rate memoir of an ex-Communist, far from the customary exercise in self-justification, tells of the author's misadventures in the century's wars and revolutions, offers insight into the politics and morals of his age.
The Little War of Private Post, by Charles Johnson Post. The author, a magazine writer-illustrator until his death in 1956, fought in the Spanish-American War and charged up San Juan Hill, writes vividly of the heroes and dunderheads he traveled with.
Queen Mary, by James Pope-Hennessy. The official, coolly shrewd biography of Britain's late Queen Mary reveals, despite thickets of ever-shifting titles, a remarkable woman, anachronistic though never absurd.
The Violent Bear It Away, by Flannery O'Connor. A kind of horror story of faith, about backwoodsmen intoxicated with God and hate.
Between Then and Now, by Alba de Cespedes. With rare skill and unrelenting candor the author writes of a woman who rejects the bonds of husband and family only to find that freedom can be a burden, too.
Kiss Kiss, by Roald Dahl. The author concentrates on the female of the species in these stories, and proves Kipling's point about its toxicity with chilling wit.
Love and the French, by Nina Epton. A review, with one eye on the lofty mystery of love and the other hovering at the keyhole, of the Gallic love parade through history.
Grant Moves South, by Bruce Catton. Grant's astonishing evolution from a fear-stricken officer in his first Civil War battles to a masterful commander two years later, told with the author's customary skill.
A Heritage and Its History, by Ivy Compton-Burnett. The 16th of the writer's novels is just like its predecessors: from a faintly ludicrous tangle of love, marriage and family are drawn insights as sophisticated as well-bred sin.
The Wayward Wife, by Alberto Moravia. For the neurotic characters of these somber, skillful stories, love-making is incessant but futile; the distances between lovers are too vast to be bridged.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Hawaii, Michener (1) *
2. Advise and Consent, Drury (2)
3. The Constant Image, Davenport (4)
4. The Devil's Advocate, West (3)
5. Two Weeks in Another Town, Shaw (5)
6. Dear and Glorious Physician, Caldwell (6)
7. Poor No More, Ruark (7)
8. Ourselves to Know, O'Hara (9)
9. Exodus, Uris (8)
10. Kiss Kiss, Dahl
NONFICTION
1. May This House Be Safe from Tigers, King (1)
2. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (3)
3. My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn (4)
4. Act One, Hart (2)
5. Grant Moves South, Catton (7)
6. The Joy of Music, Bernstein (5)
7. The Longest Day, Ryan (8)
8. The Status Seekers, Packard (9)
9. This Is My God, Wouk (6)
10. The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
* A11 times E.S.T. * Position on last week's list.
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