A Lesson in Love (Swedish). The most natural and robust of Writer-Director Ingmar Bergman's comedies is full of lucky directorial hits and preposterous misses, with marital fidelity the central subject up for dissection.
The Magician (Swedish). Also under the eye and hand of Ingmar Bergman, a magician of the 19th century comes alive to haunt audiences of the 20th.
The Poacher's Daughter. Being a rustic Irish comedy, the film is a pack of delightful lies: white lies, green lies, slick, sly, funny lies--every one as harmless as the tine of a hayfork. With Julie Harris and the players of the Abbey Theater.
Tiger Bay. A tautly drawn British suspense film about a fugitive killer and a little girl who has witnessed his crime.
The Cranes Are Flying (Russian). An engaging love story is lifted high by the wild, fast-moving techniques of Director Mikhail Kalatozov, who seems blissfully released from "socialist realism."
Ikiru (Japanese). An undistinguished man is dying of cancer. His search for goodness at the end of life becomes a distinguished and brutally ironic film.
Our Man in Havana. The movie version of Graham Greene's spoof-and-stiletto novel. Noel Coward, Alec Guinness.
Once More, With Feeling. In the cine-madaptation of the Broadway play, Yul Brynner's comedy is a little bald up, but the late Kay Kendall proves that she was a beautiful clown with a touch of genius.
TELEVISION
Wed., March 30
Music for a Spring Night (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).-The Metropolitan Opera's Coloratura Roberta Peters and Baritone Robert Merrill join Soprano Eleanor Steber and Tenor Richard Tucker in a program that includes a tribute to the late great baritone, Leonard Warren.
Armstrong Circle Theater (CBS, 10-11 p.m.) Trial by Fury tells how Miami Herald Reporter James Buchanan turned from newsman into news story--when the Castro regime jailed him, charging him with aiding the escape of U.S. Flyer Austin Young.
Thurs., March 31
Timex--Bertram Mills Circus (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Europe's oldest Big Top seen on video tape, with U.S. Comedian Joe E. Brown as ringmaster to lend a home-town touch.
Dow Hour of Great Mysteries (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). The first of a series of classic mysteries adapted for TV. Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Bat stars Helen Hayes and Jason Robards Jr. Host: Joseph Welch.
The Many Sides of Mickey Rooney (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Gloria De Haven and Joey Forman pitch in to help The Mick recall his career--from pint-sized kid star to pop-off adult.
Fri., April 1
Bell Telephone Hour (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Concert Hall stars Pianist Jose Iturbi, Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, Soprano
Lucine Amara, Tenor Nicolai Gedda, Basso Jerome Hines in a program of classical music. Color.
Person to Person (CBS, 10:30-11 p.m.). This time the program calls not on a person but on an institution: the Vatican. For half an hour Reporter Charles Collingwood looks at the Pope's private gardens, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, etc.
Sat., April 2
Journey to Understanding (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). Mr. K. in France.
Sun., April 3
The Great Challenge (CBS, 2-3 p.m.). Howard K. Smith is moderator in a discussion of "How Can You Get Things Done in a Democracy?"
Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). Inner Space, Part II of The Mysterious Deep, with Swiss Oceanographer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Lieut. Don Walsh, holders of the world deep-diving record (35,000 ft.).
Playhouse 90 (CBS, 8-9:30 p.m.). Alas, Babylon, Pat Frank's tale of atomic war.
Mon., April 4
Oscar Awards (NBC, 10:30-12 midnight). The annual prize fest.
Ford Startime (NBC, 8:30-9 p.m.). Still trying to live up to its boast, "TV's Finest Hour" presents a Hitchcock slant on unsavory antics in suburbia.
THEATER
Off Broadway
Henry IV, Part I. The repertory group of Manhattan's Phoenix Theater has done so well with Falstaff, Hotspur, and Prince Hal that it has decided to do Part II when the present run ends April 10.
On Broadway
The Tenth Man. Playwright Paddy Chayefsky's story about a young Jewish girl possessed by a dybbuk (evil spirit) succeeds as a genuine theater piece.
A Thurber Carnival. In the country of Humorist James Thurber, there is a nut behind every tree: Tom Ewell, Paul Ford, Alice Ghostley, Peggy Cass, John McGiver.
Toys in the Attic. In one of Broadway's rare original plays, Lillian (The Little Foxes) Hellman once more proves herself both craftsman and writer, powerfully examines a weak ne'er-do-well (Jason Robards Jr.) and his maiden sisters (Anne Revere, Maureen Stapleton).
Fiorello! La Guardia, New York's most colorful mayor since the last Canarsie Indian chief, bursts into life again on the musical stage in a light and delightful evening planned by Director George Abbott, accomplished by Actor Tom-Bosley.
The Miracle Worker. Actress Anne Bancroft plays the Irish tutor who draws the deaf-mute child Helen Keller (Patty Duke) into the light of language. The play is uncoordinated, but the acting makes for a deeply moving evening.
The Andersonville Trial. Sharply theatrical treatment of a war-crimes trial after the U.S. Civil War that evokes (but never quite faces) the moral issues also raised by Nuremberg.
Five Finger Exercise. Subsurface warfare in a devastatingly familiar family. With Jessica Tandy, Roland Culver.
BOOKS
Best Reading
The Edge of Day, by Laurie Lee. The British poet's unsentimental account of his boyhood in a rural village is rich in common truths uncommonly stated.
Commandant of Auschwitz, by Rudolf Hoess. A revolting book, but one that should be read: the autobiography of the SS captain, since executed, who gassed 2,000,000 Jews at Auschwitz but saw himself as a loyal officer carrying out a vexing assignment.
The Reluctant Surgeon, by John Kobler. A zestful biography of John Hunter, brilliant, eccentric 18th century surgeon who did as much as any man to turn surgery and pathology into sciences.
Frank Harris: The Life and Loves of a Scoundrel, by Vincent Brome. Less scatological but more truthful than Harris' own notorious account of his life, this biography offers a good portrait of the British editor, lecher and liar.
A European Education, by Romain Gary. A Polish boy learns bitter lessons during the Nazi occupation.
Passage of Arms, by Eric Ambler. Flimflammery among gunrunners in the Orient.
The Owl of Minerva, by Gustav Regler. The author, an ex-Communist, writes an absorbing memoir of his misadventures as a revolutionary, and in the process throws much light on 20th century history.
Grant Moves South, by Bruce Catton. A brisk account of Grant's two-year metamorphosis from green and panicky officer to cool, hardened commander.
The Violent Bear It Away, by Flannery O'Connor. In this chilling novel of backwoods religion, the author writes extremely well, but seems to poke a cruel kind of fun at the confused and bedeviled.
Between Then and Now, by Alba de Cespedes. Writing with unsettling skill about what it is like to be female, the author tells of a woman who discovers that the bonds of freedom can be more confining than those of family.
Best Sellers
FICTION 1. Hawaii, Michener (2)-
2. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)
3. Ourselves to Know, O'Hara (5)
4. The Constant Image, Davenport (4)
5. The Devil's Advocate, West (6)
6. Two Weeks in Another Town, Shaw (3)
7. Kiss Kiss, Dahl (8)
8. The Lincoln Lords, Hawley (7)
9. Aimez-vous Brahms . . , Sagan 10. Dear and Glorious Physician,
Caldwell (10)
NONFICTION
1. May This House Be Safe from Tigers, King (1)
2. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (2)
3. My Wicked, Wicked Ways, Flynn (4)
4. Grant Moves South, Catton (5)
5. Act One, Hart (3)
6. The Enemy Within, Kennedy (10)
7. The Joy of Music, Bernstein (6) S. This Is My God, Wouk (8)
9. Queen Mary, 1867-1953,
Pope-Hennessy 10. The Law and the Profits, Parkinson
-Position on last week's list.
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