Let's Make Love. Marilyn Monroe does a seismic shimmy, sings My Heart Belongs to Daddy, and carries on with Singer Yves Montand, but despite their efforts, the show is not really good low humor; it is merely good-humored.

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. In this light, effective drama about an Oklahoma harness salesman's troubles, Robert Preston runs away with the show in a direction that Playwright William Inge may not have intended in the original.

Day of the Painter. A waggish, 15-minute tale about the wondrous 'work habits of a dribble-and-splotch painter

Under Ten Flags. Captain Bligh roars again, as Charles Laughton takes the part of a World War II British admiral, and Van Heflm plays the captain of a German raiding ship that Laughton tries to track down. An acceptable sea chase.

The End of Innocence. A shadowed subtle film about the painful adolescence of a young girl, directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, a Swedish-descended Argentine who knows his Bergman.

Ocean's 11. This laughing gasser about an attempt by Frank Sinatra and his lout troupe (Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford et al.) to rob five Las Vegas casinos is slapdash slapstick, but that's the way the kookies rumble.

Jungle Cat. The music is annoying and the narration not especially informative but superb wildlife photography makes this film by Walt Disney about jaguars in the Amazon rain forest a pleasure to see.

Elmer Gantry. Burt Lancaster turns in one of the best performances of his career as Sinclair Lewis' Bible-banging, skirt-chasing evangelist.

TELEVISION

Tues., Sept. 20

Political Telecast (NBC, 8:30-9 p.m.).* A unilateral half-hour paid for by the Democratic National Committee

The Dow Hour of Great Mysteries (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Rex Harrison and Tammy Grimes in The Datchet Diamonds.

Wed., Sept. 21

Wanted--Dead or Alive (CBS, 8-30-9 p.m.). Still wanted, apparently, after two years, Bounty Hunter Josh Randall (Steve McQueen) starts his third season on TV

Fri., Sept. 23

Dan Raven (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.) The first episode of a new mystery series starring Skip Homeier, and set in the neon night caves of Hollywood. Guest Star Singer Bobby Darin plays himself

Person to Person (CBS, 10:30-11 p.m.) Charles Collingwood visits Elaine May and Mike Nichols, Roddy McDowall.

Sat., Sept. 24

N.C.A.A. Football Game (ABC, 12:30 p.m. to the final gun). Michigan State v. Pitt.

Campaign Roundup (ABC, 7:30-8 p.m.). Another in ABC's series of political summaries.

The Campaign and the Candidates (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). NBC sums up the situation, too, with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.

Sun., Sept. 25

The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). Speaking softly and carrying a big yardstick to history, CBS's excellent series recalls The Times of Teddy Roosevelt.

The Shirley Temple Show (NBC, 7-8 p.m.). Rudyard Kipling's Kim with Michael Rennie as Captain Creighton and Tony Haig as Kim.

The Tab Hunter Show (NBC, 8:30-9 p.m.). P. Lorillard and Westclox have picked up the Tab for a new comedy series about an amiable cartoonist.

Mon., Sept. 26

Great Debates (NBC, CBS, ABC, 9:30 p.m.). The first of the much-heralded TV encounters between Candidates Nixon and Kennedy.

Jackpot Bowling (NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.). Milton Berle is host in a new program involving the best U.S. professional bowlers in alley-fighting competition for big-time pin money.

THEATER

On Broadway

New plays, like oysters, are in season, but there are some still amazingly fresh items from last year's bill of fare with which to contend: Toys in the Attic, Lillian Hellman's skillful exploration of the Sons and Lovers theme, stars Jason Robards Jr.; The Tenth Man mixes modern psychology and ancient rite in Playwright Paddy Chayefsky's tale about a Jewish girl possessed by an evil spirit; The Miracle Worker, with brilliant performances by Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, dramatizes the brave, difficult relationship between blind and deaf-mute Helen Keller as a child and her teacher, Annie Sullivan; The Best Man, though superficial in characterization, provides a vivid theatrical look at campaigning politicians. Three musicals remain spicy and satisfying: West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein's brassy, big-city, 20th century Romeo and Juliet; Fiorello!, the nostalgic story of New York City's Little Flower; and Bye Bye Birdie, an enjoyable spoof of the rock-'n'-roll craze.

Off Broadway

At New York's City Center, brilliant Pantomimist Marcel Marceau is doing everything from minor impressions of a high-wire performer to a wordless enactment of Gogol's The Overcoat; at the Phoenix Theater, Tyrone Guthrie's production of H.M.S. Pinafore slaps salt freshness into Gilbert and Sullivan.

Half a dozen first-rate holdover shows reflect the steadily improving quality of the fare in off-Broadway playhouses: Little Mary Sunshine, a musical spoof of old-time operettas; A Country Scandal, an early Chekhov play produced professionally for the first time in the U.S.; The Balcony, Jean Genet's mordant and amusingly symbolic study of politics in a brothel; The Connection, a plotless, devastatingly naturalistic, jazz-counterpointed evening with a collection of junkies; Krapp's Last Tape, a one-actor one-acter by Samuel Beckett, throwing a man's youth into the face of his age, produced on a twin bill with The Zoo Story, in which two men from opposite ends of the social spectrum conduct a dialogue that ends in a curious twist of a switchblade.

BOOKS

Best Reading

The Politics of Upheaval, by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. In the third volume (covering 1935-36) of his series, The Age of Roosevelt, as in its predecessors, the author sometimes confuses history with hagiography; but if the work is partisan, it is also sweepingly and spiritedly written.

The Black Book, by Lawrence Durrell. A glittering, impudent, outrageous novel, all murk and manifesto, written by the author of the Alexandria tetralogy when he was 24 and had just made the heady discovery that he was a very good writer.

All Fall Down, by James Leo Herlihy. A fresh, Salingering tale of a hooky-playing 14-year-old and his off beatnik parents, whose foundering world finds focus in another brother as wild as his name: Berry-berry.

The Human Season, by Edward Lewis Wallant. With uncommon insight and accuracy, the author writes of an aging plumber's descent into hell after the death of his wife.

The Sot-Weed Factor, by John Earth. The hero of this bawdy, ironic, hilarious and yet thoroughly serious comedy is a 17th century coffeehouse Candide who stumbles through a series of wild misadventures before he understands his great sin: he is guilty of innocence.

Taken at the Flood, by John Gunther. An entertaining if perhaps excessively appreciative biography of Pioneer Adman Albert Lasker, the genius personally responsible for tattooing such blather as "That Schoolgirl Complexion" on the American consciousness.

Decision at Trafalgar, by Dudley Pope. Best of the current blood-in-the-scuppers accounts of Trafalgar, and of its scrawny, one-eyed, one-armed, vainglorious hero, Lord Nelson.

Best Sellers FICTION

1. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)*

2. Hawaii, Michener (2)

3. The Leopard, Di Lampedusa (3)

4. The Chapman Report, Wallace (4)

5. The Lovely Ambition, Chase (5)

6. The Last Temptation of Christ, Kazantzakis (10)

7. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (8)

8. Water of Life, Robinson (9)

9. Diamond Head, Gilman

10. Before You Go, Weidman (6)

NONFICTION

1. Born Free, Adamson (1)

2. How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market, Darvas (2)

3. May This House Be Safe from Tigers, King (3)

4. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (8)

5. The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater (5)

6. I Kid You Not, Paar (10)

7. Enjoy! Enjoy! Golden (6)

8. The Good Years, Lord (7)

9. Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, Frankfurter with Phillips (4)

10. Taken at the Flood, Gunther

* All times E.D.T. through Sept. 24; E.S.T. thereafter.

* Position on last week's list.

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