CINEMA

The Hoodlum Priest. A bewildered boy, entrapped by life, finally finds freedom in the gas chamber. Crude and violent, Irvin Kershner's drama nonetheless shows that the divine spark can burn in trash.

The League of Gentlemen. A British comedy of misdemeanors about a retired army officer who runs a commando-style bank robbery by Queen's Regs.

101 Dalmatians. Dog-beats-man in Walt Disney's airy, unpretentious cartoon that is sure to please everybody but cats.

Breathless. Exciting variations on the old existentialist theme: life is just one damn thing after another, and death is the thing after that.

The Millionairess. British Comedian Peter Sellers is superb as the medic in an otherwise heavy-handed remake of Shaw's comedy, with Sophia Loren singularly unfunny as the rich-bitch heroine. Sellers is also on view in Two-Way Stretch, an excellent prison farce.

Other notable current movies: Russia's poignant Ballad of a Soldier, Britain's larcenous comedy, Make Mine Mink; the spy thriller Circle of Deception.

TELEVISION

Wed., March 8 U.S. Steel Special (CBS, 10-11 p.m.).* Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams, Hans Conreid and Pat Carroll star in "Private Eye, Private Eye," a musical comedy about the private lives of TV's gley-eyed operators.

Thurs., March 9 The Purex Special for Women (NBC, 4-5 p.m.). In a family drama, Actress Patricia Neal tries to show worried U.S. housewives how to cope with a resentful child and an uncooperative husband.

Face the Nation (CBS, 10-10:30 p.m.). "The Migrant Farm Worker--Is Federal Legislation Necessary?" New Jersey's Senator Harrison Williams says yes. Charles P. Shuman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, disagrees.

Fri., March 10 The Jackie Gleason Show (CBS, 9:30-10 p.m.). Heavyweights Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson trade punch lines with Superweight Gleason, watch films of their two earlier bouts.

Sat., March 11 Our American Heritage (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). In "The Secret Rebel," TV Gun-slinger Hugh O'Brian portrays John Honeyman, a Revolutionary War double agent who poses as a British spy.

Sun., March 12 Sunday Sports Spectacular (CBS, 2:30-4 p.m.). The world bobsledding championships and ski-jumping competition at Lake Placid, N.Y., including a slalom-is-simple demonstration by Penny Pitou.

The Great Challenge (CBS, 4-5 p.m.) Senator Barry Goldwater and Newsman Richard Rovere discuss changing patterns of U.S. politics.

The Chevy Show (NBC, 9-10 p.m.) Art Carney stars in "O'Halloran's Luck," a musical adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's story about an Irish immigrant who becomes a U.S. railroad tycoon with the assistance of a displaced leprechaun. Color.

Tues., March 14 Expedition! (ABC, 7-7:30 p.m.). An account of a remarkable odyssey: an 11,000-mile whale hunt, ranging all the way from the Black Sea to the Antarctic. Filmed by Soviet cameramen.

NBC White Paper No. 4 (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A look at state legislatures, their purposes, problems and procrastinations, narrated by Chet Huntley.

THEATER

Come Blow Your Horn. Combines phone calls and wolf calls, prodigals and playboys, manages to emerge as the season's best of a bad lot of comedy farces.

Comedie Franchise. In its first U.S. visit since 1955, the 300-year-old national company alternates works by Moliere, Racine and Feydeau.

Camelot. The libretto carries only echoes of T. H. White's The Once and Future King, but the show is clearly Broadway's once and future run. With Richard Burton and Julie Andrews.

Do Re Mi. Stars Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker are wonderful, the rest of the proceedings dreary.

Rhinoceros. Avant-Gardist Eugene lonesco's nonconformist satire manages to be at once somewhat farfetched, is nevertheless exhilarating theater.

A Taste of Honey. Some of the world's misfits and misfortunes, in a sweet-and-sour series of episodes.

All the Way Home. A poignant, well-acted adaptation of James Agee's Knoxville chronicle, A Death in the Family, that retains much of the novel's poetry and power.

Becket. Fine performances by Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn give depth and body to Jean Anouilh's tart tragedy.

Irma La Douce. Saucy Elizabeth Seal is a charming chippy in a French musical that loses little in the translation.

Advise and Consent. Allen Drury's best-selling novel makes an unsubstantial but suspenseful theater piece about Washington politics.

Show Girl. A sprightly revue, enlivened by the madcap manners of Carol Channing.

An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May. A potpourri of bland banter and sharp-pointed satire.

Off Broadway

The American Dream. Young Playwright Edward Albee, who sometimes sounds like an American lonesco, satirizes middle-class America.

Hedda Gabler. Anne Meacham is superb in a remarkable revival of Ibsen's classic.

BOOKS

Best Reading

Mid-Century, by John Dos Passes. The best novel from Dos Passes since his U.S.A. trilogy, possibly because he resorts to the same technique, a montage of fictional personal histories, headlines, and impressionistic real-life profiles. The villain this time is not big business but big labor.

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, by Albert Camus. The late lamented French writer had a conscience like a carpenter's level. In this book he applies it to Algeria, democracy, Christianity and totalitarianism, and his readings combine brilliance of aphorism with nobility of spirit.

In Pursuit of the English, by Doris Lessing. A comic nonfictional slice of English lowlife, with an edge of sadness. Spiv, whore, or shopgirl, Author Lessing knows them all, but she is not a shimmer, a shunner, or a sermonizer.

Abandoned, by A. L. Todd. The Arctic Circle was outer space in the late 19th century. Lieut. Greely and his 24-man team got there; but only seven returned to tell their grisly tales.

If Thine Eye Offend Thee, by Heinrich Schirmbeck. A metaphysical novel about the role of science, argued with the wildly sprayed brilliance of early Aldous Huxley.

Man's Desiring, by Menna Gallic. In her brisk, garrulous and charming fashion, Novelist Gallic has created a dogged Welsh math teacher who keeps his village innocence amid the lean fleshpots and fat sophistries of an English university.

Here Comes Pete Now, by Thomas Anderson. The New York waterfront serves as background to an oblique parable of man's groping, with Beckett and Kafka overtones.

The Real Silvestri, by Mario Soldati. An old friend learns shocking things about the title figure after his death, and the author skillfully rephrases an old truth-that most people know of others only what it is comfortable to know.

Skyline, by Gene Fowler. The 1920s again, with gusto.

First Family, by Christopher Davis. A skilled novelist examines a picked-over but exciting theme-what happens when Negroes move in next door.

Best Sellers

( SQRT previously included in TIME'S choice of Best Reading)

FICTION

1. The Last of the Just, Schwarz-Bart (1)* 2. Hawaii, Michener (4) 3. Advise and Consent, Drury (2) / 4. To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee (3) / 5. Pomp and Circumstance, Coward (6) / 6. Sermons and Soda-Water, O'Hara (5) / 7. Winnie Hie Pu, Milne / 8. A Burnt-Out Case, Greene 9. Decision at Delphi, Maclnnes (7) / 10. Shadows on the Grass, Dinesen

NONFICTION

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (1) 2. Who Killed Society? Amory (2) 3. The Waste Makers, Packard (3) / 4. The White Nile, Moorehead (4) 5. The Snake Has All the Lines, Kerr (5) -- 6. Born Free, Adamson (6) 7. Profiles in Courage, Kennedy (8) / 8. Fate Is the Hunter, Gann / 9. Skyline, Fowler 10. Japanese Inn, Statler

*All times E.S.T.

*Position on last week's list.

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