La Dolce Vita (in Italian). Federico Fellini's vast (three hours) dramatization of the Apocalypse as a modern saturnalia wallows in boredom, but also develops episodes of transcendent moral horror.
Days of Thrills and Laughter. Silent comedy, including Charlie Chase, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.
L'Avventura (in Italian). A tale of men suffering from the soul-sickness of despair, the film is a masterpiece of tedium, a parable of purgation.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Newcomer Finney battles society in the best British film since Room at the Top.
A Raisin in the Sun. Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 Broadway hit about Chicago's black belt makes a superior soap opera.
Shadows. Earnest amateurs improvise an imperfect but powerful work of folk art in a tawdry Manhattan setting.
Love and the Frenchwoman (in French). An Old Wave cinemanthology of the seven ages of woman.
The Absent-Minded Professor. Walt Disney cracks the anti-gravity problem in a bouncing farce about "flubber."
TELEVISION
Wed., April 26 Armstrong Circle Theatre (CBS, 10-11 p.m.).* Dramatized version of civil defense test, in which strangers huddled for two weeks in an underground shelter.
Thurs., April 27 Summer Sports Spectacular (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Former World Champion Dick Button leads U.S. and Canadian skating stars in a tribute to 18 U.S. skaters who died in the Feb. 15 Brussels air crash.
Family Classics (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). Zachary Scott as the master of Thornfield, and Sally Ann Howes the passionate heroine in Michael Dyne's adaptation of Jane Eyre.
CBS Reports (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). "Why Man in Space?" America's stake in the exploration of deep space--well beyond orbital flight--after the recent Soviet success.
Fri., April 28 Young at Heart (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A motley musical salute to spring, ranging from Jane Powell to Gwen Verdon, Steve Lawrence, Art Carney--and Casey Stengel.
Eyewitness to History (CBS, 10:30-11 p.m.). Walter Cronkite anchors coverage of a major news story of the week.
Sat., April 29 ABC's World of Sports (ABC, 5-7 p.m.). An outdoor track doubleheader, the Penn Relays from Philadelphia and the Drake Relays from Des Moines. Among the competitors: Wilma Rudolph, John Thomas.
The Nation's Future (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). Otto Preminger says yes, the movie industry should classify its films for age groups. Dore Schary says no.
Sun., April 30 Report from Moscow (NBC, 1:30-2 p.m.). Cameras and microphones invade typical Baptist church services in Moscow in order to record the scenes and music.
Eichmann on Trial (ABC, 4-4:30 p.m.). Highlights of the previous week.
Issues and Answers (ABC, 4:30-5 p.m.). President Kennedy's top economic adviser, Walter Heller, ponders the U.S. economy.
The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). How do you stop an enemy missile? It's done, if at all, with NORAD, SAC, BMEWS, DEW, MIDAS and SAMOS.
Winston Churchill--The Valiant Years (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). Famed Photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson documents the Allied army's liberation of Paris.
THEATER
On Broadway Carnival! The magic world of a Continental circus comes alive in this pleasant and colorful reprise of the movie Lili. Anna Maria Alberghetti sings engagingly as the waif and Jerry Orbach is a deft puppetmaster, but nimble Pierre Olaf tops the show in a jubilant dance.
A Far Country. This study of Sigmund Freud and his famous patient Elizabeth von Ritter, although somewhat broken in impact, provides an often vibrant blend of theater and truth. The play offers a vital portrait of Freud, ably acted by Steven Hill, and a crucial delineation of Elizabeth, intelligently played by Kim Stanley.
Big Fish, Little Fish. Sometimes spotty, this ably acted comedy deals with a once promising minor editor who is the big fish to a school of meddlesome minnows.
Mary, Mary. Broadway's brightest, wittiest play since The Moon Is Blue is a direct reflection of its author, Jean Kerr.
The Devil's Advocate. High-purposed and high-pitched, but at the same time ill-harmonized, this play asks the largest questions raised on Broadway this season.
Irma La Douce. England's delightful singer-dancer Elizabeth Seal in a show that kicks its heels with Parisian verve.
Advise and Consent. A vivid melodrama seldom below the surface but often behind the scenes of Washington politics.
Rhinoceros. Conformity gets a rhinoceros-hiding in Ionesco's funny but farfetched allegory.
Also recommended: Camelot, All the Way Home, A Taste of Honey, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
Off Broadway
Brightest on the byways: Under Milk Wood, a lyrical evocation of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' imaginary town; Call Me by My Rightful Name, a fresh look at interracial misfits by new Playwright Michael Shurtleff; The American Dream, Edward Albee's quietly angry, queerly comic comment on modern man; The Connection, a notoriously graphic portrait of some beatniks with golden arms; The Zoo Story, another Albee study, teamed with Samuel Beckett's monologue, Krapp's Last Tape; In the Jungle of Cities, far-out but fascinating early play by Bertolt Brecht; and the already classic Brecht-Weill-Blitzstein musical, The Threepenny Opera.
On Tour
Becket. Sir Laurence Olivier is every inch Henry II, having switched from the title role he played on Broadway--to Anouilh's and everyone's advantage. Toronto until April 29, Philadelphia May 1-6.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Snake Man, by Alan Wykes. An engrossing portrait of a legendary eccentric of British East Africa, C.J.P. Ionides, whose passion is the care and capture of snakes.
The Proverb and Other Stories, by Marcel Ayme. In this batch of short stories, the Mephistophelian French moralist illustrates his conviction that art and life tug in different directions, and celebrates that tension with a gusty Vive la difference!
The New English Bible. A translation of the New Testament from the original Greek by a committee of British scholars and stylists whose aim was to make the Scripture intelligible to moderns who find much of the 17th century King James version unintelligible.
The Odyssey. Robert Fitzgerald translates into the crisp, demotic argot of today, the tale of wily Odysseus.
The French Revolution, by Georges Pernoud and Sabine Flaissier. A spirited tabloid of the Terror culled from some 50,000 eyewitness accounts.
An Only Child, by Frank O'Connor. Born in a Cork slum, the author writes with cheerful charity of his pitiable boyhood and his fey, gallant mother.
The S-Man, by Mark Caine. In the clever guise of a self-help manual, this British book aims a good Swiftian kick at the cultists of success.
Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell. Mijbil the Otter did many things he hadn't oughter, and most of them are hilarious.
Seven Plays, by Bertolt Brecht. Roguish laughter, a cynic's sneer, tears of compassion, and a lacerated concern with the spectacle of man selling his fellow man.
A Burnt-Out Case, by Graham Greene. In leprosy, Greene has found his latest symbol for his favorite theme--the played-out soul too desiccated to feel anything except horror at the absence of feeling.
Best Sellers
( SQRT previously included in TIME's choice of Best Reading)
FICTION
1. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Stone (1)*
SQRT 2. The Last of the Just, Schwarz-Bart (2)
SQRT 3. A Burnt-Out Case, Greene (4)
4. Hawaii, Michener (3)
5. Advise and Consent, Drury (6)
SQRT 6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (5)
SQRT 7. Midcentury, Dos Passos (7)
8. China Court, Godden (8)
SQRT 9. Winnie Ille Pu, Milne (9)
10. Don't Tell Alfred, Mitford (10)
NONFICTION
SQRT 1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (1)
SQRT 2. The New English Bible (2)
SQRT 3. Ring of Bright Water, Maxwell (3)
4. Fate Is the Hunter, Gann (4)
5. My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, Parks
6. Who Killed Society? Amory (5)
7. Japanese Inn, Statler (7)
SQRT 8. Skyline, Fowler (6)
SQRT 9. The White Nile, Moorehead (8)
10. The Sixth Man, Stearn
*Position on last week's list.
*All times E.S.T. through Saturday, April 29; D.S.T. thereafter.
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