The Hustler. A young poolshark (Paul Newman) takes on the old champion (Jackie Gleason) in a sort of chivalric joust of the cues on the Cloth of Green. Director Robert Rossen makes an uncouth theme breathe with a smoky poetry and sometimes ring true as a struck spittoon.

The Mark. A serious and compassionate examination of an uncomfortably sensational theme: the rehabilitation of a man convicted of molesting a small girl. Actor Stuart Whitman gives a perspicacious performance.

The Man Who Wagged His Tail. Peter Ustinov plays the villain and a four-footed Italian actor named Caligola plays Peter Ustinov in this comic allegory about a Brooklyn slumlord who is magically changed into a dog.

The Devil's Eye. Sweden's Director Ingmar Bergman brings Don Juan up from Hell on a mission of seduction, and an average 20th century girl sends him back more melancholy than ever for having learned what love is.

Come September. A pleasantly wacky new twist to the ancient game of belling the wolf, with Rock Hudson as an American millionaire who once a year visits his Italian mistress (Gina Lollobrigida) at his villa on the Riviera.

A Thunder of Drums. The best western so far this year is a masterly attempt to show what fighting Indians was really like.

Ada. A competent script and sharp direction make a pleasant political comedy out of Novelist Wirt Williams' variation on the American dream: a Louisiana doxy marries a gubernatorial candidate she meets on the job, and winds up first lady of the state.

Blood and Roses. Filmed at Hadrian's villa outside Rome under the direction of Roger Vadim (And God Created Woman), this eerie tale of a lady vampire is the most subtle of the current chillers.

The Honeymoon Machine. It is really the Hollywood machine, in a rare moment of felicitous clank, turning out the slick, quick, funny film for which it was designed--in this case, about three young people who use a computer to assault the casino in Venice.

TELEVISiON

Wed., Oct. 1 1 The Bob Newhart Show (NBC, 10-10:30 p.m.).* PREMIERE of a new comedy show with one of the best of the U.S.'s new young comedians. Color.

David Brinkley's Journal (NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.). PREMIERE of a string of half-hours in which Brinkley will be allowed to spray his acerbic wit. This week's target: roadside billboards. Color.

Thurs., Oct. 12 CBS Reports (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Last spring CBS persuaded Dwight D. Eisen hower to record his comments on the presidency, his own years in office, etc. Selections making up three one-hour segments will be broadcast this season, the first to night. The entire twelve-hour footage-some of which Ike will not permit to be broadcast now--will be placed in the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kans.

Fri., Oct. 13

The Bell Telephone Hour (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). Gordon MacRae, Maria Tallchief, Jan Peerce, others. Color.

Eyewitness to History (CBS, 10:30-11 p.m.). The major news story of the week.

Sat., Oct. 14

Update (NBC, 12 noon-12:30 p.m.). Robert Abernethy's news program for teenagers.

Accent (CBS, 1:30-2 p.m.). Columnist Art Buchwald is interviewed in Paris, also an inspector for the Guide Michelin.

All-Star Golf (NBC, 5-6 p.m.). A match between Gary Player and Jerry Barber at Sun City Golf Club near Phoenix, Ariz. Color.

Sun., Oct. 15

Adlai Stevenson Reports (ABC, 3-3:30 p.m.). A series of talks by Stevenson on the U.N., U.S. policy and the world situation.

Meet the Press (NBC, 6-6:30 p.m.). Guest: Dr. Cheddi Jagan, recently elected Prime Minister of British Guiana. Color.

The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS, 8-9 p.m.). Sullivan's turn to try his hand in West Berlin, accompanied by Van Cliburn, Louis Armstrong, Sid Caesar, Connie Francis, Roberta Peters.

The General Electric Theater (CBS, 9-9:30 p.m.). Glynis Johns and Comedian Shelley Berman in "The $200 Parlay."

BOOKS

Best Reading

A New Life, by Bernard Malamud. Bearded Seymour Levin, an often devious truth seeker, comes to grips with a muscular college in the Pacific Northwest and loses in straight falls.

The Adams Papers, edited by L. H. Butterfield. The first four volumes of a projected 100-volume collection of the diaries, memoirs and letters of a remarkable family of statesmen reveal the U.S.'s second President, John Adams, as a pragmatic, hidebound Yankee who could fight for rebellion against England, shape the Declaration of Independence, and tangle with the most sophisticated minds in Europe--yet always find time to investigate local farming methods.

H. L. Mencken on Music, a selection by Louis Cheslock, and Letters of H. L. Mencken, a selection by Guy J. Forgue. The great American iconoclast of the '20s plays at two of his favorite roles--music critic and man of letters--in these excellent samplers.

Selected Tales, by Nikolai Leskov. In this well-translated collection, U.S. readers can sample the half-world of firebirds, angels and demons of the old Russian skaz--a narrative form which the author made famous in his own country.

Faces in the Water, by Janet Frame. A brilliant, largely autobiographical novel about nine long years in a mental institution, done with cool sympathy and warm love for the sane and insane alike.

Franny and Zooey, by J. D. Salinger. The author's first work in hardcover since Nine Stories (1953), a reprinting of two long New Yorker stories about the seven prodigious Glass siblings, is a joyous, balanced, masterly book convoluted and mystical enough to fuel dormitory debates for several seasons.

When My Girl Comes Home, by V. S. Pritchett. In these short stories, a first-rate writer and critic (Britain's New Statesman) spots the seeds of madness in the most prosaic minds.

The Age of Reason Begins, by Will and Ariel Durant. In the first volume of a trilogy with which he hopes to complete his formidable Story of Civilization, the author (assisted by his wife) examines the 16th and 17th centuries with admirably balanced but sometimes passionless rationalism.

Ippolita, by Alberto Denti di Pirajno. Highly reminiscent of The Leopard and written, as was that excellent novel, by an aging Sicilian duke, Ippolita draws an evocative portrait of semifeudal Italian society amid the first revolutionary stirrings in the early 19th century.

Kidnap, by George Waller. This meticulous account adds nothing to what is known about the Lindbergh kidnaping, but it summarizes well the bizarre, tragic events of crime and capture.

An End to Glory, by Pierre-Henri Simon. Writing an eloquent antiwar tract in the form of a novel, the author recounts the agony of a French professional soldier who, in Algeria, comes to believe that his is an ignoble role in a shameful war.

The Road Past Mandalay, by John Masters. Another face of war -- the pride and nobility of fighting men at their best -- is the concern of the author, who tells, more convincingly than in any of his novels, of his World War II service with the Indian army in the East.

Best Sellers

( ./ previously included in TIMES choice of Best Reading)

FICTION 1. Franny and Zooey, Salinger (2)* 2. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Stone (1) 3. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (3) 4. The Carpetbaggers, Robbins (4) 5. Tropic of Cancer, Miller (6) 6. The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck (8) 7. Clock Without Hands, McCullers (9) 8. Mila 18, Uris (5) 9. The Edge of Sadness, O'Connor (7) 10. A Man in a Mirror, Llewellyn

NONFICTION

1. The Making of the President 1960, White (1) 2. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (3) 3. A Nation of Sheep, Lederer (2) 4. Inside Europe Today, Gunther (4) 5. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, Kennan (7) 6. Ring of Bright Water, Maxwell (5) 7. The New English Bible (6) 8. Kidnap, Waller (10) 9. The Spanish Civil War, Thomas 10. The Age of Reason Begins, Will and Ariel Durant

*All times E.D.T. *Position on last week's list.

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