TELEVISION

Wednesday, July 14

ABC SCOPE (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.).* "Mars Closeup: Are We Alone?" examines the information relayed by the Mariner spacecraft, scheduled to spin by Mars only 1 1/2 hours earlier.

Friday, July 16

F.D.R. (ABC, 8-8:30 p.m.). Charlton Heston comes down from the mountain to speak the former President's words in "Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt," a focus on that First Lady's evolution as a world figure.

BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATER (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Movie Idol Hugh O'Brian publicity-stunts his way back to his wartime paratrooper training site and jumps right into an old romance. Color. Repeat.

Saturday, July 17

ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). The national A.A.U. gymnastic championships from Lakewood, Ohio, plus the Langhorne "100" automobile championship from Pennsylvania.

Sunday, July 18

THE 20TH CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). Far from the shadow of the Unisphere, peace through understanding is discovered by a melting pot of eleven-year-olds living together at a Children's International Summer Village in Long Beach, Miss. Repeat.

Monday, July 19

TODAY (NBC, 7-9 a.m.). For the next two weeks, Burr Tillstrom, Kukla and Ollie will add their special magic to the coffee hours.

SUMMER PLAYHOUSE (CBS, 8:30-9 p.m.). As a writer trying to escape the joys of New York living, Walter Matthau discovers just how green the grass is when he and Wife Anne Jackson have to hole up in a spare room in a bowling alley while their newly acquired farmhouse is being cleared of its Country Mouse.

Tuesday, July 20

CLOAK OF MYSTERY (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Shortly after an astronaut temporarily loses contact with the earth, strange and lethal creatures are found creeping about the U.S.

THEATER

Straw Hat

Summertime finds a galaxy of stars--or almost stars--in cross-country orbit:

OGUNQUIT ME., Ogunquit Playhouse: Hans Conried in Absence of a Cello, a scientist trying to become a corporation man.

STOCKBRIDGE, MASS., Berkshire Playhouse: Viveca Lindfors in Colette's Cheri and The Last of Cheri.

WESTPORT, CONN., Westport Country Playhouse: The Private Ear & The Public Eye, two one-acters with Tammy Grimes.

NYACK, N.Y., Tappan Zee Playhouse: Menasha Skulnik in Carl Reiner's remembrance of Jewish boyhood, Enter Laughing.

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., John Drew Theater: Vicki Cummings and Kendall Clark in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y., Melody Fair: Guys and Dolls, with Hugh O'Brian and Anita Bryant, respectively.

MILLBURN, N.J., Paper Mill Playhouse: Bea Lillie bubbling over with High Spirits.

CLINTON, N.J., Old Music Hall: Philip Burton directs "the Acting Company" in G. B. Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession.

NEW HOPE, PA., Bucks County Playhouse: Dick Shawn and Betty Garrett in Murray Schisgal's upside-down comedies The Tiger and The Typists.

PITTSBURGH, Civic Light Opera: Cab Calloway crooning through Porgy and Bess.

ST. LOUIS, Municipal Opera: Donald O'Connor plays in Little Me.

KANSAS CITY, MO., Starlight Theater: Alltime trouper Bert Parks as Music Man.

INDIANAPOLIS, Avondale Playhouse: Cesar Romero in a 1929 light comedy, Strictly Dishonorable.

INDIANAPOLIS, Starlight Musicals: Janet Blair, washing that man right out of her hair, in South Pacific.

DALLAS, Summer Musicals: Patti Page sharpshooting in Annie Get Your Gun.

BERKELEY, CALiF., Melodyland Theater: Robert Goulet and Wife Carol Lawrence whirl their way through Carousel.

RECORDS

Opera

WAGNER: GOTTERDAMMERUNG (London; 6 LPs). The third of Georg Solti's heroic recordings of the complete, uncut Ring (Die Walkuere is still to come) brilliantly displays Wagner's richest and most complex opera. The entire cast, including Wolfgang Windgassen, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gottlob Frick, is superb, and this is the first disk performance to catch the excitement of Birgit Nilsson's voice as it is heard in the opera house. Just as effective is Christa Ludwig as Waltraute, and her long duet with Nilsson is the highlight of the performance. Solti is equal to all the excitement in Wagner, but the orchestral themes that should be clear on stereo occasionally get buried.

STRAUSS: DAPHNE (Deutsche Grammophon; 2 LPs). Shortly before he died, Strauss turned the legend of Daphne, whom Apollo transformed into a laurel tree because she loved nature more than man, into an opera that fuses voice and orchestra in the haunting manner of his more famous Four Last Songs. He dedicated the opera to Austria's Karl Boehm, who conducts this performance, and Strauss seems to have given Boehm his musical inspiration as well--a better recording would be hard to imagine. Hilde Gueden as Daphne is exquisite. Sounding younger and freer than she has in years, she captures not only the headstrong girl lending the glories of her voice to the beauties of nature, but also the unearthly sound shivering through the laurel leaves as the music ends.

VERDI: MACBETH (London; 3 LPs). The best thing here is Thomas Schippers' conducting. His interpretation moves Macbeth from his usual 20 paces behind Lady Macbeth to the center of the opera, giving Macbeth the drive and desperation of the play. Giuseppe Taddei is a good if somewhat cerebral Macbeth; Bruno Prevedi is vocally adequate but solemn and wooden as Macduff. The engineers, who create the impression that they placed Birgit Nilsson one studio away to give the fellows a chance, fail her, and so, in a way, does her marvelous voice. Verdi wrote that Lady Macbeth's music was not meant to be sung brilliantly but in a "raw, choked, hollow voice." The description calls Callas to mind, and her interpretation (on Angel six years ago) is still the best available. But for those who want to hear the difficult arias sung with power and authority, Nilsson is fine.

VERDI: LA FORZA DEL DESTINO (RCA Victor; 4 LPs). Schippers again, but without the imagination he gives to Macbeth. He just keeps things going along and lets his experienced performers (Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker, Giorgio Tozzi) take over. Price is at her very best. Her voice magnifies Verdi's intent and makes every hoary old aria sound as if it were written yesterday. Tucker at 50 gives every indication that he can go on singing forever--a cheering prospect. Only Tozzi is disappointing. His voice sounds dry, and he does the role of the padre like a priest droning through early Mass. For people who can't get enough of Verdi, this recording is a must; every note is here, and some of those usually cut in other performances are the most opulent.

CINEMA

THE FASCIST. A bungling Blackshirt corporal (Ugo Tognazzi) and his philosophical prisoner (Georges Wilson) turn their clash of values into a sly satire of Italian history, circa 1944, mixed with equal parts of compassion, reminiscence and rue.

THE KNACK. There is more than enough running, jumping and New Cinema gimmickry in this movie version of the New York-London stage success, but the sight gags are often funny and so is Rita Tushingham as the girl pursued by three oddball British bachelors.

A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA. Based on Richard Hughes's classic novel about the corruptive power of young innocents, this lively adventure film follows seven captive children as they hasten the ruin of a dissolute pirate captain (Anthony Quinn) and his raffish crew.

THE COLLECTOR. Director William Wyler's grisly, gripping thriller adapted from the bestseller by John Fowles--about a lunatic butterfly fancier (Terence Stamp) who collects a lovely, live girl (Samantha Eggar) and locks her in a dungeon.

THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES. Reproductions of vintage aircraft soar blithely skyward bearing Terry-Thomas, Alberto Sordi and Gert Frobe to the high points of a flaphappy comedy about a London-Paris air race in 1910--while vixenish Sarah Miles waits in the winners' circle to choose between Stuart Whitman and James Fox.

SYMPHONY FOR A MASSACRE. Five crooks, with a doublecrosser in their midst, embark on a million-dollar deal, and French Director Jacques Deray makes what happens fascinating.

LA TIA TULA. In this faultless first film, Spanish Director Miguel Picazo offers an austere and chilling portrait of a still-beautiful spinster (Aurora Bautista) whose unyielding virtue quells her passion for her dead sister's husband.

CAT BALLOU. Wild western heroics are trampled into horselaughs by Jane Fonda as a schoolmarm turned outlaw queen and Lee Marvin, doubly hilarious as a couple of no-good gunfighters, one her friend, one her foe.

THE PAWNBROKER. A compelling performance by Rod Steiger gives focus to this grim drama about an old Jew caught between the horrors of Spanish Harlem and the Nazi horrors of yesteryear.

BOOKS

THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1964, by Theodore H. White. The author shows as much skill as he did in his best-selling account of the 1960 campaign. But he is hard put to overcome the fact that he is writing about a dull and one-sided election.

MUSTANGS AND COW HORSES, edited by J. Frank Dobie, Mody C. Boatwright and Harry H. Ransom. A classic collection of authentic, unromanticized Western lore about the wild mustangs and the men who brutally tamed and rode them in the conquest of the continent.

THE MEMOIRS OF PANCHO VILLA, by Martin Luis Guzman. The author, who knew the fiery Mexican revolutionary personally, says that Villa would have written his memoirs if he had not been illiterate. As it is, this collection of documents, letters and recalled conversations gives a disjointed but fascinating insight into the passionate, near-demented leader.

STORMY PETREL: THE LIFE AND WORK OF MAXIM GORKY, by Dan Levin. A balanced, restrained biography of one of the wild men of writing. Gorky's life was a series of violent escapades, recaptured here in part through his own superb reminiscences. His creative forces were often wasted on polemics, first for Lenin and then for Stalin, who lured him from voluntary exile; five years later, apprehensive about Russia's future under Stalin, Gorky mysteriously died.

EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE, by Flannery O'Connor. The late Miss O'Connor's last stories are among her bleakest and best. Hers is a cruel world peopled by hard-eyed old men, embittered Baptist prophets, and wretches who suffer the tortures of shriveled souls. The light in this world comes from the author's highly personal, stunningly dramatized concept of the workings of God and Grace.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Up the Down Staircase, Kaufman (1 last week)

2. The Source, Michener (3)

3. The Ambassador, West (2)

4. Don't Stop the Carnival, Wouk (5)

5. Hotel, Hailey (4)

6. The Green Berets, Moore (6)

7. The Flight of the Falcon, Du Maurier (8)

8. Night of Camp David, Knebel (9)

9. Herzog, Bellow (7)

10. A Pillar of Iron, Caldwell (10)

NONFICTION

1. Markings, Hammarskjoeld (2)

2. The Oxford History of the American People, Morison (1)

3. Is Paris Burning? Collins and Lapierre (3)

4. Journal of a Soul, Pope John XXIII (4)

5. The Italians, Barzini (7)

6. Modern English Usage, Fowler, revised by Gowers

7. Queen Victoria, Longford (6)

8. The Making of the President, 1964, White

9. Sixpence in Her Shoe, McGinley (8)

10. The Founding Father, Whalen (5)

*All times E.D.T.

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