Appearing at various times and dates this week on 101 TV stations in 41 states and the District of Columbia is a 90-minute documentary, China: The Roots of Madness, written by Theodore White (The Making of a President) and produced by David Wolper. It traces the course of China from 1850 to 1950, and while it fails to cope with the current maelstrom, it is a remarkably good slice of history. Wednesday, February 1 BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATER (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).-Bradford Dillman and Alex Cord play billiards for a fortune and Jean Simmons.
Thursday, February 2
COLISEUM (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). "The Greatest Wild Animal Trainers in the World," featuring Carl Sembach and his Lipizzaner horses, and Frieda Sembach-Krone and her Indian elephants.
HALLMARK HALL OF FAME (NBC, 9:30-11 p.m.). Jason Robards stars in a 1964 TV adaptation of Robert Sherwood's play, Abe Lincoln in Illinois. Repeat.
ABC STAGE '67 (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). A "Night Out in London," with That-Was- the-Week-That-Was Star David Frost conducting an entertainment tour that includes taped segments of Sir Laurence Olivier onstage at the Old Vic, Peter Sellers in a recording studio, Albert Finney playing Luther. Saturday, February 4
BOB HOPE DESERT CLASSIC GOLF TOURNAMENT (NBC, 4-5 p.m.). Among the pros: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Billy Casper. Among the celebrities: Ray Bolger, Joey Bishop, James Garner, Andy Williams, Harry James. The place: Bermuda Dunes Country Club, Palm Springs, Calif. (Finals at La Quinta Country Club will be broadcast Sunday, 4:30-6 p.m.).
ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). The International Toboggan championship in Saint-Moritz, the World Championship Auto Demolition Derby in Islip, N.Y., and a look at the folderol and fakery surrounding the Feb. 6 Cassius Clay-Ernie Terrell heavyweight champion- ship fight.
WORLD PREMIERE ON SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (NBC, 9-11 p.m.). Yet an- other network-made movie, The Borgia Stick, starring Don Murray as a bank executive who becomes a front man for a crime syndicate that thoughtfully provides him with a front wife--Inger Stevens. Sunday, February 5
THE CBS CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL (CBS, 4-5 p.m.). A new show hosted by Burr Tillstrom and Fran Allison, of Kukla, Fran and Ollie fame, which will show the best in motion pictures for children from around the world. This week's film is Skinny and Fatty from Japan. Premiere.
THE 215T CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). "To the Moon," with Walter Cronkite.
BRAVO PICASSO! (NBC, 6:30-7:30 p.m.). Documenting the artist's life and work with a massive display of canvases and sculptures, some seen via satellite from Paris' Grand Palais and Petit Palais exhibits,
-All times E.S.T. others from the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the Fort Worth Art Center, plus the auctioning of a Picasso painting at Manhattan's Parke-Bernet Galleries.
THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). A new variety series. Guests include Ed Sullivan, Jim Nabors and Jill St. John. Premiere.
Tuesday, February 7
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY SPECIAL (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). "Alaska," a sight-seeing trip through Alaska by boat, car, plane, foot and rail, including a hike up the Chilkoot trail.
CBS REPORTS (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). An analysis of "The Poisoned Air," by which they mean stuff most people breathe. Repeat.
THEATER
On Broadway
THE HOMECOMING is a totally engrossing drama. Written sparely by Harold Pinter, directed tautly by Peter Hall, performed perfectly by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it tickles one's humor while gnawing the instincts and scratching the soul.
THE WILD DUCK. The APA repertory company lights flares of understanding in Henrik Ibsen's examination of the human havoc that can result from too ruthless a devotion to honesty. But its production, while accomplished, is a trifle too cozy to carry off the playwright's crueler intention: to drag everyone and everything into unrelenting light.
AT THE DROP OF ANOTHER HAT is a visit with an urbane, engaging pair of hosts, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, who invite those devoted to civilized wit for a bit of an old daft do. THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL. Neil Simon's latest comedy entry is funny in spurts, but labors under three hard-to-shake burdens: a hackneyed book, heavy-handed direction and ho-hum acting.
I DO! I DO! claims to chronicle a marriage, but seems instead to give a recipe for a wedding cake: all sugar, no spice. Only the team de force of the U.S. musical stage--Mary Martin and Robert Preston-- gives the evening a dash of zest.
CABARET, a musical based in prewar Germany, excites the senses with the low browhaus style of its choreography, scenery and costumes, but dulls the mind with commercial cliches for book and score.
WALKING HAPPY, a low-voltage musical based on Hobson's Choice, is switched on brightly by British Comedian Norman Wisdom. Danny Daniels' electric choreography sparks some good fun.
SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Eighteenth century Londoners frequented Richard Sheridan's classroom of comedy to be taught their three Rs: the Risque, Rumor, Revenge. The APA go through their lessons with a flick of their wits.
RIGHT YOU ARE. The APA keeps the philosophical ball rolling in Luigi Pirandello's dramatic investigation into the nature of reality.
Off Broadway
EH? And what if Godot had arrived? And what if he were even more absurd than the Beckett boys who awaited him? He probably would have come as Valentine Brose, the nonsenstential anti-hero of Henry Livings' balmy fares.
AMERICA HURRAH is what's happening in terms of free-form, timely theater. Jean-Claude van Ital lie's three playlets are high-speed trips through a contemporary world of fragmented experience.
RECORDS
Stage, Screen & Streisand
CABARET (Columbia). The original-cast album of Broadway's current musical recalls the tarnished tinsel of Berlin in the early '30s, with Lotte Lenya and Joel Grey singing songs of disillusion that seem more wail than Weill.
THE APPLE TREE (Columbia). Another successful musical with a less than memoible score, but on this cast album, Star Barbara Harris shows her remarkably versatile vocal range as well as some high-gloss style.
WALKING HAPPY (Capitol). The near-classic British play Hobson's Choice has been set to pleasant old-fashioned music and lyrics by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn for the current Broadway musical, and the show album ambles along just as cheerfully.
I DO. i DO! (RCA Victor). Even Old Pros Mary Martin and Robert Preston cannot keep this recording of the musical adaptation of The Fourposter from sounding like a commercial for twin beds ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (RCA Victor) his original-cast album of the 1966 Lincoln Center revival compares favorably with original version of 20 years ago (still available on Decca). Ethel Merman's voice may have lost a little of its spring, but it still isn't rusty, and the high-caliber orchestra of the Victor recording makes the Decca sound like a pop pistol.
AT THE DROP OF ANOTHER HAT (Angel). British Satirists Michael Flanders and Donald Swann have recently returned to Broadway with a new collection of dotty ditties about the gas man (who "cometh") and De Gaulle ("all gall"). This LP was recorded in London but is essentially the same as the U.S. show, and besides--it's the only recording that will be released
JE M'APPELLE BARBRA (Columbia). Rue Streisand runs into Place Pigalle on her latest disk, which takes its flavor from an assortment of French songs (Autumn Leaves, Clopln dopant) arranged by Michael Legrand and sung, partly in English partly in French, by the Berlitz bombe. It may be gout americain, but it is still champagne.
CINEMA
HOTEL. The film version of Novelist Arthur Hailey's 1965 bestseller about clean towels and dirty people in a New Orleans hotel is more worthy of a stopover than the book. The improvement is due mainly to Director Richard Quine's smoothly geared meshing of the various subplots and solid performances by Rod Taylor, Michael Kennie, Merle Oberon, Karl Maiden
BLOWUP. A successful young pop photographer casually takes some pictures of an amorous couple strolling in the park and against his will is drawn into a mystery that totally absorbs and challenges him. The director is Italy's Michelangelo Antomom, filming for the first time in England and in English.
GRAND PRIX. Formula One racing cars are the stars of this revved-up and spun-out (three hours) ode to autos. Sixteen camera teams shot 1,000,000 feet of film, much of it at last year's Grand Prix races, and Director John Frankenheimer has fashioned a heart-stopping movie slowed down only by the romantic detour of the drivers (James Garner, Yves Montand) and their camp followers (Eva Marie Saint, Francoise Hardy).
GAMBIT. The perfect crime in this frenetic suspense comedy is described twice-- first, as a criminal imagines it will happen; second, as it actually happens. Both times around, Michael Caine plays the crook and Shirley MacLaine his accomplice.
A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Actor Paul Scofield's mesmerizing performance as 16th century Martyr Sir Thomas More and Playwright Robert Bolt's superb adaptation of his eloquent play add up to one of the most intelligent religious films ever made.
BOOKS
Best Reading
DEATH ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN, by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The scandalous French author's controversial classic in a new, unexpurgated version that softens neither the obscenities nor the antiSemitism.
RAKOSSY, by Cecelia Holland. A novel about 16th century Hungary that belongs to the Mary Renault-Zoe Oldenbourg school of authentic, realistic historical fiction.
LETTERS OF JAMES JOYCE, edited by Richard Ellmann. The letters provide the only explanations Joyce ever offered about his revolutionary techniques in the novel, and also reveal the bohemian artist as doting husband and father.
PAPER LION, by George Plimpton. The lowly Detroit Lions of 1963 may outlive Green Bay, enshrined as they are in Plimpton's humorous prose. Plimpton tried out for the team with disastrous results, but his memoir of pro football is a long gainer for the fan and the nonfan as well.
HAROLD NICOLSON: DIARIES AND LETTERS, 1930-1939, edited by Nigel Nicolson. One might as well try to put aside chocolates as this aristocrat's account of the fashions and foibles of prewar London.
SPEAK, MEMORY, by Vladimir Nabokov. Robbed of his Russian youth by the Revolution, Novelist Nabokov has tirelessly caressed his memories of it in this autobiography, now published in its final form-- a hymn to childhood.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Crichton (1 last week)
2. Capable of Honor, Drury (2)
3. The Birds Fall Down, West (5)
4. Valley of the Dolls, Susann (3)
5. The Mask of Apollo, Renault (4)
6. All in the Family, O'Connor (8)
7. The Fixer, Malamud (6)
8. Tai-Pan, Clavell (9)
9. The Beautiful Life, Gilbert
10. A Dream of Kings, Petrakis (7)
NONFICTION
1. Everything But Money, Levenson (2)
2. Paper Lion, Plimpton (3)
3. The Boston Strangler, Frank (9)
4. Rush to Judgment, Lane (1)
5. The Jury Returns, Nizer (6)
6. Games People Play, Berne (4)
7. With Kennedy, Salinger (5)
8. How to Avoid Probate, Dacey (7)
9. Random House Dictionary of the English Language (8)
10. Winston S. Churchill, Churchill (10)
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