Friday, May 31

SAME MUD, SAME BLOOD (NBC, 10-11 p.m.).* NBC News Correspondent Frank McGee's account of the role of the Negro soldier in Viet Nam, filmed during a month under combat conditions with the 101st U.S. Airborne Division. Repeat.

Saturday, June 1

THE BELMONT STAKES (CBS, 5-5:45). The 100th running of the Belmont Stakes, third of the Triple Crown thoroughbred races, live from rebuilt Belmont Race Track, Elmont, L.I.

ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). Champions Track and Field Meet from San Diego, and National Air Races from Reno.

THE PRISONER (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Patrick McGoohan, formerly the weekly hero of Secret Agent, returns as a man incarcerated in a remote and mysterious community by unknown captors. His identity and the reasons for his imprisonment unfold as the series progresses. A summer replacement for the Jackie Gleason Show, Premiere.

Tuesday, June 4

The California presidential primary will be covered by the three U.S. networks, with correspondents, commentators and pundits ruminating on the significance of the results. NBC airs its special from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., ABC and CBS from 11:30 p.m. to midnight.

Check local listings for dates and times:

NET FESTIVAL. "The Tenth Annual Monterey Jazz Festival." Selections from the "blues afternoon" of the 1967 festival, featuring such gospel and blues performers as T-Bone Walker, B. B. King, Richie Havens and the Clara Ward Singers.

THE CREATIVE PERSON: "Georges Simenon." A documentary about the prolific French novelist and author of the famous Inspector Maigret detective stories. A selection of Simenon's works will be dramatized on a NET Playhouse series. Thirteen Against Fate premieres next week.

THEATER

On Broadway

HAIR. While fresher than the rest of the season's stale musicals, this tribal-rock extravaganza seems a decidedly dated and slightly square rendition of hippiedom. Loosely directed by Tom O'Horgan, Hair is dedicated to the propositions that noise equals singing, energy equals style, and bad taste equals imaginativeness.

JOE EGG. Humor is one way to meet an insoluble obstacle and ease insupportable pain. Peter Nichols' tender play tells of a shaky marriage held together by a spastic daughter. Donal Donnelly and Zena Walker deftly balance laughter and pain.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD is this season's winner of the Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Tony. From Shakespeare's clay, Tom Stoppard has fashioned two contemporary characters of existentialist angst, Beckettian apprehension and collegiate wit.

Off Broadway

THE MEMORANDUM. Joseph Papp's latest production is a harrowing parable on the perils of conformity and cowardice. Czech Playwright Vaclav Havel has written a nonsensical narrative about an office man ager who delivers himself into the clutches of bureaucracy when an official language is introduced into his firm.

MUZEEKA is a fable, contemporary in sensibility, modern in metaphor and haunting in its humor. John Guare mixes whimsy and horror as his hero trips on the way to his destiny, lands first in the suburbs and finally in Viet Nam.

THE BOYS IN THE BAND, an overtly homosexual play, contains both caustic comedy and humane drama, leavening biting wit and cruel exposures with compassion. Robert Moore's precise staging and the "boys'" concise ensemble acting contribute to a neatly orchestrated production.

CINEMA

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. This stunning film by Director Stanley Kubrick sets out to define man's past and describe his future with a combination of visual pyrotechnics and subtle metaphysics.

LES CARABINIERS. Jean-Luc Godard's artful discourse on the brutalizing effects of war is quite possibly the director's best film since Breathless.

THE RED MANTLE. A beautiful and often bloody Danish-Swedish film about the conflict between love and honor in medieval Iceland.

THE FIFTH HORSEMAN IS FEAR. Writer-Director Zbynek Brynych uses stark, brutal symbolism to raise this story of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia to a high level of creative cinema.

THE ODD COUPLE. An alimony-poor sportswriter (Walter Matthau) and his divorce-bound buddy (Jack Lemmon) are at each other's throats again in this almost literal translation of Neil Simon's Broadway hit. Matthau's comic genius makes amends for the static mise en scene.

BELLE DE JOUR. Spanish Director Luis Bunuel caps his 40-year career with this baroque piece of pornography about a beautiful young wife (Catherine Deneuve) whose obsessive sexual fantasies dominate her life.

HOUR OF THE WOLF. Sweden's Ingmar Bergman relates another of his parables of the dark night of the soul in this eerie tale of the deepening madness of a reclusive artist.

NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY. Homicide and schizophrenia are the unlikely ingredients of this black and bloody comedy, which matches a callow New York City cop (George Segal) against a clever killer (Rod Steiger) who uses a closetful of disguises.

BOOKS

Best Reading

The 1968 spring picture-book list is long and good. Following are some recommendations for children aged three to six.

THE BIGGEST HOUSE IN THE WORLD, by Leo Lionni (Pantheon; $3.95). A house that grows bigger and bigger may be wonderful for some, but it poses quite a problem for the snail who lives in this one. Lionni's bold illustrations show the house growing in all its amazing colors and shapes.

WHY THE SUN AND THE MOON LIVE IN THE SKY, by Elphinstone Dayrell, illustrated by Blair Lent (Houghton Mifflin: $3.25). A short, simple African folk tale tells how water forced the sun and the moon to leave their original home on earth and move into the sky. The illustrations in browns, ochers, greens and blues blend well with the text. Also recommended: Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent's Tikki Tikki Tembo.

THE SEA HORSE, by Frans van Anrooy, illustrated by Jaap Tol (Harcourt, Brace & World; $3.75). This is the story of a boy's dream trip to the bottom of the ocean on a sea horse; imagistic watercolor illustrations lend mystery and excitement to the sensitive text.

AUNT AGATHA, THERE'S A LION UNDER THE COUCH!, by Wende and Harry Devlin (D. Van Nostrand; $3.95). Aunt Agatha and Matthew live together in a big old Victorian house. One day, Matthew says he sees a lion, and Aunt Agatha, who knows all about small boys' fantasies, gently tells him: "You laugh at it, and it becomes paler and paler until it disappears." But the lion turns out to be real--which just goes to show, muses Aunt Agatha, that "you never can tell when a little boy has something very important to say."

THE NOCK FAMILY CIRCUS, by Ursula Huber, illustrated by Celestino Piatti (Atheneum; $4.95). The behind-the-scenes story of a small European traveling circus, illustrated with vigor and detail by the famous Swiss poster artist.

TWO HUNDRED RABBITS, by Lonzo Anderson, illustrated by Adrienne Adams (Viking; $3.95). An enchanting fairy tale in the old tradition of the poor boy who makes good. The surprise comes when the book's narrator is revealed to be the one missing rabbit needed to complete the last row of the formation marching before the king's court. Lovely, soft illustrations make this a first-rate picture book.

MY GRANDPA IS A PIRATE, by Jan Loof (Harper & Row; $2.95). A small boy and his grandfather have an exciting make-believe adventure with pirates and return before grandmother has even awakened from her nap.

ROSIE'S WALK, by Pat Hutchins (Macmillan; $3.95). Rosie the hen is out for a walk and doesn't realize the fox is stalking her. But the gods look after the innocent, and Rosie unwittingly leads the sly villain into one pratfall after another. With 14 bold pictures and only 32 words, Pat Hutchins has produced a broadly humorous book for the very young.

A SUNFLOWER AS BIG AS THE SUN, by Shan Ellentuck (Doubleday; $3.95). Uncle Vanya is a most lovable--and most effective--teller of tall tales. Everything he says about his sunflower comes true; it grows and grows, completely shutting out the sun from the small Russian village. When he finally tells the truth, the sunflower shrinks back to normal size and everyone celebrates. The illustrations are colorful and peasant in feeling.

NOT THIS BEAR!, by Bernice Myers (Four Winds Press; $3.50). Dressed in his furry hat and coat, little Herman goes off to visit his Aunt Gert. He looks just like a bear, and that is just what a passing bear thinks he is. Herman has a terrible time trying to persuade the bears that he is really a boy. He sings and dances and ties his shoelaces, but Papa Bear only says, "See what happens when a bear has a chance to go to the big city and learn a trade."

THE BOY WITH 100 CARS, by Inger Sandberg, illustrated by Lasse Sandberg. (Delacorte Press; $3.95). Any little boy who has ever played with cars will love this book by an award-winning team of Swedish storytellers.

THE DAY IT SNOWED IN SUMMER, by Florence Heide and Sylvia Van Clief, illustrated by Kenneth Longtemps (Funk & Wagnalls; $2.95). It is the hottest day of the year in New York City, too hot to do anything, so hot that Carrie puts ice cubes in her bath. But at nightfall, Jack Frost comes out of hiding, and Carrie and her doll, Loretta Cecelia, and all the other people in New York awake next morning to find everything covered with a blanket of snow. The story is unusually long, but the illustrations are captivating.

THE LOOKING DOWN GAME, by Leigh Dean, illustrated by Paul Giovanopoulos (Funk & Wagnalls; $2.95). When Edgar moves into a new neighborhood with no friends, he makes up a secret "looking down game," and discovers beetles, patterns in floating leaves, ants and a bird's nest. All year he plays his game until a new friend takes his hand and helps him up a tree. Then Edgar, a black city child, finds a new and even more exciting world to explore.

TOM IN THE MIDDLE, by Berthe Amoss (Harper & Row; $2.50). Tom has a younger brother who knocks down his building blocks and tears his books. Older Brother Mark yells, "Don't play with my things anymore!" Tom decides to run away, but when night comes, he returns home and finds that there are some games that he and his brothers can play together. Written with humor, the story will have a familiar ring to small children with brothers and sisters.

CLEOPATRA GOES SLEDDING, by Andre Hodeir, illustrated by Tomi Ungerer (Grove Press; $3.95). Two wicked crocodiles try to lure a turtle into a boiling soup pot, but the turtle, aided by a mischievous monkey, wins out, and the disappointed crocodiles have to settle for mock-turtle soup.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Airport, Hailey (1 last week)

2. Couples, Updike (2)

3. Testimony of Two Men, Caldwell (7)

4. The Tower of Babel, West (5)

5. Topaz, Uris (4)

6. Myra Breckinridge, Vidal (3)

7. Vanished, Knebel (6)

8. The Triumph, Galbraith (8)

9. Christy, Marshall (10)

10. The Confessions of Nat Turner, Styron

NONFICTION

1. The Naked Ape, Morris (1)

2. Between Parent and Child, Ginott (2)

3. Iberia, Michener (6)

4. The Double Helix, Watson (5)

5. Nicholas and Alexandra, Massie (4)

6. Our Crowd, Birmingham (3)

7. The English, Frost and Jay (9)

8. The French Chef Cookbook, Child

9. Gipsy Moth Circles the World, Chichester (7)

10. The Way Things Work: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Technology (8)

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