Short Takes

TELEVISION

The Making Of a Monster

ROBERT DUVALL, BULKED UP INSIDE HIS military overcoat and nearly expressionless beneath a bushy mustache, looks as much like Frankenstein's monster as Joseph Stalin in HBO's new film about the Soviet dictator. Certainly his deeds are just as monstrous, and even more unfathomable. Directed by Ivan Passer, STALIN vividly chronicles the revolutionary footsoldier's rise to power and his ruthless, increasingly paranoid reign of terror. The scenes of Stalin's 1930s' purges are especially chilling, and the film gratifyingly avoids hokey re-creations of "big" historical events like the Yalta Conference. Still, despite Duvall's intense performance, the century's least charismatic evildoer remains a stubbornly opaque figure.

SHOW BUSINESS

Christmas Kickoff

SCHRAFFT'S, GIMBEL'S, THE BILTMORE Hotel: all are gone. But one beloved New York City institution blessedly prospers: the RADIO CITY CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR. One million people are expected to see the 60th edition of the Music Hall show (through Jan. 6), double the number of a decade ago. No wonder. Here's a spectacular that really is -- a lavish celebration of the spirit of Christmas simultaneously traditional and inventive. Teddy bears dance The Nutcracker, Scrooge learns compassion, ice skaters whirl around a mini Rockefeller Plaza rink, the Rockettes march The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, and shepherds and sheep, Wise Men and camels celebrate the Nativity. Joy to the world!

THEATER

A Star Stalemated

TEDDY ROOSEVELT'S DAUGHTER ALICE used to say that her father longed to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. In SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, a thriller that opened on Broadway last week, actor Stacy Keach achieves something akin to T.R.'s dream. Without spoiling the "surprises" in a lumpishly predictable plot, one can reveal that Keach does not disappear when the reclusive billionaire he plays is shot and dumped into one of Harry Houdini's escape boxes before the first-act curtain. Keach acts with brio and glee, but as ever with author Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), the characters lack inner life. As the set suggests, they are pawns on a chessboard -- with no grand master in sight.

BOOKS

Presidential Private Eye

Times, leaders and heroes change. John F. Kennedy was a fan of superspy James Bond's savoir faire and flashy victories over cold war bad guys. It seems somehow fitting that Bill Clinton's favorite literary do-gooder is Easy Rawlins, a savvy, down-to-earth African-American private eye based in Los Angeles. In WHITE BUTTERFLY (Norton; $19.95), the third book in the Rawlins series, good-time girls, corrupt politicians, trigger-happy psychopaths and other crime-novel fixtures are all in place. But Walter Mosley's writing hums with the particular rhythms and blues of the black American experience. What makes these books special is their vivid portrayal of life in the side streets where Philip Marlowe seldom ventured.

CINEMA

Under a Stormy Sky

WHAT LUST? WHAT LIFE? NOT FOR MAUrice Pialat the gorgeously gaudy tones in which Hollywood paints the fine artist. The French writer-director's VAN GOGH is a portrait -- almost a still life -- of a somber fellow who is too busy creating masterpieces in the final months of his life to have time for melodramatic effects like lopping off his ear. In such films as Loulou and A Nos Amours, Pialat has sullenly railed against the strictures of French bourgeois life. In Van Gogh, he has found a kindred spirit; for both, artistic compromise is a crime against humanity. Jacques Dutronc plays the painter as a | troubled man (but not a madman) with a mission, a sort of nerd for art. Full of graceful compositions and expansive conversation, Van Gogh is an eyeful. And an earful too.