Virgin Spring (in Swedish). Ingmar Bergman's mythical and violently beautiful miracle play, derived from a medieval ballad about a farm girl's rape-murder and her father's vengeance, is as clear and grave as a Mass.
Village of the Damned. The nifty little horror tale of an English town whose populace is briefly paralyzed, its women mysteriously impregnated.
The Love Game (in French). A happy, bawdy, and always violently spontaneous little Parisian pajama party, billed as the first New Wave comedy, in which the exquisitely funny Jean-Pierre Cassel refuses to make Genevieve Cluny a mother, much less an honest woman.
Buterfield 8. Novelist John O'Hara's classic theme of salvation by prostitution preserves some of its ancient power in a glossy, slick and solidly if stolidly acted adaptation with Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey.
General della Rovere (in Italian). Back in his top form of the 1940s, Roberto (Open City) Rossellini directs a poignant piece about a trivial swindler -- brilliantly played by Vittorio De Sica -- who stops impersonating the role of a wartime hero to become one.
TELEVISION
Tues., Dec. 6
Open End (NBC, 10-11 p.m.).* Network viewers' first look at a shortened version of David Susskind's spontaneous speakeasies, with Joey Bishop, George Burns, Jimmy Durante, Buddy Hackett and Groucho Marx trying to get a word in.
Wed., Dec. 7
Perry Como's Music Hall (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Juliet Prowse and the Kingston Trio enliven the Comotose proceedings. Color.
Close-Up (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Yanki, No! focuses on Latin America's struggle with Communism, as seen by Robert Drew's candid-camera technique.
Armstrong Circle Theater (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Douglas Edwards narrates Memory of Murder, the fact-based story of a new sheriff's battle to restore justice in a lawless Florida town.
Thurs., Dec. 8
Peter Pan (NBC, 7:30-9:30 p.m.). For the 3rd season, Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard star in a revival of the Barrie classic, as adapted by Jerome Robbins. Narrator: Lynn Fontanne. Color.
Fri., Dec. 9 The Bell System Science Series (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). The Thread of Life, a study of genetics, with Dr. Frank C. Baxter as host. Color.
Close-Up (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). John Daly, in one of his final appearances on ABC, grills labor and management on Featherbedding.
Sat., Dec. 10
CBS Reports (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). A report on the plight of the world's 15 million refugees, featuring scenes from Yul Brynner's recent European and Middle Eastern trip as a United Nations representative and including his interviews with Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir and Jordan's King Hussein.
The Nation's Future (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). Columbia University Professor C. Wright Mills and former Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle Jr. ponder U.S. policies toward Latin America and Cuba.
Sun., Dec. 11
Omnibus (NBC, 5-6 p.m.). Alistair Cooke tours New York City at night from the Great White Way to the darker, crime-ridden shadows in Night People
The Wizard of Oz (CBS, 6-8 p.m.). A rerun of the 1939 movie classic sends Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr and Billie Burke on another trek up the yellow brick road.
The Shirley Temple Show (NBC, 7-8 p.m.). The hostess tries her wholesome hand with Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables. Color.
Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). Opening as the new Prime Minister utters his first statement to Commons--"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat"--the third episode portrays the retreat through Western Europe and the Dunkirk evacuation.
THEATER
Advise and Consent. Although too obviously melodramatic and politically shallow, the adaptation of the bestselling. novel about a Cabinet nominee's battle for Senate confirmation is both brisk and suspenseful.
Period of Adjustment. Trading claws for Santa Claus, Broadway's master of violence, Tennessee Williams, has written a comedy-lecture on how to stay married, which is superficial, dexterous and lively.
An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Coiling around each other like flowers, teen-agers or snakes, these superb improvisationists prove that they can make hilarious fun of anything from the P.T.A. to the old Tennessee Williams.
A Taste of Honey. An episodic but unblinkingly truthful first play about a tramp of a mother and her illegitimate daughter, by a talented young Englishwoman who has the knack of using light to make soot more visible.
Irma La Douce. Transcending the ancient cliche of the goldenhearted whore, dynamic Elizabeth Seal endows a jaunty, harmless French musical with a nice tingle of iniquity and even a certain mixture of sweetness and bite.
The Hostage. A jolly but self-indulgent romp in which Playwright Brendan Behan proves himself more than a buffoon if less than a philosopher.
BOOKS
Best Reading
It Had Been a Mild, Delicate Night, by
Tom Kaye. The woman in the London town house is a neoclassic nymph, the tramp who pursues her is clearly a satyr, and the author's story of the chase is a myth as good as a mile of realistic novels. A Zoo in My Luggage, by Gerald Durrell. The author, a noted zoologist and brother of Lawrence Durrell, tells of following his love of animals to the Cameroons, and proves to have his novelist brother's ability to impale the butterfly of reality on the point of a pen.
Goodbye to a River, by John Graves. The Brazos River in Texas was to be ruined by power dams, and the author, who writes well of the region's wildlife and wild living, tells of a three-week solo canoe trip he made as a farewell gesture. Summoned by Bells, by John Betjeman. In a charming autobiography in verse, the author tells of a boyhood and young manhood that were unremarkable except for the pain, joy and insight that go with being a poet.
Spring Song and Other Stories, by Joyce Gary. In these short stories, as in the author's novels, nothing seems to be contrived and everything seems worth hearing about, whether the subjects are men at war, children, or a dodderer on a park bench.
The Light in the Piazza, by Elizabeth Spencer. A sensitively written novel of troubled love between an Italian shop owner and a mentally deficient American girl; notably, the author's Americans are neither boors on tours nor snobs trying to look as if they had never heard of Akron.
The Life and Opinions of T. E. Hulme, by Alun R. Jones. Critic Hulme, a friend said, was "capable of kicking a theory as well as a man downstairs," and before he was killed in World War 1 at 34, this fiery British intellectual was a strong influence on such men as Eliot, Yeats, Pound and Wyndham Lewis.
Rabbit, Run, by John Updike. The author uses all of his considerable skill to shock the reader in this bleak novel about the crackup of a hollow young man, but stops short of proving what he suggests: that much of American society is hollow. The Metamorphosis of the Gods, by Andre Malraux. To Malraux, art is religion, and to support this view he produces flights of brilliant speculation that course throughout all of art history; if he does not persuade the reader to worship, at least he helps him to see.
Best Sellers
FICTION 1. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)*
2. Hawaii, Michener (2)
3. The Last of the Just, Schwarz-Bart (9)
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (3)
5. The Leopard, Di Lampedusa (5)
6. The Lovely Ambition, Chase (4)
7. Mistress of Mellyn, Holt (6)
8. The Dean's Watch, Goudge (8)
9. Decision at Delphi, Maclnnes
10. The Nylon Pirates, Monsarrat (7)
NONFICTION 1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,
Shirer (1)
2. The Waste Makers, Packard (2)
3. The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War
4. The Politics of Upheaval, Schlesinger 5. The Snake Has All the Lines, Kerr (9)
6. Baruch: The Public Years (3)
7. Born Free, Adamson (4)
8. The Liberal Hour, Galbraith
9. Taken at the Flood, Gunther (8) 10. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (6)
* *All times E.S.T. *Position on last week's list.
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