Friday, Jan. 13, 1961
CINEMA
The Grass Is Greener. A champagne comedy pressed from one of Britain's choicest sour grapes--those beastly rich Americans--with Gary Grant brilliantly playing an earl who tries to save his wife from a fate worse than death, i.e., Robert Mitchum.
Make Mine Mink. Another suitably dotty but amiable bit of British nonsense, casting Comedian Terry-Thomas as a Robin-Hoodish retired major who masterminds (and sometimes absent-minds) a fur-shop larceny.
The Angry Silence. In a grimly impressive critique of the mass mind, a machinist courageously resists the pressure of the union that has "sent him to Coventry."
Tunes of Glory. A superior piece of entertainment, thanks to a brilliant performance by Alec Guinness as an up-from-the-ranks Scottish colonel waging the internecine peace of barracks life.
With John Mills.
Exodus. Otto Preminger's superb direction and Dalton Trumbo's superlative script have made the sprawling bestseller about Israel into a stirring if lengthy (four-hour) movie.
Among the other good recent offerings: The Sundowners, The Magnificent Seven, The Virgin Spring, Village of the Damned and The Love Game.
TELEVISION
Tues., Jan. 10 Expedition! (ABC, 7-7:30 p.m.).* A trackdown through Greenland's icy wastes of a vanishing breed--the unabominable musk ox.
Tribute to a Patriot (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). The life and times of Dwight David Eisenhower, with brief appearances by John F. Kennedy, Harold Macmillan, Jawaharlal Nehru and Konrad Adenauer.
Wed., Jan. 11 The Bob Hope Show (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Filmed portions of Hope's annual holiday-season tour of U.S. military bases, including a Christmas Day segment from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The United States Steel Hour (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). The Mating Machine, a comedy about a marriage bureau that operates by computer. The punch-card pairing: Diana Lynn and John Ericson.
Thurs., Jan. 12 Family Classics (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The first of a two-part adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, with Diane Cilento as Becky Sharp.
Fri., Jan. 13 Family Classics (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Becky's comeuppance.
The Equitable's Our American Heritage (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). The Invincible Teddy, a dramatization by Tad (All the Way Home) Mosel of formative days in the life of Theodore Roosevelt.
Sat., Jan. 14 The Nation's Future (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). Senator Hubert Humphrey and A.M.A. Spokesman Dr. Edward R. Annis debate: "Should medical care for the aged be linked to Social Security?"
Fight of the Week (ABC, 10 p.m. to conclusion). Paul Fender--middleweight champion of New York, Massachusetts and Europe--defends against Londoner Terry Downes.
Sun., Jan. 15 Issues and Answers (ABC, 1:30-2 p.m.). Senator Barry Goldwater faces network newsmen on the second of three sessions concentrating on the filibuster.
Pro Bowl Football Game (NBC, 3:45 to final gun). The eleventh annual all-star rumble, from Los Angeles. Color.
A Question of Chairs: The Challenge of American Education (CBS, 4-5 p.m.). The evolution of U.S. education discussed by Nathan M. Pusey, president of Harvard, the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame, and Abram L. Sachar, president of Brandeis.
The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). Eyewitness accounts of the battle of Cassino by opposing Generals Mark Clark and Fridolin von Zenger.
The Gershwin Years (CBS, 8-9:30 p.m.). Leland Hayward, who was responsible for last year's brilliant Fabulous Fifties, produced this special starring Ethel Merman, Maurice Chevalier and Julie London. With Composer Richard Rodgers as host.
Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). The fifth episode of the notable series during which the Prime Minister makes his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.
THEATER
Do Re Mi. Although its story of jukebox racketeering is mere rundown Runyon, this musical is saved by Stars Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker and its occasionally amusing Comden-Green lyrics.
Camelot. Suffering from a book paralyzed by internal contradictions, the Lerner-Loewe opus nevertheless has sprightly music, magnificent sets and a performance beyond the call of musicomedy duty by Richard Burton.
All the Way Home. An adaptation of James Agee's novel, A Death in the Family, that offers more small coins of pure silver and less stage money than any other American play this season.
Advise and Consent. A superficial but lively and suspenseful political melodrama based on the Allen Drury bestseller.
Period of Adjustment. Tennessee Williams, America's own Strindberg, turns marital counselor in an unprecedentedly optimistic work that displays more deftness than depth.
An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Aiming their common hoard of satire at the common herd, the freewheeling improvisationists produce many happy surprises and considerable hilarity.
A Taste of Honey. A shabby world of pathetic misfits leaps to life through language that has edge and rings true.
Irma La Douce. Elizabeth Seal emerges as a delightful streetwalker--and street dancer--in a jaunty French musical that fills its Pernod bottles with the milk of human kindness.
BOOKS Best Reading
Shadows in the Grass, by Isak Dinesen. This aristocratic Danish author of superior Gothic romances has fashioned a nonfictional still life, elegiac in mood, diamantine in craft, of her past as a coffee planter in Kenya.
The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken. Well cut, correct and a trifle oldfashioned, the author's short stories deal brilliantly with inward torment but less well with events; the best of them are of a very high order indeed.
To a Young Actress, edited by Peter Tompkins. The actress was Mrs. Molly Tompkins, an American, and the letter writer was G.B.S., who strove, without Pygmalion's success, to improve her mind and pronunciation.
The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill, by Don Russell. The bearded old bisonbane was a showman, but he was also a notable frontiersman, and this biography does a good job of sorting the facts from the flamdoodle.
Greek Gods and Heroes, by Robert Graves. The only classicist who troubles himself to speak to the upper-middle intellectual class has disarmingly retold the myths and provided a Zeus for young readers.
Winnie Ille Pu, by A. A. Milne, translated into Latin by Alexander Lenard. Children who read Latin will find the adventures of Pu, Porcellus and Ior delightful, and laggards who trotted through Caesar years ago will derive much pleasure--or at least prestige, if the book is seen about the house.
Trumpets from the Steep, by Diana Cooper. The final volume of Lady Diana's autobiography shows again her delightful ability to make real people sound like Waugh characters, a gift all the more impressive when one understands that "Duckling," for instance, is Winston Churchill, and "Wormwood" is Charles de Gaulle.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)*
2. Hawaii, Michener (2)
3. The Last of the Just, Schwarz-Bart (3)
4. The Dean's Watch, Goudge (6)
5. Sermons and Soda-Water, O'Hara (4)
6. Decision at Delphi, Maclnnes (7)
7. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (5)
8. The Nylon Pirates, Monsarrat (8)
9. The Lovely Ambition, Chase (10)
10. The Listener, Caldwell
NONFICTION
1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (1)
2. The Snake Has All the Lines, Kerr (3)
3. The Waste Makers, Packard (2)
4. The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (4)
5. Vanity Fair, ed. by Amory and Bradlee (5)
6. Born Free, Adamson (6)
7. Baruch: The Public Years (7)
8. Who Killed Society? Amory
9. The Politics of Upheaval, Schlesinger (9)
10. Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, Frankfurter with Phillips (8)
* All times E.S.T.
* Position on last week's list.
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