Tender Is the Night. Director Henry King and Scenarist Ivan Moffat have made a slickly commercial, bleakly melancholy movie out of F. Scott Fitzgerald's story of a man emasculated by a fatal desire to please. Jason Robards Jr. plays the failed hero with an All-American charm.
Murder, She Says. Margaret Rutherford, a British comedienne whose appearance suggests a pup tent filled with jello, comes on strong as a lady gumshoe in this adaptation of an Agatha Christie chiller, 4:50 from Paddington.
A View from the Bridge. Adapted from Arthur Miller's play, the film postures ineffectually as Greek tragedy in cold-water Flatbush, but as a modern drama of moral incest, it has considerable merit, thanks largely to Raf Vallone's muscular performance as the troubled stevedore.
A Majority of One. Rosalind Russell as a matron from Brooklyn and Alec Guinness as a Japanese millionaire keep straight faces long enough to stuff this soggily pleasant knish with more sentiment than it can hold.
The Innocents. This psychiatric chiller, based on The Turn of the Screw, owes as much to Sigmund Freud as it does to Henry James, but the photography is wonderfully spooky and the heroine (Deborah Kerr) exquisitely kooky.
Throne of Blood. A grand, barbaric Japanization of Macbeth.
El Cid. The year's best superspectacle, from the legend of the Spanish Lancelot.
TELEVISION
Wed., Feb. 7
The Bob Newhart Show (NBC, 10-10:30 p.m.).* Newhart's guest this week is Jack Paar. Color.
David Brinkley's Journal (NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.). A visit to Radio Sutatenza in Colombia, which broadcasts educational programs to illiterate peasants. Color.
Thurs., Feb. 8
CBS Reports (CBS, 10-10:30 p.m.). Poet Carl Sandburg re-creates the prairie boyhood of Abraham Lincoln with song and story.
Fri., Feb. 9
Debutante '62 (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). The history of the coming-out party is traced by Cornelia Otis Skinner with films of cotillions and debutante activities around the U.S.
Sat., Feb. 10 Accent (CBS, 1:30-2 p.m.). "The Elizabethans," second and final part of a series on 16th century English music and drama; with Broadway stars Douglas Campbell of Gideon and William Squire of Camelot.
Sun., Feb. 11
Southern Baptist Hour (NBC, 1:30-2 p.m.). A special report on the U.S. Second Fleet's ammunition ship Diamond Head, which will carry 14 doctors and 30 tons of medical supplies to the Republic of Liberia as part of the "people-to-people" project.
Directions '62 (ABC, 3-3:30 p.m.). Part two of a series on the origins of church music, with examples of spirituals, folk church music, hymns of the 19th century English revival.
FCC TV Hearings (NBC, 5-5:30 p.m.). Highlights of the previous week's hearings in which top network executives testify; with commentary by Ray Scherer.
Wide World of Sports (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). The St. Paul Winter Carnival features National Outdoor Speedskating Championships, ice fishing and a sports-car race on ice.
The Loyal Opposition (NBC, 6-7 p.m.). A special report on how a political party out of power works for a comeback, featuring the recent activities of former Vice President Nixon, New York's Governor Rockefeller, Senator Dirksen of Illinois. Representative Halleck of Indiana, and Senator Goldwater of Arizona.
The Broadway of Lerner and Loewe (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). A musical salute to the Broadway composing team by Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, Maurice Chevalier, Robert Goulet and Stanley Holloway. Color.
Mon., Feb. 12
Expedition (ABC, 7-7:30 p.m.). The story of the U.S. atomic submarine Sea Dragon s historic voyage beneath the Arctic ice, charting the Northwest Passage.
Tues., Feb. 13
Dick Powell Show (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Gene Barry, Nina Foch, Keenan Wynn and Beverly Garland in a drama about a woman suspected of murdering one of her husband's many lady friends.
Alcoa Premiere (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Fred Astaire plays a business tycoon, whose secretary submits some of his notepad doodlings to a newspaper syndicate.
THEATER
On Broadway
The Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams, makes a tethered lizard a symbol of the condition of man, while above it, on a Mexican veranda, Bette Davis, Patrick O'Neal and Margaret Leighton tug with poetic fury at fetters of mind, body and spirit.
Ross, by Terence Rattigan, shadows the elusive psyche of T. E. Lawrence. As the hero, Actor John Mills makes a stagy script shine.
A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt. Rarely has the problem of duty v. conscience been posed with more precision and lucidity. In Actor Paul Scofield, Sir Thomas More is reincarnated.
Gideon, by Paddy Chayefsky, takes a large theme, the relationship of God and Man, and treats it with more humor than awe. Fredric March (as God) and Douglas Campbell (as Gideon) are full of fire and brimstone.
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a secret that Actor Robert Morse exuberantly shares with the audience in his great, grinning rush to the top of the corporate heap.
The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter, infuses two brothers and a verminous bum with ripples of humor, glints of malice, and a passionate regard and disregard for one another's common humanity.
Off Broadway
Who'll Save the Plowboy?, by Frank D. Gilroy, is a gritty and gripping emotional inquest into a dead marriage, the dead delusions and illusions of a World War II hero, and the pitiful pal he rescued.
Brecht on Brecht is a splendid sampling of the esthetic skill and unique personality of a powerful 20th century playwright. Six compelling actors animate his poems, letters, songs, aphorisms and plays with selfless intensity.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Writers on the Left, by Daniel Aaron. A cool look at the long-gone days of the '30s, when the Communists were able to attract or to bully some of the best writers in the U.S.
The End of the Battle, by Evelyn Waugh. The crisply written but melancholy-minded third volume of a trilogy about Britain in Waughtime--an obsolete, upper-class way of life and death that began to turn grey for Author Waugh and his hero when the Russians became Britain's allies.
Sylva, by Vercors. A fox becomes a girl, offering French Novelist Vercors endless opportunities for instructive irony; perhaps the author's best notion is that the girl's protector must consult Freud to give her some much-needed inhibitions.
The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (Volumes I & II), edited by Harold C. Syrett and Jacob E. Cooke. These first installments of a proposed 20-volume work read in parts like an excellent epistolary novel, and show Hamilton to have been a man quite different from the cold autocrat of popular fancy.
The Burning Brand and The House on the Hill, both by Cesare Pavese. Respectively, a haunting, pathetic private journal and an astringent novel of World War II, by a gifted Italian writer, who committed suicide in 1950 for reasons made clear in the diary.
But Not in Shame, by John Toland. An able historian shows the U.S. staggering through the first six months of World War II.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Franny and Zooey, Salinger (1, last week)
2. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Stone (2)
3. Daughter of Silence, West (3)
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (5)
5. Little Me, Dennis (6)
6. A Prologue to Love, Caldwell (8)
7. Chairman of the Bored, Streeter (4)
8. The Ivy Tree, Stewart (9)
9. Spirit Lake, Kantor (7)
10. The Carpetbaggers, Robbins
NONFICTION
1. My Life in Court, Nizer (1)
2. Calories Don't Count, Taller (6)
3. The Making of the President 1960, White (2)
4. Living Free, Adamson (4)
5. A Nation of Sheep, Lederer (9)
6. My Saber Is Bent, Paar (3)
7. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (5)
8. The Coming Fury, Catton (8)
9. The New English Bible (7)
10. Citizen Hearst, Swanberg
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