CINEMA

The Birds. Hitchcock-a-doodle-doo in the form of a fatuous plot makes for a slow start, but when the birds finally get a chance to do their stuff the feathers fly as hordes of gulls, finches and crows go to war against humanity.

The Courtship of Eddie's Father. A whole new era of Hollywood kiddy stars may be launched by irresistibly talented Ronny Howard, 9. He does a pro job at finding a mate for Daddy Glenn Ford. Shirley Jones, Dina Merrill and Stella Stevens are the applicants.

The Balcony. Part burlesque, part Black Mass, Jean Genet's shocker argues that the world is a vast brothel run by an allegorical madam who panders illusions to her customers in return for the surrender of their masculinity. Shelley Winters is the madam.

Mondo Cane. In this documentary of depravity, the world has gone to the dogs and the cards are stacked against human decency, all leading to the conclusion that people are no damn good.

The Playboy of the Western World. Torrents of gorgeous Irish talk, miles of fine Irish scenery, and some splendid acting almost offset the main flaw in this film version of Synge's play: Siobhan McKenna should not still be playing colleens.

How the West Was Won. Cinerama turns from picture postcards to epic storytelling as sodbusters, Indians, outlaws, good guys, and a thousand thundering buffaloes go West in a big way.

The Wrong Arm of the Law. Sneaky Pete Sellers as a raffish Raffles heads a gang of candid-camera jewel robbers.

To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize novel comes off even better on the screen than on the page. Gregory Peck is wise and warm, and three children --Mary Badham, Phillip Alford and John Megna--are so convincingly rambunctious that they hardly seem to be acting at all.

Love and Larceny. Vittorio Gassman masquerades his way through one of the funniest Italian farces of the season.

TELEVISION

Wednesday, April 10

In the Mouth of the Wolf (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).-o A special documentary on grand opera in Parma, Italy, featuring the season's opener, Verdi's Luisa Miller.

Encyclopedia of Communism (NBC, 7:30-9 p.m.). The last in a series of four programs on the ideology and practice of Communism, with Chet Huntley.

Thursday, April 11

Premiere (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). A Bronx delicatessen owner (Howard Morris) searches for his long-lost joker of a brother (Louis Nye) in "This Will Kill You."

Friday, April 12

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (CBS, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). An embittered wine baron (Gilbert Roland) challenges his disowned son to a drinking bout, while his secretary-fiancee (Laraine Day) stands by.

Jack Paar (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). More home movies, this time of Jack's trip through the Holy Land, plus Guest Stars Mahalia Jackson and Jim Bishop. Color.

Saturday, April 13

Exploring (NBC, 12:30-1:30 p.m.). A reading of Rumplestiltiltskin by Peter Ustinov and a performance with hoops by the Finnish Girls Gymnastic Team. Color.

The Defenders (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). "The Colossus" stars Leo Genn as a Nobel-prizewinning scientist charged with the murder of his wife.

Sunday, April 14

Directions '63 (ABC, 2-3 p.m.). "The Passion and Resurrection," Part 4 of Franz Liszt's oratorio, Christus.

Close-Up! (ABC, 6:30-7:30 p.m.). A special documentary, "The Vatican," looks at Easter Sunday in St. Peter's Basilica.

Ed Sullivan (CBS, 8-9 p.m.). Starring Judy Garland at the London Palladium and Peter (Lawrence of Arabia) O'Toole, who will also sing.

Monday, April 15

Monday Night at the Movies (NBC, 7:30-9:30 p.m.). Love aboard a luxury liner in An Affair to Remember, starring Gary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Color.

David Brinkley's Journal (NBC, 10-10:30 p.m.). Brinkley reports on the controversial sale of Southwest desert land and examines the legend of Wyatt Earp. Color.

Tuesday, April 16

As Caesar Sees It (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). Sid's seventh special looks at America's newest challenge: flabbiness.

THEATER

On Broadway

Mother Courage, by Bertolt Brecht, is an ironic firestorm of a play, raging over the subjects of war, history, ideology, heroism, vice and virtue. Brecht robs his 17th century peasant heroine of her three children without breaking her indomitable will to survive. In the daunting title role, Anne Bancroft is not quite the protean earth mother she strives to be.

Ages of Man. For one week only, starting April 14, John Gielgud will revive his masterly solo evening of readings from Shakespeare. Gielgud's unfailing intelligence and matchless vocal delivery make this a memorable theatrical event.

Too True to Be Good, by George Bernard Shaw, is substandard G.B.S., full of mildewed seventyish garrulities on religion, militarism and the idle rich. A full cast of stars--Glynis Johns, Robert Preston, David Wayne, Cyril Ritchard, Eileen Heckart, Lillian Gish, Cedric Hardwicke, Ray Middleton--rushes about filling the dramatic vacuum.

Strange Interlude, by Eugene O'Neill, is a theatrical event of fascinating and ironic magnitude. Geraldine Page acts with dazzling prismatic splendor, but the play, a 4 1/2-hour marathon, is a dated Lost Generation relic, infused at odd moments with O'Neill's personal anguish.

Enter Laughing, by Joseph Stein. The Jewish situation comedy is not a trend but a glut. This one offers traces of honest observation, and as a clown of a would-be actor, Alan Arkin is outrageously funny.

Photo Finish, by Peter Ustinov. An old party of 80 confronts his onstage self at earlier ages and is alternately apoplectic and philosophical at what he sees. Actor-Director-Author Ustinov gives the proceedings elegant polish.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, by Edward Albee, makes a no-exit verbal hell out of a college professor's living room. Arthur Hill and Uta Hagen beat ugly truths and fond illusions out of each other with savage, flailing brilliance.

Little Me. Seven helpings of Sid Caesar make this show a rich musical comedy feast. Other goodies include Swen Swenson's dancing and Virginia Martin's ding-dong Belle Poitrine.

Beyond the Fringe. Four wickedly clever young English sharpshooters riddle such sacred institutions as God, Shakespeare and Harold Macmillan. The wackiest loon of the lunatic lot is Dr. Jonathan Miller.

Off Broadway

The Dumbwaiter and The Collection, by Harold Pinter, are shivery comedies of menace in which murder and infidelity occur (or do they?), and meaning is made mysterious and mystery meaningful.

The Establishment. Britannia used to rule the waves; nowadays it can scarcely hold the tongues of its 20-year-olds. It's mock mock mock all night long as this freshman three-man, two-woman revue team tries to match the varsity players of Beyond the Fringe.

The Tiger and The Typists. Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson are in two clever one-acters; the first concerns two self-appointed nonconformists who eat their i own cliches, the second a pair of drab office workers whose entire lives drain away from 9 to 5.

RECORDS

Liszt: Concerto No. 1, Les Preludes (New York Philharmonic. Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Andre Watts, pianist; Columbia) confirms the astonishing first impression that 16-year-old Pianist Watts made in his New York debut in January. Watts and Bernstein are in rapport in a fluent and subtle performance.

Bruckner: Mass No. 3 in F Minor (Berlin Symphony, St. Hedwig's Cathedral Choir, Karl Forster conducting; Pilar Lorengar, soprano, Christa Ludwig, alto, Josef Traxel, tenor, Walter Berry, bass; Angel) is a majestic work. Forster matches the full voice of his orchestra to the choral glories of the Mass, and only Soprano Lorengar's obvious struggling brings him down to earth again,

Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle (Mercury) is a worthy love offering by the friends of the late Bela Bartok. It is an all-Hungarian recording of Bartok's only opera, with Old Friend Basso Mihaly Szekely singing the lead, and Old Friend Antal Dorati conducting. The performances are more devoted than the music justifies: the opera remains a penny poem.

Nielsen: Symphony No. 5 (New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Columbia) is an excited reading of the seldom-heard work of the late Danish composer Carl Nielsen. Nielsen's melodious, strongly rhythmed music sounds like a primer to Shostakovich, and Bernstein makes the most of all its frenzied drama. It is, above all, a showcase for the Philharmonic's superb percussionists.

Purcell: Come Ye Sons of Art (Alfred Deller, countertenor; Vanguard) is a happy new appearance of Purcell's birthday music for Queen Mary, this time with Deller and his countertenor son, Mark, sharing the sublime duet.

Vivaldi: Gloria (Roger Wagner Chorale; Angel) is a rendition of Vivaldi at his festive best. The choir gets a bit thick at times, but the soloists are excellent and the recording is rich and sonorous.

Oistrakh (Monitor) presents David Oistrakh and his son, Igor, in a good collection of works for virtuosi violins: Haydn's Duo in B Flat, Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins, Honegger's Sonatina, and Louis Spohr's Duetto II in D Major. The Oistrakhs play magnificently.

BOOKS

Best Reading

Lawd Today, by Richard Wright. Writ ten before Native Son, but now published for the first time (three years after Wright's death), this novel of a brutalized Chicago Negro in the 1930s is a grim reminder of a time, not long ago, when the pain caused by race prejudice was mainly economic.

The Conservative Enemy, by C.A.R.

Crosland. A hard-minded British socialist hits out at fossilized economic thinking not only in his Tory enemies but by wel fare-state dogmatists in his own party.

A Favourite of the Gods, by Sybille Bed ford. Grand opera without music, about the dynastic rich of 19th century Europe, by a novelist with a fine feel for the trials of being wellborn.

A Fortune in Dimes, by Mary Carter. A sardonic look at the beachbound aborigines of Pasadena, where in the author's view teen culture embraces all ages, and life is full, rich and empty.

On Revolution, by Hannah Arendt. In a shrewd study, Historian Arendt examines the long-held notion that revolutions cure social ills, concludes that most of them do more harm than good.

That Summer in Paris, by Morley Callaghan. How it was on the Left Bank in the 1920s by a Canadian writer who once knocked Hemingway down in a boxing match while Scott Fitzgerald kept time.

V., by Thomas Pynchon. A disordered but engaging first novel about alligators in a city sewer system, and a zany hero's search for the meaning of the letter V.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour An Introduction, Salinger (2, last week)

2. Seven Days in May, Knebel and Bailey (1)

3. The Sand Pebbles, McKenna (3)

4. Fail-Safe, Burdick and Wheeler (4)

5. The Moon-Spinners, Stewart (5)

6. Triumph, Wylie (6)

7. The Glass-Blowers, Du Maurier

8. The Tin Drum, Grass

9. $100 Misunderstanding, Gover (9)

10. The Moonflower Vine, Carleton (7)

NONFICTION

1. Travels with Charley, Steinbeck (1)

2. The Whole Truth and Nothing But, Hopper (3)

3. The Fire Next Time, Baldwin (7)

4. Final Verdict, St. Johns (4)

5. O Ye Jigs & Juleps!, Hudson (5)

6. The Fall of the Dynasties, Taylor (8)

7. The Points of My Compass, White (6)

8. My Life in Court, Nizer (10)

9. Silent Spring, Carson (9)

10. The Feminine Mystique, Friedan

* All times E.S.T.

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