CINEMA Nikki, Wild Dog of the North. Walt Disney’s incessantly violent, incessantly beautiful adaptation of Nomads of the North, describing the early life and hard times of a Malemute pup that should delight young audiences.
Cold Wind in August. Good hard-mouth dialogue and a superb performance by Lola Albright will persuade most viewers to ignore the flaws in this film about a stripper’s love for a 17-year-old boy.
The Sand Castle. A gay and whimsical satire on sun worshipers and beach-bum muscle growers, centering on a little boy who builds a castle in the sand.
The Honeymoon Machine. An electronic computer helps three young people outsmart the Venice casino in a film that clicks cheerfully to a silly conclusion.
Fate of a Man. An excellent Russian film about a village carpenter whose life is shattered by war, based on a story by Mikhail (Quiet Don) Sholokhov.
The Parent Trap. The delightful story of teen-aged twins who try to kid their divorced parents into remarrying; both twins played by Hayley Mills.
TELEVISION
Thurs., Aug. 24
Summer Sports Spectacular (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).-On the Mississippi River at St. Paul, Minn., entrants from all over the free world compete in the international outboard motorboat championships.
At the Source (CBS, 10-10:30 p.m.). Eric Sevareid and Howard K. Smith talk to United Arab Republic President Gamal Abdel Nasser at his palace in Cairo.
Silents Please (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). A survey of oldtime serials, from 1914’s The Perils of Pauline to the cliffhangers of the ’20s.
Sat., Aug. 26
Wide World of Sports (ABC, 5-7 p.m.). National A.A.U. swimming and diving championships.
Sun., Aug. 27
Accent (CBS, 5-5:30 p.m.). At her 17th century palace in Venice, Peggy Guggenheim, expatriate U.S. art patron, is interviewed, following a TV viewing of her collection of 20th century art.
Meet the Press (NBC, 6-6:30 p.m.). Guest: Republican National Committee Chairman William Miller. Color.
Tues., Aug. 29
Focus on America (ABC, 7-7:30 p.m.). The story of William Jackson Palmer, the onetime Quaker who led the Pennsylvania 15th Cavalry in the Civil War, became a railroad builder and founded Colorado Springs and Colorado College.
THEATER
Broadway
Among the best from the past season, Jean Kerr’s Mary, Mary continues with sellout houses, and Shelagh Delaney’s raw and powerful A Taste of Honey is still on the boards as are the musicals Camelot
(Arthur and the Round Table), Carnival! (a Broadway version of the film Lili), and Irma La Douce (Parisian underworld). From the Pleistocene epoch: Fiorello!, a musical replanting of New York’s Little Flower; The Sound of Music, the last and most sentimental work of Rodgers & Hammerstein; and, of course, My Fair Lady, by George Lerner and Bernard Loewe.
Straw Hat
Ogunquit, Me., Playhouse: Future Perfect, with Donald Woods and Martha Scott, a pre-Broadway tryout.
Keene, N.H., Summer Theatre: Moon for the Misbegotten. Eugene O’Neill’s lesser-known drama of love and greed in New England.
Provincetown, Mass., Playhouse: One of Shaw’s oldest, Mrs. Warren’s Profession.
Falmouth, Mass., Playhouse: Father of the Bride, with William Bendix.
Stockbridge, Mass., Berkshire Playhouse: Agatha Christie’s dry icer, Ten Little Indians.
Boston, Arts Center Theater: Eva Le Gallienne in Maxwell Anderson’s Elizabeth the Queen.
Matunuck, R.I., Theatre-by-the-Sea: Sandy Wilson’s twirl through the ’20s, The Boy Friend.
Clinton, N.J., Hunterdon Hills Playhouse: Harvey, with Old Animal Interpreter Bert (The Cowardly Lion) Lahr.
New Hope, Pa., Bucks County Playhouse: A Whiff of Melancholy, a new play, directed by Burgess Meredith.
Chicago, Edgewater Beach Playhouse: Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, with Zero Mostel.
Highland Park, Ill., Chicago Music Theater: The King and I, with Patrice Munsel.
Appleton, Wis., Attic Theater: Cole Porter’s memorable (1935) Anything Goes; it still does.
Danville, Ky., Pioneer Theater: Oh Gentle Trout, a new comedy.
Dallas, State Fair Music Hall: Bye Bye Birdie, with Elaine Dunn, Bill Hayes and Joan Blondell.
Los Angeles, U.C.L.A. Theater: Eugene O’Neill’s epic evocation of his saloon days, The Iceman Cometh, directed by John Houseman and Ralph Senensky.
New York City, Central Park: Joseph Papp proves some of the best things are free with his sprightly production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Vancouver, B.C., International Theater: Do You Know the Milky Way, a European hit starring Hal (Mark Twain) Holbrook and George Voskovec.
Stratford, Ont., Shakespeare Festival: a new play, The Canvas Barricade, alternates with Henry VIII, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Coriolanus.
The Road
Sail Away, Noel Coward’s new musical, in its out-of-town debut at Boston’s Colonial Theater.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Collected Poems, by Robert Graves. The bent-nosed Jove of Majorca is no Yeats or Eliot, but he can outdistance these masters in evoking the moods of love, childhood, or the classic past. In his own right, he is an impressive poet, truer to his passions than to the literary fashions of his time.
A Season of Mists, by Honor Tracy. Part hoyden, part waif, and part Irish, this comic author loves to unstuff shirts, unstarch pomposity, and rip the cotton batting out of fuzzy minds. In her latest novel, an aging, 18-year-old Lolita dynamites a rich art fancier’s ivory tower.
An American Visitor, by Joyce Gary. Countless African novels draw their blacks and whites from paper-thin headlines. Gary, who fought in Africa in World War I and served there as a magistrate, brilliantly drew his characters from life. This early novel (1933) is topped only by his own memorable Mister Johnson.
Jimmy Riddle, by Ian Brook. In a more contemporary spoof on the mess in Africa, chiefly at the expense of the retreating British Empire, the author proves himself a Tarzan of the japes.
The Way to Colonos, by Kay Cicellis. A young Greek writer has borrowed characters and situations loosely from Sophocles, and the result is a trio of remarkably good short stories, touched by tragedy.
The Judges of the Secret Court, by David Stacton. A skillful and bitter account of the death of Assassin John Wilkes Booth and the trial and execution of the forlorn set of dupes and fools named as his fellow conspirators.
The Making of the President 1960, by Theodore H. White. A superb job of reporting the last presidential campaign.
The Spanish Civil War, by Hugh Thomas. The best account yet of this sad and savage war, the truth of which has been-buried by lies and lost allegiances.
The Faces of Justice, by Sybille Bedford. A sort of Baedeker of the European courtroom by a writer of extraordinary insight.
Best Sellers ( previously included in TIME’S choice of Best Reading)
FICTION 1. The Agony and the Ecstasy,Stone (1)* 2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (2) 3. Mila 18, Uris (3) 4. The Edge of Sadness, O’Connor (5) 5. The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck (4) 6. The Carpetbaggers, Robbins (6) 7. Tropic of Cancer, Miller (7) 8. Rembrandt, Schmitt (8) 9. A Shooting Star, Stegner (9) 10. Mothers and Daughters, Hunter
NONFICTION 1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (1) 2. The Making of the President 1960,White (3) 3. A Nation of Sheep, Lederer (2) 4. Inside Europe Today, Gunther (7) 5. The New English Bible (5) 6. Ring of Bright Water,Maxwell (4) 7. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, Kennan (6) 8. The Spanish Civil War, Thomas (10) 9. Firsthand Report, Adams (8) 10. My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, Parks (9)
* All times are E.D.T. * Position on last week’s list.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Breaking Down the 2024 Election Calendar
- How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador
- What if Ultra-Processed Foods Aren’t as Bad as You Think?
- How Ukraine Beat Russia in the Battle of the Black Sea
- Long COVID Looks Different in Kids
- How Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Americans’ Health
- What a $129 Frying Pan Says About America’s Eating Habits
- The 32 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024
Contact us at letters@time.com