Cinema: Sep. 29, 1961

The Devil’s Eye. Don Juan, as resuscitated by Sweden’s Director Ingmar Bergman, comes up from Hell on a mission of seduction and falls calamitously in love with an average 20th century girl. A laboriously symbolized comedy that flashes intermittently with brilliant insights into the heights and depths of life.

Come September. A pleasantly wacky new twist to the ancient game of belling the wolf, with Rock Hudson as an American millionaire who once a year visits his Italian mistress (Gina Lollobrigida) at his palatial villa on the Italian Riviera.

A Thunder of Drums, the best western so far in 1961, is three kinds of a durn good show: 1) a flawed but earnest attempt to portray the making of a man and a soldier; 2) a carefully untheatrical, affectionately vernacular attempt to revive the daily life of a frontier fort in the 1870s; 3) a masterly attempt to show what fighting Indians was really like.

Ada. Despite an overly cute central idea and the flim-flamboyance of Star Susan Hayward, competent script and direction make this a pleasant political comedy about the road from bawdyhouse to Governor’s mansion.

Blood and Roses. Filmed at the Emperor Hadrian’s villa outside Rome under the direction of Roger Vadim (And God Created Woman), this eerie tale of a lady vampire is the most subtle, careful and beautiful of the current crop of chillers.

Homicidal. Made in imitation of Hitchcock’s Psycho, it surpasses its model in structure, suspense and sheer nervous drive.

The Honeymoon Machine. It is really the Hollywood machine, in a rare moment of felicitous clank, turning out the slick, quick, funny film for which it was designed—in this case, about three young people who use a computer to assault the casino in Venice.

The Parent Trap. The delightful story of teen-age twins who try to kid their divorced parents into remarrying—both twins played by Hayley Mills, biggest child star since Temple and a better actress than Shirley was.

The Sand Castle. In a charming but not cloyingly sweet story, a little boy builds a castle of sand so stunning that it merits inclusion in Sir Bannister Fletcher’s History of Architecture, while the camera roams in satiric asides among the flesh castles strewn on the beach.

TELEVISION

Wed., Sept. 27

Steve Allen Show (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).* PREMIÈRE. New season, new network, old company.

Victor Borge Special (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). A special program hails the 20th anniversary of the Danish funnyman’s discovery of America. Hermione Gingold (with her cello) and Concert Pianist Leonid Hambro are guests.

Carnegie Hall Salutes Jack Benny (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). A tribute to the eminent violinist, taped last April. With Isaac Stern, Van Cliburn, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Benny Goodman and his sextet, and Roberta Peters.

Thurs., Sept 28

J.F.K. Report (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The New Frontier, discussed by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Senators Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirksen, Representatives John McCormack and Charles Halleck and news commentators.

Hazel (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). PREMIÈRE. Situation comedy with Shirley Booth as a lovably obstreperous domestic.

Fri., Sept. 29

Bell Telephone Hour (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). SEASON PREMIÈRE. Guests: Harry Belafonte and Rosemary Clooney. Color.

Father of the Bride (CBS, 9:30-10 p.m.). PREMIÈRE. A new comedy series based on the Edward Streeter novel. Leon Ames plays the title role.

Sat., Sept. 30

Magic Ranch (ABC, 11:30 a.m.-noon). Children’s program, given over entirely to sleight-of-hand tricks, illusions, conjurings and other magical marvels.

Sun., Oct. 1

Adlai Stevenson Reports (ABC, 3-3:30 p.m.). PREMIÈRE. The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations begins biweekly résumés of international events.

Ed Sullivan Show (CBS, 8-9 p.m.). SEASON PREMIÈRE. Brigitte Bardot, Jackie Gleason and Gene Kelly in Paris, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in London, Phil Silvers and the McGuire Sisters in New York, belly dances in Istanbul, and travelogues from Rome to Hong Kong.

Mon., Oct. 2

Calendar (CBS, 10-10:30 a.m.). PREMIÈRE. A new daily program for women with news and news features as its target.

Tues., Oct. 3

Calvin and the Colonel (ABC, 8:30-9 p.m.). PREMIÈRE. Cartoon series with the voices of Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the original Amos ‘n’ Andy.

BOOKS

Best Reading

Selected Tales, by Nikolai Leskov. In this well translated collection, U.S. readers can sample the half-world of firebirds, angels and demons of the old Russian skaz—a narrative form which the author made famous in his own country.

Faces in the Water, by Janet Frame. Sharing the sensitivity and control of her compatriots Katherine Mansfield and Sylvia Ashton-Warner, this New Zealand author has written a brilliant, largely autobiographical novel about nine long years in a mental institution, with cool sympathy and warm love for the sane and insane alike.

When My Girl Comes Home, by V. S. Pritchett. In these short stories, a first-rate writer and critic (Britain’s New Statesman), with a gift for spotting the seeds of madness in the most prosaic minds, catches his characters in mid-flight with the bright, startled vividness of an exploding flashbulb.

Franny and Zooey, by J. D. Salinger. The author’s first work in hardcover since Nine Stories (1953), a reprinting of two long New Yorker stories about the seven prodigious Glass siblings, is a joyous, balanced, masterly book, convoluted and mystical enough to fuel dormitory debates for several seasons.

The Age of Reason Begins, by Will and Ariel Durant. In the first volume of a trilogy with which he hopes to complete his formidable Story of Civilization, the author (assisted by his wife) examines the 16th and 17th centuries with admirably balanced but sometimes passionless rationalism.

Kidnap, by George Waller. This meticulous account adds nothing to what is known about the Lindbergh kidnaping, but it summarizes well the bizarre, tragic events of crime and capture.

Ippolita, by Alberto Denti di Pirajino. Highly reminiscent of The Leopard, and written, as was that excellent novel, by an aging Sicilian duke, Ippolita draws an evocative portrait of semifeudal Italian society amid the first revolutionary stirrings in the early 19th century. The author depicts princes, peasants and his skinflint heroine with melodramatic gusto, but his most exact and memorable character is the past itself.

An End to Glory, by Pierre-Henri Simon. Writing an eloquent antiwar tract in the form of a novel, the author recounts the agony of a French professional soldier who, in Algeria, comes to believe that his is an ignoble role in a shameful war.

The Road Past Mandalay, by John Masters. Another face of war—the pride and nobility of fighting men at their best—is the concern of the author, who tells, more convincingly than in any of his novels, of his World War II service with the Indian army in the East.

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. The Carpetbaggers, Robbins (6)

4. Mila 18, Uris (3)

5. Tropic of Cancer, Miller (5)

6. The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck (4)

7. The Edge of Sadness, O’Connor (7)

8. Franny and Zooey, Salinger (9)

9. Rembrandt, Schmitt (8)

10. Clock Without Hands, McCullers

NONFICTION

1. The Making of the President 1960, White (2)

2. A Nation of Sheep, Lederer (4)

3. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (1)

4. Inside Europe Today, Gunther (3)

5. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, Kennan (7)

6. Ring of Bright Water, Maxwell (6)

7. The New English Bible (5)

8. The Sheppard Murder Case, Holmes (8)

9. The Spanish Civil War, Thomas

10. Nobody Knows My Name, Baldwin (10)

* All times are E.D.T.

* Position on last week’s list.