Middle of the Night. The tortured romance between an aging, lonely widower (Fredric March) and a girl young enough to be his daughter (Kim Novak), in a brilliant screen version by Director Delbert (Marty) Mann, emerges as the best of Playwright Paddy Chayefsky’s odes to the commonplace.
Street of Shame (Japanese). A study of prostitution in Japan, made by the late Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu) in a mood that merges Dickens and modern documentary.
The Rabbit Trap. A gentle little tract for the times that describes how a yes man learned to say no.
Pork Chop Hill. Director Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front), working from S.L.A. Marshall’s Korean battle report, tells the heart-racking story of a latter-day Thermopylae.
Gideon of Scotland Yard. Cinemactor Jack Hawkins as a henpecked inspector in a fresh and frantic thriller.
Ask Any Girl. David Niven tries some seductive motivational research on Shirley MacLaine, a Raggedy Antic charmer.
The Roof (Italian). Sociology plus romance: how a housing shortage affects the love life of the Roman poor, shown with gentle realism.
Room at the Top. A tragicomedy of Angry Young Manners about a Julien Sorel of the welfare state. Sometimes embarrassingly close to caricature, it remains one of the best British pictures in years.
Compulsion. Leopold and Loeb’s brutal “crime of the century” re-created in a tight, suspenseful film.
The Diary of Anne Frank. One of Hollywood’s masterpieces.
Some Like It Hot. The falls are strictly prat as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis dress up like girls; luckily enough, so does Marilyn Monroe.
TELEVISION
Wed., July 1
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
(ABC, 8:30-9 p.m.).* As the befuddled dad, Old Pro Ozzie Nelson is one of the canniest comics around. His stooges this time: a Shetland pony and a screenful of crafty kiddies.
U.S. Steel Hour (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Eddie Albert as a Middle-of-the-Nightish farmer, Carol Lawrence as a nubile young neighbor. May-December and all that.
Thurs., July 2
21 Beacon Street (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). First crack out of the gat for the network’s newest private investigator. Dennis Morgan stars as a man with a flair for strategy; Joanna Barnes is his tactical aide-de-camp.
Fri., July 3
Walt Disney Presents (ABC, 8-9 p.m.). For the presumed delight of dog lovers everywhere, an hour-long Odyssey of the least probable hound of them all, Pluto.
Colgate Western Theatre (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). Rancher Jimmy Stewart all roped up in dilemma: Should he win that thar $500 shootin’ contest and thereby reveal a gun-totin’ past or throw the match and lose the cash he needs to keep his cattle? First of a repeat-laden summer replacement series.
Sun., July 5 Johns Hopkins File 7 (ABC, 12:30-I p.m.). A far-out 16th century cat who made the world go ’round. The life and hard times of Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.
The Chevy Show (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). While Dinah summers in Europe, off-Shore rights to one of NBC’s fanciest time spots are held by Singers Janet Blair and John Raitt.
Mon., July 6 Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to Chicago
(NBC, 1:30-2 p.m.).
Pantomime Quiz (ABC, 9-9:30 p.m.). A parade of charades. Diverting potpourri, even if too many kooks sometimes spoil the broth. M.C. Mike Stokie stirs up more of the same every weekday. 12:30-1 p.m.
Tues., July 7 The Andy Williams Show (CBS, 10-II p.m.). The proprietor of last summer’s sprightliest replacement back for another easy-to-take whirl.
THEATER
Broadway
A Raisin in the Sun. The troubled saga of a South Side Chicago Negro family.
J.B. Poet Archibald MacLeish’s uneven but exciting verse drama around the tribulations of a modern Job.
La Plume de Ma Tante. A French revue as funny and almost as silent as a Keystone Cops movie (recess July 6-Aug. 3).
In the musical comedy division, My Fair Lady and The Music Man continue tops, with Flower Drum Song offering second-drawer but pleasant Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Straw-Hat Ogunquit, Me., Playhouse: Nina, a bedroom farce with Shirley Booth.
Dennis, Mass., Cape Playhouse: S. N. Behrman’s drawing-room comedy, Biography, with Faye Emerson.
Westport, Conn., County Playhouse: Shaw’s Arms and the Man, with Tony Randall (until July 4); A Piece of Blue Sky (new play).
Stratford, Conn., American Shakespeare Festival: alternating Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
East Hampton, N.Y., John Drew Theater: Dig We Must (new revue).
Abingdon, Va., Barter Theater: Voice of the Whirlwind (new play).
Dallas, Texas, State Fair Music Hall: Wish You Were Here, a poolside musical with Shirley Jones (through July 5); Friml’s swashbuckling old The Vagabond King, with Burgess Meredith.
Denver, Colo., Elitch Garden Theater: two recent Broadway comedies, Once More, With Feeling (through July 4); The Girls in 509.
Santa Fe, N. Mex., Summer Theater: Dark of the Moon, the old (1945), haunting backwoods musical.
La Jolla, Calif., Playhouse: Look Homeward Angel, with Miriam Hopkins.
BOOKS
Best Reading
The Great Impostor, by Robert Crichton. The astonishing biography of a rascally and unbalanced genius named Fred Demara Jr., who successfully changed identities with the ease of a child changing daydreams. At various times he appeared (among dozens of other types) as a Canadian navy surgeon, a teacher among Eskimos, a prison warden, and as a member of half a dozen different religious orders.
Robert Rogers of the Rangers, by John R. Cuneo. An able biography of the deadly bushfighter who made his commando-like Rangers the most feared unit in the French and Indian War, only to die years later in undeserved disgrace.
The Bridge on the Drina, by Ivo Andric. An elegiac novel by a fine Yugoslav writer distills 300 years of his land’s history in an account of the idlers and warriors who passed over a beautiful stone bridge.
The Way It Was, by Harold Loeb. There were some real people behind most of the characters in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises—Lady Brett Ashley, Robert Cohn, his older mistress, etc. In a fascinating backward look, the author (who served as Cohn’s model) tells who was really who and how they lived, talked and drank in those nights before the sun rose.
The Zulu and the Zeide, by Dan Jacobson. First-rate short stories, most of them set in South Africa, in which the failings of whites are shown mercilessly against a black background.
Day Before Yesterday, by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. A warm biography of T.R.’s son, who failed to live up to his father’s greatness but added honor to the Roosevelt name in two world wars.
The Godstone and the Blackymor, by T. H. White. A whimsical, occasionally whiskified account of ramblings through Ireland, by the quirky medievalist who wrote The Once and Future King.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Exodus, Uri (1)*
2. The Ugly American, Lederer and Burdick (3)
3. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Lawrence (2)
4. Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak (4)
5. Dear and Glorious Physician, Caldwell (5)
6. Lolita, Nabokov (6)
7. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, Gallico (7)
8. The Light Infantry Ball, Basso (10)
9. Celia Garth, Bristow (9)
10. Love and Money, Clad
NONFICTION
1. The Status Seekers, Packard (1)
2. Mine Enemy Grows Older, King (2)
3. Only in America, Golden (4)
4. How I Turned $1,000 into $1,000,000 in Real Estate, Nickerson (3)
5. The Years with Ross, Thurber (5)
6. My Brother Was an Only Child, Douglas (6)
7. The House of Intellect, Barzun (7)
8. Elizabeth the Great, Jenkins (8)
9. What We Must Know About Communism, Harry and Bonaro Overstreet (9)
10. ‘Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Boone
* All times E.D.T.
* Position on last week’s list.
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