CINEMA

The Horse's Mouth. Alec Guinness is hilarious as a mildewed Michelangelo. But the cinemadaptation of Joyce Cary's magnificent novel of rant does not come straight from, seems rather to whicker out of the side of The Horse's Mouth.

The Last Hurrah. No resemblance to persons living or dead is intended, but patrons will be permitted more or less I fond memories of Boston's late Jim Curley-with Spencer Tracy.

Damn Yankees. A hot time in the old home town tonight, as a couple of devil's advocates, Ray Walston and Dancer Gwen Verdon, get involved with the Washington Senators.

Me and the Colonel. Consistently funny and often touching is this lesson in life-manship taught by a meek, ingenious Polish refugee (Danny Kaye). His unwilling pupil: a blustering, medieval-minded Polish officer (Curt Juergens).

From Abroad

The Seventh Seal (Swedish). The photography is lovely, the form obscure (a medieval morality play), and only those who react to the highly exotic will find the film unreservedly tasty.

Pather Panchali (Indian). A down-and-out Indian family, as seen through the accurate eyes of Director Savajit Ray.

TELEVISION

Wed., Nov. 26

Armstrong Circle Theater (CBS, 10-11 .).* Douglas Edwards' narrations of true events have been as dull as dandruff so far, but the story of the Nautilus' subPolar Cap run ought to restore tingle to many a scalp.

Thurs., Nov. 27

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (NBC, 12 a.m.). The traditional holiday feasts of comic-strip characters three-stories high, floats, bands; Bert Parks and Frank Blair are the breathless M.C.s.

Fri., Nov. 28

Your Hit Parade (CBS, 7:30-8 p.m.). Blind British Jazz Pianist George Sheaing in one of his rare TV appearances, lends his intricately stylized support to regulars Johnny Desmond and Dorothy Collins.

Sat., Nov. 29

Comedy and Music (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). Victor Borge, a Danish piano player of some promise who also indulges in odd forms of recitative, returns to TV for the first time since February; Ballerina Alicia Markova tries to get a foot in edgewise. Steve Canyon (NBC, 9-9:30 p.m.). NBC is using H-bombs against Champion Showman Borge--film clips, recently declassified, of nuclear tests at Bikini.

Sun., Nov. 30

File 7 (ABC, 11:30-12 noon). For those looking for new sport, Whaleman Edourd A. Stackpole explains the gentle art of catching the leviathan, and includes some movies of six men who went after one with an old steel harpoon.

Kaleidoscope (NBC, 5-6 p.m.). Backstage at the Radio City Music Hall, including shots of auditions, rehearsals, costume fitting and snippets of the stage show.

Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf (ABC, 5-6 p.m.). A rewrite of Prokofiev's light opera, with Paul Weston doing the variations on the themes, and Ogden Nash, who is never at a loss for rhyme or reason, providing the lyrics.

Preview (CBS 5-6 p.m.). A new monthly series with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic and talking a blue streak about the music. On the program: Beethoven's Ninth, with Leontyne Price and the Westminster Choir.

Small World (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). The Murrow stare falls on ex-Prexy Harry S. Truman and British ex-P.M. Clem Attlee. Their topic: the differences between U.S. and British constitutional government.

The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). First of a two-part study of drug addiction, with secretly taken films of junkies in action.

Wonderful Town (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Nearly two years on Broadway rate two hours on TV, and Rosalind Russell rates cheers as the heroine of this musical version of My Sister Eileen; with most of the original cast.

Mon., Dec. 1

Bold Journey (ABC, 8:30-9 p.m.). Around the world in half an hour with Seattle Schoolteacher Billy-Marie Gannon, who won the trip in a contest pronouncing her boldest journeyer of them all.

THEATER

On Broadway

La Plume de Ma Tante. A mad, charming, Gallic revue that uses bad English when it has to, but more often the international language of leers and leaps, pratfalls and double takes.

The Pleasure of His Company. A suave drawing-room comedy about a middle aged playboy who teaches his daughter to sip champagne before she settles down to the domestic orange juice of marriage. Cyril Ritchard, Cornelia Otis Skinner.

A Touch of the Poet. One of Eugene O'Neill's favorite themes--man's addiction to illusion--reappears in a sprawling but powerful tale of a boozing innkeeper and his crumbling pose as a fine gentleman. With Eric Portman, Helen Hayes.

The Music Man. With Robert Preston starring in Meredith Willson's jamboree, it seems like the Fourth of July all season.

My Fair Lady. Bernard Shaw, once a bone-crushing music critic, might just possibly have approved this musicomedy masterpiece fashioned from his Pygmalion.

On Tour

My Fair Lady, in CHICAGO, Music Man in SAN FRANCISCO are reasonable facsimiles of the Broadway originals (see above).

Look Back in Anger. A choleric young man at war with the world makes for uneven but fairly arresting theater. In NEW HAVEN.

Ballets: U.S.A. The American scene as expressed in dance form by brilliant Choreographer Jerome Robbins. In CHICAGO.

Twelfth Night & Henry V. New vigor from the Old Vic. In TORONTO.

Auntie Mame. The Mame's the same--that is, wonderfully wacky and intermittently funny--whether played by Constance Bennett in CHICAGO, Eve Arden in SAN FRANCISCO, or fast-moving Sylvia Sidney in DAVENPORT, BURLINGTON (Iowa) and ST. PAUL.

BOOKS

Best Reading

The Prospects Are Pleasing, by Honor Tracy. "Errorland" is what James Joyce called Ireland and so does Honor Tracy in this clever fictional spoof. The lady smiles when she says it.

Henry Adams: The Middle Years, by Ernest Samuels. The second volume of a projected three-volume biography of the brilliant Boston Brahmin focused on the happy years when witty, vivacious Marian ("Clover") Hooper was Adams' Eve.

Brave New World Revisited, by Aldous Huxley. One of the 20th century's brightest gloomologers decides that fact has caught up with his 1932 horror fiction.

Leyte, by Samuel Eliot Morison. One of history's decisive naval engagements masterfully recreated.

Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Truman Capote. Holly Golightly, a kind of corn-pone geisha, weaves her way through a ribald and strangely touching story.

Mistress to an Age, by J. Christopher Herold. A topnotch biography of Mme. de Stael, who was equally at home in the drawing rooms, council rooms and bedrooms of Revolutionary France.

Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery. Prickly Monty needles friend and foe.

Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak. The novel that clinched the Nobel Prize for Russia's greatest living man of letters, since forced by the Soviet's brain-distrust-ers to reject the award.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. Brilliant, hilarious and horrifying, the book is a shocker, but also a memorable work of fictional art.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Doctor Zhivago, Pasternak (1)

2. Lolita, Nabokov (2)

3. Around the World with Auntie Mame,

Dennis (3)

4. Women and Thomas Harrow,

Marquand (4)

5. The Ugly American,

Lederer and Burdick (9) 6. Anatomy of Murder, Traver (6) 7, Angelique, Colon 8. The Best of Everything, Jaffe (5) 9. The Mountain Is Young, Han Suyin (8) 10. Exodus, Uris (7) NONFICTION 1. Only in America, Golden (1) 2. Aku-Aku, Heyerdahl (2) 3. The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery (3) 4. Baa Baa Black Sheep, Boyington (7) 5, Inside Russia Today, Gunther (4) 6. On My Own, Roosevelt (5) 7. The Affluent Society, Galbraith (6) 8. The New Testament in Modern English, translated by Phillips (9) Kids Say the Darndest Things! Linkletter 10. Double Exposure, Vanderbilt and Furness (Numbers in parentheses indicate last week's position.)

* All times E.S.T

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