Circle of Deception. An ingenious spy thriller, set in pre-D-day France, that raises some subtle and uncomfortable questions of political morality.

Facts of Life. A satirical, sometimes wonderfully nutty comedy of manners--and the funniest U.S. film since The Apartment--casts Bob Hope as a middleclass, middle-aged philanderer fumbling after Lucille Ball, and perhaps after the meaning of marriage.

The Wackiest Ship in the Army. A World War II farce about a rickety schooner's passage through a Jap-infested ocean is floated only through the splendiferous shenanigans of Jack Lemmon.

Where the Boys Are. A corny, raucous outburst of sorority sex-talk on a Florida spring vacation that intellectual movie-goers will loathe themselves for liking.

Ballad of a Soldier (in Russian). A journey through war-weary Russia, full of bone-jarring energy and creative gaiety.

Make Mine Mink. British Comedian Terry-Thomas' usual weedy charm and blithering idiocy wonderfully enliven a piece about a retired major turned modern Robin Hood.

Other notable current attractions: The Angry Silence, Tunes of Glory, Exodus, The Sundowners and The Virgin Spring.

TELEVISION

Tues., Jan. 31

Expedition! (ABC, 7-7:30 p.m.).* Part II of a BBC-sponsored safari to the Kalahari desert to find "The Last of the Bushmen."

Bobby Darin and His Friends (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). A special splash--and also splish--for the 24-year-old singer. The "friends" include Bob Hope. Color.

The Square World of Jack Paar (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Filmed segments of Paar's recent grand tour during which he fought a bull in Spain, gondolarked through Venice, touched down in both zones of Berlin.

Wed., Feb. 1

Armstrong Circle Theater (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). "The Spy Next Door," a dramatization about Soviet intelligence operations in the U.S.

Thurs., Feb. 2

CBS Reports (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). A study of contemplated medical care plans, including interviews with A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany, A.M. A President-elect Dr. Leonard W. Larson and former Senator Herbert Lehman.

Fri., Feb. 3

The Bell Telephone Hour (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Paul Whiteman conducts Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue on a show also featuring Roberta Peters, Carol Lawrence and Polly Bergen as hostess. Color.

Sat., Feb. 4

Palm Springs Second Annual Golf Classic (CBS, 4:30-6 p.m.). Live coverage of a pro-amateur tourney teaming the game's top stars with show-business personalities.

Sun., Feb. 5

Meet the Professor (ABC, 12-12:30 p.m.). Narrator Harold Taylor, former president of Sarah Lawrence College, launches the series visiting Amherst College Historian Henry Steele Commager.

The Sunday Sports Spectacular (CBS, 2:30-4 p.m.). "Auto Racing from the Bahamas" during the Seventh Annual Nassau Speed Week.

The NBC Opera (NBC, 3-5 p.m.). A reprise of the fine network-commissioned English version of Beethoven's Fidelia. Color.

Palm Springs Second Annual Golf Classic (CBS, 4-5:30 p.m.). Another day, another chance at the $100,000 in prizes.

Omnibus (NBC, 5-6 p.m.). "Abraham Lincoln: The Early Years," a repeat for the superb James Agee script, starring Joanne Woodward and Royal Dano.

The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). "Ireland: The Tear and the Smile," the second of a two-program report, with guests ranging from Actress Siobhan McKenna to Writer Sean O'Faolain and Designer Sybil Connolly.

Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). The Mediterranean is the prize in "Hinge of Fate."

Mon., Feb. 6

Close-Up! (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). "X-Pilot," the story of Test Pilot Scott Crossfield and the rocket-powered X-15.

THEATER

On Broadway

Midseason on Broadway finds an unfavorable balance of dramatic trade, with the two most provocative original plays and the liveliest musicals all imported. Rhinoceros, a farcical-satirical assault on conformity by France's perky avant-gardist Eugene Ionesco, is somewhat obvious and farfetched but also exhilarating--particularly when Star Zero Mostel virtually turns himself into a rhinoceros onstage. A Taste of Honey, a first play by Britain's young (19 at the time) Shelagh Delaney, is an unhistrionic, earthy drama about a desperately lonely girl. And the musical Irma La Douce, French to its very bedposts, boasts Broadway's most charming chippy, Elizabeth Seal.

The domestic dramas include two adaptations from novels, All the Way Home, which transmits much of the poetry and power of James Agee's A Death in the Family, and Advise and Consent, a brisk and tense political melodrama taken from the Allen Drury bestseller. Also of note: Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment, a lively comedy-lecture on marital success that is forced more often than forceful.

Among the musicals, Camelot compensates for a weak book with its opulent sets, some fine Lerner-Loewe tunes and Star Richard Burton. Do Re Mi, a Runyonesque piece about jukebox racketeering, is nearly salvaged by the inspired antics of Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker.

And two of the season's most small-scale and sprawling efforts are also its sprightliest--Show Girl, a zingy satirical revue in which Carol Channing takes on show business, and An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May, a freewheeling and hilarious look at all the world.

BOOKS

Best Reading

Fate Is the Hunter, by Ernest K. Gann. A novelist (The High and the Mighty) and oldtime airline pilot, the author tells eloquently about the attrition of confidence, caused by too many close scrapes and too many dead comrades, that persuaded him to give up piloting.

The Future of Mankind, by Karl Jaspers. The prose of an author who is both a German and an existentialist is bound to be somewhat murky, but Jaspers advances powerful arguments against both easy despair and easy optimism about the human condition.

Raditzer, by Peter Matthiessen. Writing with an incisiveness that recalls Conrad, Novelist Matthiessen tells a harsh tale of a parasite and a host--the one a whining Army goldbricker, the other a strong and decent man who is subtly chivied into becoming the sniveler's protector.

The White Nile, by Alan Moorehead. In a highly readable history the author sketches--sometimes too sketchily--the exploits of the remarkable Victorians, including Stanley, Livingstone, Gordon and Kitchener, who traced and pacified the upper reaches of the Nile.

Parodies--An Anthology from Chaucer to Beerbohm and After, edited by Dwight Macdonald. The editor has put together his excellent collection with wit as well as paste, and has included examples of an important subspecies of parody--the lampoon an author writes unintentionally of his own work.

Among the Dangs, by George P. Elliott. Strange, unsettling, skillfully done stories by a new author whose subjects range from a weird expedition among cannibals to a totalitarian solution to the race problem.

Shadows in the Grass, by Isak Dinesen. Crystalline recollections by Denmark's greatly gifted author of a decade (1921-31) spent in Kenya; her theme, written as an elegy, is the relation of master and servant.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)*

2. Hawaii, Michener (2)

3. Sermons and Soda-Water, O'Hara (3)

4. The Last of the Just, Schwarz-Bart (4)

5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (8)

6. The Dean's Watch, Goudge (6)

7. Decision at Delphi, Maclnnes (5)

8. The Lovely Ambition, Chase (7)

9. Pomp and Circumstance, Coward (9)

10. Rabbit, Run, Updike

NONFICTION

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

2. The Waste Makers, Packard (2)

3. Who Killed Society? Amory (4)

4. The Snake Has All the Lines, Kerr (3)

5. Born Free, Adamson (5)

6. The Politics of Upheaval, Schlesinger (9)

7. Baruch: The Public Years, (8)

8. Vanity Fair ed. by Amory and Bradlee (6)

9. The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (7)

10. We Hold These Truths, Murray (10)

* All times E.S.T.

* Position on last week's list.

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