CINEMA

Macario. A gifted Mexican director and cameraman make a touching ceremony out of B. Traven's profound little fable of the woodcutter who sups with Death.

The Hustler. A young pool shark (Paul Newman) takes on the old champion (Jackie Gleason) in a sort of chivalric joust on the Cloth of Green. In the hands of Director Robert Rossen, the uncouth theme rings as true as a struck spittoon.

The Mark. A serious and compassionate examination of an uncomfortably sensational theme: the rehabilitation of a man convicted of molesting a small girl.

The Man Who Wagged His Tail. Peter Ustinov plays the villain, and a four-footed Italian actor named Caligola plays Peter Ustinov in this comic allegory about a Brooklyn slumlord who is magically changed into a dog.

The Devil's Eye. Sweden's Director Ingmar Bergman brings Don Juan up from Hell on a mission of seduction, and an average 20th century girl sends him back more melancholy than ever for having learned what love is.

A Thunder of Drums. The best western so far this year is a masterly attempt to show what fighting Indians was really like.

Ada. Sharp direction makes a pleasant political comedy out of Novelist Wirt Williams' variation on the American dream; A Louisiana doxy marries a gubernatorial candidate, winds up first lady of the state.

Blood and Roses. Filmed at 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 of the current chillers.

TELEVISION

Wed., Oct. 18

The Bob Newhart Show (NBC, 10-10:30 p.m.).* Skits and monologues by one of the U.S.'s outstanding young comedians. Color.

David Brinkley's Journal (NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.). Maybe crime pays after all--at least Brinkley plans to reopen the question. Tonight's guest: Robert F. Kennedy. Color.

Thurs., Oct. 19

Purex Special for Women (NBC, 3-4 p.m.). After last season's investigations of everything from sexual frigidity to the problems of the single woman, the show returns to the air with a documentary drama called "What's Wrong with Men?"

CBS Reports (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). From the Tigris and Euphrates to the Feather River and the Colorado, the importance of water in the development of civilizations is examined in "The Water Famine."

Fri., Oct. 20

The Hallmark Hall of Fame (NBC, 8:30-10:30 p.m.). Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson in a repeat of last year's superb production of Macbeth, much of which was filmed at Scotland's Hermitage Castle. Color.

Eyewitness to History (CBS, 10:30-11 p.m.). The week's top news event, depth-wise.

Sat., Oct. 21

Accent (CBS, 1:30-2 p.m.). Poet John Ciardi takes over as host of the series. Today's subject: "The Rebellious Mind Behind the Iron Curtain."

Saturday Night at the Movies (NBC, 9-11 p.m.). James Mason and Jessica Tandy in 20th Century-Fox's controversial biography of Nazi General Erwin Rommel, The Desert Fox. Color.

Fight of the Week (ABC, 10 p.m. to the finish). Sugar Ray Robinson v. Denny Moyer.

Sun., Oct. 22

Wisdom (NBC, 5-5:30 p.m.). A talk with Pablo Picasso. Color.

The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). The 1956 revolt in Hungary. Repeat.

Du Pont Show of the Week (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Groucho Marx narrates a history of the automobile in the U.S. Color.

THEATER

On Broadway

The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter. In a junk-filled London room, two odd brothers and a tramp, memorably played by Donald Pleasence, illuminate the perennial questions of man's isolation from, his need for, and his quirky rejection of, his fellow man.

Among the holdovers from the past season, Mary, Mary incites full houses to laugh along with Playwright Jean Kerr. In Camelot, a new King Arthur (William Squire) presides over the Round Table. Irma La Douce is still the most delectable way to tour the Parisian underworld. Broadway's Carnival! yields nothing to its Hollywood model Lili in poignance and charm--and there is always the grande dame of Manhattan's musicals, My Fair Lady.

Off Broadway

Misalliance, by George Bernard Shaw. A happy tour de farce, written in 1910, in which G.B.S. changes his ideas every quarter-hour, and the ideas seem scarcely older, even after a half-century.

BOOKS

Best Reading

Sinclair Lewis, by Mark Schorer. The author piles up details with the enthusiasm of a squirrel in autumn, and almost succeeds in burying a fascinating biography of the scourge of Babbittry, who, throughout his years of self-exile, never really left Gopher Prairie.

A New Life, by Bernard Malamud. The author, known as a skilled allegorist for his previous novels (The Natural, The Assistant), is less successful as a writer of realistic fiction, but this novel of an Eastern intellectual's losing battle with the muscular positivism of a Western land college is nevertheless notable for its tender, Chekhovian quality.

The Adams Papers, edited by L. H. Butterfield. In the first four volumes of a projected 100-volume collection of memorabilia from the U.S.'s most noted diplomatic family, the nation's second President delivers forceful opinions on matters ranging from French jokes (shameful) to British agriculture (U.S. manure is better).

H. L. Mencken on Music, a selection by Louis Cheslock, and Letters of H. L. Mencken, a selection by Guy J. Forgue. The '20's most gifted student of the ridiculous is at his most eloquent and outrageous in these two well-chosen samplers.

Selected Tales, by Nikolai Leskov. The brilliance of this 19th century Russian author is still to be discovered by most Western readers; this collection shows him to be a taleteller of eloquence and subtle power.

Faces in the Water, by Janet Frame. Written with skill and sympathy, this novel of life in a mental institution is an unforgettable evocation of madness.

Franny and Zooey, by J. D. Salinger. The guru of The New Yorker abstracts two stories from his cycle-in-progress on the Glass family; the result is a masterly double novella, strongly flavored with both eccentricity and genius, of a girl's brush with religious obsession.

When My Girl Comes Home, by V. S. Pritchett. Dry and controlled tales by a Briton with a keen eye for the madness that squirms in view when the ordinary is overturned.

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.

Ippolita, by Alberto Denti di Pirajno. 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.

Best Sellers

(previously included in TIME'S choice of Best Reading)

FICTION

1. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Stone (2)*

2. Franny and Zooey, Salinger (1)

3. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (3)

4. The Carpetbaggers, Robbins (4)

5. Tropic of Cancer, Miller (5)

6. Clock Without Hands, McCullers (7)

7. Mila 18, Uris (8)

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

9. The Edge of Sadness, O'Connor (9)

10. Rembrandt, Schmitt

NONFICTION

1. A Nation of Sheep, Lederer (3)

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

3. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (2)

4. Inside Europe Today, Gunther (4)

5. The Age of Reason Begins, Will and Ariel Durant (10)

6. Citizen Hearst, Swanberg

7. The New English Bible (7)

8. The Sheppard Murder Case, Holmes

9. Ring of Bright Water, Maxwell (6)

10. The Spanish Civil War, Thomas (9)

* All times E.D.T.

* Position on last week's list.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.