Last Year at Marienbad. Alain Resnais, the grand admiral of the French New Wave, has produced a movie that is anything but a movie: a metaphysical enigma, a Platonic allegory, a treatise on cubistic cinema that attempts an Einsteinian revolution in the art of film, a Rorschach blot into which the spectator can project whatever he pleases.
Tomorrow Is My Turn. A military melodrama, directed by France's Andre Cayatte, that has some discriminating things to say about apparent and actual freedom and bondage.
The Lower Depths. Akira Kurosawa's Japanization of the classic proletarian comedy by Maxim Gorky boils with demonic energy and rocks with large, yea-saying laughter.
The Night. Marriage without love and life without meaning are examined with talent, intelligence and despair by Michelangelo Antonioni (L'Avventura), whose text might be from W. H. Auden: "The glacier knocks in the closet,/ The desert sighs in the bed;/ The crack in the teacup opens/ A lane to the land of the dead."
Victim. An entertaining but tendentious thriller of blackmail and homosexuality.
Lover Come Back. Gagman Stanley Shapiro has written a situation comedy as smooth as baby food, and Director Delbert Mann manages to strain some humor out of Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
Tender Is the Night. Jason Robards Jr. portrays the triple-distilled spirit of the '20s in F. Scott Fitzgerald's story about a psychiatrist who lies down on the couch with his favorite patient.
A View from the Bridge. Arthur Miller's attempt to find Greek tragedy in cold-water Flatbush errs in concept but succeeds in details.
TELEVISION
Wed., March 21
Kraft Music Hall (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).* Perry Como's guest is Anna Maria Alberghetti, Broadway star of Carnival. Color.
United States Steel Hour (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Eva Gabor stars as a movie queen whose plan to impress her producer results in tragedy.
Thurs., March 22
Bob Hope Show (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Bob's guests are Ethel Merman and Maximilian Schell.
CBS Reports (CBS. 10-11 p.m.). "The United States of Europe," with David Schoenbrun reporting.
Sat., March 24
Championship Debate (NBC, 12:30-1 p.m.). Teams of Kings College, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and George Washington University, Washington, D.C., debate the question: "Should the Peace Corps Be Abolished?"
Accent (CBS, 1:30-2 p.m.). A historical drama about the Hamilton-Burr duel, with John Ciardi as host.
Golden Showcase (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). James Mason and Janice Rule star in "Tonight in Samarkand," the story of a lady tiger trainer and a magician.
Sun., March 25
Camera Three (CBS, 11-11:30 a.m.). Host James MacAndrew discusses the works of the late Poet Robinson Jeffers.
Editor's Choice (ABC, 3:30-4:30 p.m.). The five finalists of the 1961-62 Metropolitan Opera Auditions will appear, along with Met stars and former winners Heidi Krall and Rosalind Elias.
NBC Opera Company (NBC, 3:30-4:40 p.m.). Cavalleria Rusticana. Color.
White House Tour (CBS, 4-5 p.m.). A repeat of last month's visit to the White House with Mrs. Kennedy as breathless guide. Scheduled again at an early hour for the benefit of the Caroline Kennedy set.
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Part three of The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain's classic.
Mon., March 26
N.Y. Philharmonic Young People's Concert (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). An 80th birthday salute for Igor Stravinsky from the Philharmonic, with Leonard Bernstein conducting an all-Stravinsky program.
Expedition (ABC. 7-7:30 p.m.). The firewalkers of Fiji are shown in action doing the South Pacific hotfoot.
Bell & Howell Close-Up (ABC. 10-11 p.m.). The story of Cambodia and its efforts to become the "Switzerland of Asia."
Tues., March 27
Dick Powell Show (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Joan Fontaine stars in a drama about a young widow who fears she is being haunted by her late husband's ghost.
THEATER
On Broadway
The Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams. On a Mexican veranda, four people who have come to the frayed rope-end of life find the strength to go on. In its acceptance of human limitations, this is Williams' wisest play. As drama, it is possibly his best play since A Streetcar Named Desire.
Ross, by Terence Rattigan, probes the tantalizing nature of the man and myth known as Lawrence of Arabia. The mystery is not resolved, but John Mills plays the hero with anguishing honesty.
A Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt, is a highly literate communique from the front line of the conscience where public duty clashes with individual integrity. In Paul Scofield's memorable re-creation of Sir Thomas More, the mind dances and the spirit glows.
Gideon, by Paddy Chayefsky, treats God and man as humorous and crotchety back-fence neighbors, but the formidable acting gifts of Fredric March and Douglas Campbell strike occasional sparks of awe.
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying taps out the Robert Morse code of officemanship. a gleefully self-appreciative rush to the corporate summit.
Off Broadway
Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad, by Arthur Kopit. An unevenly funny surrealistic foray into the no man's land of Momism. Nymphet Barbara Harris makes the scene, the play, and the evening.
Brecht on Brecht is a packet of instant genius, a revue-styled evening of poems, letters, songs, and scenes from a 20th century master of theater.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories, by John Updike. The author's ability is enormous, and his gift of language far exceeds that of most contemporaries, but these stories--a young sensitive husband with a young, doltish wife is a typical theme--are disappointingly unambitious. Still they contain far more human perception than many a hand-heavy "major" novel.
A Signal Victory, by David Stacton. A hard, glittering, epigrammatic account of the Spanish rape of the Mayan civilization, marred by a central character who just misses coming to life.
My Brother, Ernest Hemingway, by Leicester Hemingway. This account by the novelist's kid brother adds warm flesh tones to the increasingly detailed portrait of Hemingway.
What Is History? by Edward Hallett Carr. A Cambridge don discourses on how much of history is invention, how it should be invented, and to what end.
The Rothschilds, by Frederic Morton. A well-detailed account of the seven-generation progress of Europe's fabulous banking clan, of whom it might now be said that royalty rivals the Rothschilds.
The Fox in the Attic, by Richard Hughes. The third novel by the author of A High Wind in Jamaica, worth the two decades it took to germinate, is a sharply sketched parable of England and Germany between World Wars I and II.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey. From the vantage point of a mental institution, an angry, anguished attack on the middlebrow establishment is made by the mentally ill hero of this fine first novel.
The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman. The author's account of the thundering first month of World War I as probably the best-planned and worst-executed war in history.
The End of the Battle, by Evelyn Waugh. Part 3 of the author's Waugh-time satire, in which Guy Crouchback, having made himself ridiculous in the line of duty to God and country, is rewarded by the prospect of a long and happy life.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Franny and Zooey, Salinger (1, last week)
2. The Fox in the Attic, Hughes (7)
3. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Stone (2)
4. A Prologue to Love, Caldwell (5)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (10)
6. Captain Newman, M.D., Rosten (4)
7. The Bull from the Sea, Renault
8. Daughter of Silence, West (6)
9. The Ivy Tree, Stewart (9)
10. Chairman of the Bored, Streeter (3)
NONFICTION
1. Calories Don't Count, Taller (2)
2. My Life in Court, Nizer (1)
3. The Guns of August, Tuchman (3)
4. CIA: The Inside Story, Tully (8)
5. The Making of the President 1960, White (6)
6. The Last Plantagenets, Costain (4)
7. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (5)
8. My Saber Is Bent, Paar (10)
9. A Nation of Sheep, Lederer (9)
10. The Rothschilds, Morton
* All times E.S.T.
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