Bird Man of Alcatraz calmly examines the strange case of Robert F. Stroud, bird expert, murderer, and holder of the U.S. prison record (43 years) for solitary confinement. Burt Lancaster, as the bird man, and a superb cast make this one of the most powerful prison movies in years.

Ride the High Country and Lonely Are the Brave are two vastly superior westerns about untamed, free-spirited men whom civilization has made obsolescent. Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott (Country) and Kirk Douglas (Brave) give strong, graceful performances with the unforced dignity of the old breed of western hero.

The Concrete Jungle. This strange, taut, jagged British crime movie crackles with the excitement of a cool jazz score and U.S.-born Director Joseph Losey's subtle vision of crime and the criminal.

The Sky Above--The Mud Below. French Adventurer Pierre-Dominique Gais-seau took his camera into uncharted New Guinea territory and brought back a grittily absorbing documentary record of headhunters, mock birth rituals, and curious relics of the Stone Age.

Boccaccio '70 is scarcely the updated Decameron it tongue-in-cheekily professes to be, but Sex Goddesses Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg and Romy Schneider give highly erotitillating performances.

The Notorious Landlady. Jack Lemmon makes antic hay in this playful mystery-comedy with a London setting, and in one bathtub sequence, Kim Novak proves to be an accomplished nude.

Lolita, as Sue Lyon impersonates her, could be 17, which is ancient for nymphets. As a result, James Mason's obsession with her seems like just one last pathetic middle-aged man's fling. Comic Cut-up Peter Sellers saves the scenes he steals.

Stowaway in the Sky will enchant moppet, matron and greybeard with its bal-loonist's-eye view of the fair land of France.

A Taste of Honey is the story of a girl's bruising search for identity in the barren brick flats of the English poor. As the girl, Rita Tushingham may be the cinemactress find of the year.

TELEVISION

Wed., July 25

Howard K. Smith: News & Comment (ABC, 7:30-8 p.m.)* A second look at whatever is the big news of the week.

Focus on America (ABC, 8-8:30 p.m.). A study of heart disease, including heart surgery, made at Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital.

David Brinkley's Journal (NBC, 10:30-11 p.m.). A Brink's job on rock 'n' roll and the slums of New York. Repeat.

Fri., July 27

The World of Sophia Loren (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). A TV biography. Repeat.

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

Sun., July 29

Wide World of Sports (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). The Japanese all-star baseball game, taped in Fukuoka.

Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The growth of American highways from Indian trails to twelve-lane zoomways of the future. Color.

DuPont Show of the Week (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A detailed account in motion and still pictures of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Repeat.

Mon., July 30

The Gentle Persuaders (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A study of American Quakers.

Tues., July 31

Carnegie Hall Salutes Jack Benny (CBS, 9-10 p.m.). A repeat of the celebrated concert originally broadcast Sept. 27, 1961.

THEATER

Straw Hat

Bar Harbor, Me., Bar Harbor Playhouse: Shelagh Delaney's bittersweet A Taste of Honey.

Skowhegan, Me., Lakewood Theater: William Bendix in The Gazebo.

Dorset, Vt., Caravan Theater: Not in Earnest, a new musical version of Oscar Wilde's comedy of manors.

Beverly, Mass., North Shore Music Theater: Met Soprano Mary Curtis-Verna in Jerome Kern's Roberta.

Orleans, Mass., Orleans Arena Theater: And Be My Love, a new play by Novelist Robert Bryan about an expatriate American writer in Spain.

Hyannis, Mass., Yachtsman Hotel: Chicago's Compass players bring their improvisations and political punning into the First Family's summer backyard.

Matunuck, R.I., Theater-by-the-Sea: The premiere of Hey You, Light Man!, a new comedy by Oliver Hailey.

Branford, Conn., Montowese Playhouse: A midsummer chiller, Night Must Fall.

Wallingford, Conn., Oakdale Musical Theater: Bells Are Ringing with Gordon and Sheila MacRae holding the phones.

Westport, Conn., Westport Country Playhouse: Should Old Acquaintance with Arlene Francis be forgot?

East Rochester, N.Y., Town and Country Musicals: Dody Goodman in Brigadoon.

Cedar Grove N.J., Meadowbrook Dinner Theater: Mamie Van Doren in Wildcat.

Philadelphia, Pa., Playhouse in the Park: Salome Jens and Luther Adler in O'Neill's Anna Christie.

College Park, Md., University of Maryland Theater: Engaged, a comedy by the Gilbert half of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Sarasota, Fla., Asolo Theater: The theater itself was built in 1690, has been imported lock, stock and proscenium from Italy. This season's repertory: Congreve's The Way of the World, Moliere's The Misanthrope, Paisiello's The Barber of Seville, Pergolesi's The Music Master, and commedia aell'arte improvisations.

Worthington, Ohio, Playhouse on the Green: Lillian Hellman's sour-grapes drama, The Little Foxes.

Danville, Ky., Pioneer Playhouse: No. 5 in a series of ten new plays: A Wall to

Wall Trap, by George Auerbach, who will also play the lead.

Kansas City, Mo., Starlight Theater: Cyril Ritchard and Pierre Olaf in Around the World in Eighty Days.

Stanford, Calif., The Outer Circle: Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer and Edward Albee's The Zoo Story.

Stratford, Ont., Stratford Shakespeare Festival: Christopher Plummer in Cyrano de Bergerac joins the repertory, which includes Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest and G. & S.'s The Gondoliers.

BOOKS

Best Reading

The Golden Notebook, by Doris Lessing. A superior attempt at running elusive self-knowledge to earth--the self, in this case, that of a British woman writer who is the novel's tormented heroine; the knowledge, fascinating entries in four notebooks she keeps on four facets of her public and private life.

Letting Go, by Philip Roth. Page by page, because of the author's unmatched eye and ear, this novel of the university young is often a delight. Taken as a whole, it is a conventional analysis of the Angst of a world-weary hero.

Death of a Highbrow, by Frank Swin-nerton. The fierce rivalry of two old men of letters ends in death for one, a bitter self-knowledge for the other.

The Reivers, by William Faulkner. The last mellow work of the great Southern writer, culminating a 30-year love affair with Yoknapatawpha County.

Saint Francis, by Nikos Kazantzakis. The saint loves and suffers in an agonizingly human way in the most powerful account of his life ever written.

An Unofficial Rose, by Iris Murdoch. A variety of love affairs are subtly manipulated in this novel of British upper-class manners.

The Wax Boom, by George Mandel. A troop of U.S. cavalrymen desperately search for wax to make a light in a bomb-crushed cellar, but the darkness of death inevitably comes.

Patriotic Gore, by Edmund Wilson. An examination of Civil War writers, some good, some indifferent, but all wounded spiritually by the war.

Best Sellers

FICTION

1. Ship of Fools, Porter (2, last week)

2. Youngblood Hawke, Wouk (1)

3. Dearly Beloved, Lindbergh (3)

4. Uhuru, Ruark (5)

5. The Prize, Wallace (4)

6. The Reivers, Faulkner (8)

7. The Big Laugh, O'Hara (6)

8. Franny and Zooey, Salinger (7)

9. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Stone (10)

10. Another Country, Baldwin

NONFICTION

1. The Rothschilds, Morton (1)

2. My Life in Court, Nizer (2)

3. In the Clearing, Frost (6)

4. The Guns of August, Tuchman (5)

5. Calories Don't Count, Taller (3)

6. Conversations with Stalin, Djilas (4)

7. Sex and the Single Girl, Brown

8. Six Crises, Nixon (7)

9. O Ye Jigs & Juleps!, Hudson (8)

10. Veeck--As in Wreck, Veeck

*A11 times E.D.T.

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