On Broadway

TELEVISION

Wednesday, February 8

SAMUEL GOLDWYN'S "GUYS AND DOLLS" (ABC, 8-11 p.m.).* Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons and Vivian Elaine re-create the world of Damon Runyon in the 1955 film version of Broadway's Guys and Dolls.

Thursday, February 9

ABC STAGE 67 (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Lauren Bacall and John Forsythe trip through the dance trends over the years in "The Light Fantastic, or How to Tell Your Past, Present and Maybe Your Future Through Social Dancing."

Friday, February 10

DANNY THOMAS SPECIAL (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). "Guys 'n' Geishas," an Oriental version of you-know-what, with Jack Jones, Danny Thomas and Jonathan Winters getting together with some Japanese dolls for a game of musical hide-and-seek throughout Japan.

Sunday, February 12

MEET THE PRESS (NBC, 12:30-1:30 p.m.). Author William Manchester is the guest.

DIRECTIONS (ABC, 1-1:30 p.m.). "A Time to Sing" presents Judy Collins in a concert of folk songs by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and the late Richard Farina.

THE CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL (CBS, 4-5 p.m.). The Blind Bird, produced in Russia, tells of a boy's attempts to restore the sight of his pet pelican.

THE WIZARD OF OZ (CBS, 6-8 p.m.). Danny Kaye hosts this (1939) film classic, as Judy Garland follows the rainbow in search of her Wizard.

BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (NBC, 6:30-7:30 p.m.). A peek into the on-and off-stage life of Concert Pianist Robert Casadesus, his wife Gaby and their eldest son Jean, in "Casadesus: First Family of the Piano."

Monday, February 13

PINOCCHIO (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The Prince Street Players bring that wooden puppet, Pinocchio, back to boy again.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ICE CAPADES 1967 (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). Jimmy Durante, M.C.

Tuesday, February 14

HALL OF KINGS (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). James Mason, Lynn Redgrave and Siobhan McKenna recall some of Britain's great men and women during their tour of Westminster Abbey.

N.E.T. PLAYHOUSE (shown on Fridays). Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, produced by Sir Laurence Olivier and featuring the original Chichester Festival Theater cast: Dame Sybil Thorndike, Sir Michael Redgrave, Rosemary Harris, Joan Plowright, Max Adrian, and Olivier himself.

THEATER

THE HOMECOMING is a totally engrossing drama. Written sparely by Harold Pinter, directed tautly by Peter Hall, performed perfectly by members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, it tickles one's humor while gnawing the instincts and scraping the soul.

THE WILD DUCK. The destruction wrought by an integrity that is more cruel than compassionate is the theme of Henrik Ibsen's drama about a determined idealist who enters a household that is constructed on compromise and held together by gentle illusions. Played competently, if not brilliantly, by the APA repertory company.

AT THE DROP OF ANOTHER HAT is a chatter-and-patter revue by two stage personalities, Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, who might have come through the looking glass. They lead their devotees through a wonderland of whimsy, where, among other things, a nearsighted armadillo falls in love with a tank.

THE STAR-SPANGLED GIRL. Neil Simon's latest comedy entry is funny in spurts, but labors under three hard-to-shake burdens: a hackneyed book, heavy-handed direction, and ho-hum acting.

WALKING HAPPY is an old-fashioned musical with an old-fashioned charm, enhanced by little Norman Wisdom, whose big talent carries the show.

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL. Londoners in the 18th century frequented Richard Sheridan's classroom of comedy to be taught their three Rs: the Risque, Rumor, Revenge. The APA go through the lessons with a flick of their wits.

Off Broadway

EH? In Henry Livings' farce, a mod menace (Dustin Hoffman) creates his own universe, where what goes up does not necessarily fall down, where illogic is logical and nonsense makes sense.

AMERICA HURRAH is what's happening in terms of free-form, timely theater. Jean-Claude van Itallie's three playlets are high-speed trips through a contemporary world of fragmented experience.

RECORDS

Instrumentalists

BARTOK: VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 2 (Angel). Yehudi Menuhin's new recording of Bartok's major concerto must compete with Isaac Stern's, among others currently in the catalogue. Stern provides flashes of greater brilliance, but Menuhin's conceptual sweep and melting warmth, plus the fine sound of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, under Antal Dorati, make the performance a winner.

BRAHMS: CONCERTO NO. 1 (RCA Victor). Artur Rubinstein interpreting in his 70s what Brahms wrote in his 20s avoids romantic posturing but plays with deeply remembered passion. Every note falls lucidly into place, backed by the majestic resources of the Boston Symphony, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.

BERNSTEIN: AGE OF ANXIETY (Columbia). Bernstein's second symphony based on W. H. Auden's poem, which opens in a Third Avenue bar, has recently been revised to enlarge the role of the solo pianist, "an almost autobiographical protagonist set against an orchestral mirror." Philippe Entremont gives a quicksilver performance of the haunting music against the background of the New York Philharmonic, conducted by the composer.

LOUIS SPOHR: VIOLIN CONCERTOS NOS. 8 AND 9 (L'Oiseau-Lyre). Spohr is best known today for being one of the first conductors to use a baton. As a composer he topped off the classic period with music of more sweetness than passion. But the chromatic inventiveness of these concertos is still piquant and their cadenzas seem to lie perfectly under the virtuoso fingers of the Canadian violinist Hyman Bress.

A LORIN HOLLANDER CONCERT (RCA Victor). At 22, Hollander has put aside the bravura piano works that exhibit his powerful techniques to play a more contemplative selection from Schumann, Brahms, Bach and Beethoven. The shorter pieces are poetic and moving, but his performance of Beethoven's D Minor Sonata is in some passages tentative, lacking the authoritative grandeur of a great pianist.

J. S. BACH: HARPSICHORD CONCERTOS NOS. 1 AND 2 (Crossroads). The dust of ages disappears when the fine Czech harpsichordist Susannah Ruzickova plays Bach with strong surging lines bursting through an ironclad beat. The Prague Chamber Orchestra provides sensitive partnership.

DELIUS: PIANO CONCERTO (Decca). As a young man, Delius weny out from England to spend a year managing his father's plantation in Florida, and snatches of Negro spirituals seem to echo in the dreamy sequences of his only piano concerto. Playing with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra under William Strickland, Marjorie Mitchell gives a full-blooded performance of the seldom-heard romantic work.

CINEMA

LA GUERRE EST FINIE. The war ended in 1939 for all but a dwindling group of long-memoried men. Director Alain Resnais' evocation of those memories is at times pat and prolonged, but Singer-Actor Yves Montand, as Diego, an old rebel with a past but no future, breathes an air of melancholy strength into the film.

YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW. Bernard (Peter Kastner) is a little boy who grows up absurd, wavering between his girl friends (Elizabeth Hartman, Karen Black) and his parents (Geraldine Page, Rip Torn). Though the farce is sometimes forced, this first big-league effort by Writer-Director-Producer Francis Ford Coppola suggests bigger things to come.

TO BE A CROOK. Four movie-struck factory workers cast themselves as Robin Hoods and quit their jobs to play a crime-filled scenario in the streets of Paris. The fun and games end when a real cop tries to arrest them. Four French unknowns turn in poignant performances under the sensitive direction of Claude Lelouche (A Man and A Woman).

HOTEL. The film version of Novelist Arthur Hailey's 1965 bestseller about clean towels and dirty people in a New Orleans hotel is more worthy of a stopover than the book. The improvement is due mainly to Director Richard Quine's smoothly geared meshing of the various subplots and solid performances by Rod Taylor, Michael Rennie, Merle Oberon, Karl Maiden.

BLOWUP. A photographer escapes his mod models for an afternoon and wanders after a pair of bucolic lovers, whom he snaps on the sly. In a brilliant episode back in the darkroom, he develops his film and his dilemma. Italian Director Michelangelo Antonioni records the London scene--and some things that are not seen--in his first English film.

GRAND PRIX. Formula One racing cars are the stars of this revved-up and spun-out (three hours) ode to autos. Sixteen camera teams shot 1,000,000 feet of film, much of it at last year's Grand Prix races, and Director John Frankenheimer has fashioned a heart-stopping movie slowed down only by the romantic detours of the drivers (James Garner, Yves Montand) and their camp followers (Eva Marie Saint, Francoise Hardy).

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Actor Paul Scofield's mesmerizing performance as 16th century Martyr Sir Thomas More and Playwright Robert Bolt's superb adaptation of his eloquent play add up to one of the most intelligent religious films ever made.

BOOKS

Best Reading

INSIDE SOUTH AMERICA, by John Gunther. A political travelogue of the South American continent, conducted by a tour guide who knows all the sights but moves too briskly to explain them thoroughly.

DEATH ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN, by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. The scandalous French author's controversial classic in a new, unexpurgated version that softens neither the obscenities nor the bitter antiSemitism.

RAKOSSY, by Cecelia Holland. A novel about 16th century Hungary that belongs to the Mary Renault-Zoe Oldenbourg school of authentic historical fiction.

PAPER LION, by George Plimpton. As a nervous newcomer to the squad, Plimpton persuaded members of the Detroit Lions football team to talk seriously and precisely about their positions, their skills and how a Sunday's campaign is plotted. The result is the best book to date on pro football.

HAROLD NICOLSON: DIARIES AND LETTERS, 1930-1939, edited by Nigel Nicolson. The author was always near the center of the action at Whitehall, and he knew London's brilliant and beautiful people. There is rare immediacy to his diaries--faithfully jotted down every morning after breakfast for most of a decade.

LETTERS OF JAMES JOYCE, edited by Richard Ellmann. The letters provide the only explanations Joyce ever offered about his revolutionary techniques in the novel, and also reveal the bohemian artist as doting husband and father.

Best Sellers

FICTION 1. The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Crichton (1 last week)

2. Capable of Honor, Drury (2)

3. The Birds Fall Down, West (3)

4. The Mask of Apollo, Renault (5)

5. Valley of the Dolls, Susann (4)

6. All in the Family, O'Connor (6)

7. The Fixer, Malamud (7)

8. The Captain, De Hartog

9. Tai-Pan, Clavell (8)

10. The Beautiful Life, Gilbert (9)

NONFICTION

1. The Jury Returns, Nizer (5)

2. Everything But Money, Levenson (1)

3. Paper Lion, Plimpton (2)

4. Madame Sarah, Skinner

5. Games People Play, Berne (6)

6. Rush to Judgment, Lane (4)

7. The Boston Strangler, Frank (3)

8. Random House Dictionary of the English Language (9)

9. With Kennedy, Salinger (7)

10. How to Avoid Probate, Dacey (8)

* All times E.S.T.

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