Wednesday, August 9

SIBERIA: A DAY IN IRKUTSK (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).* NBC Moscow Bureau Chief Kenneth Bernstein tours a frontier city of 480,000 deep inside Siberia. Repeat.

Thursday, August 10

CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIES (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Sidney Poitier in his Oscar-winning role (1963) in Lilies of the Field as a footloose ex-G.I. who encounters five German nuns in the Arizona desert and winds up building their chapel.

SUMMER FOCUS (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Is there life elsewhere in the universe? The question is explored in a journey through the heavens with the narrative aid of Nobel Prizewinner Dr. Harold Urey.

Friday, August 11

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Guest Star Abbe Lane wriggles to the exotic rhythms of the Algiers casbah, while Napoleon and Illya wrest a secret code from Thrush agents. Repeat.

Saturday, August 12

AMERICAN GOLF CLASSIC (ABC, 4-5 p.m.). Champion Al Geiberger defends his crown in the $100,000 event at the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. Final round, 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). The first Americas-v.-Europe track meet, pitting the best from both sides of the Atlantic against each other in 31 events. From Montreal's Autostade.

Sunday, August 13

DISCOVERY '67 (ABC, 11:30 a.m.-12 noon). For animal lovers, it's a journey into the wonderful world of kittens, puppies, horses and all their four-legged cousins. On a tour of New York's A.S.P.C.A., viewers will see how animals are cared for at the world's biggest doghouse.

SPORTSMAN'S HOLIDAY (NBC, 5:30-6 p.m.). Ted Williams, onetime baseball great and now a fishing demon, gives some tips on how to catch Florida's elu-I sive bonefish; from there, Host Curt Gowdy travels north to Canada for some wonderful salmon fishing with a pair of winsome lady anglers.

THE 215T CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). The "Class of '01" discusses new ways to teach students in the universities of tomorrow. Repeat.

Tuesday, August 15

CBS NEWS SPECIAL (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). The Italians, their manners and morals, vices and virtues, are examined by Journalist, Legislator and Author Luigi Barzini, who visits an Italian wedding, funeral, opera and parade. Repeat.

THEATER

Perhaps the most significant American contribution to theatrical tradition is the musical, and there is generally at least one outstanding show even in Broadway's barren years. Some good ones, currently touring the strawhat circuit:

LAKEWOOD THEATER, Skowhegan, Me.

Half a Sixpence, based on an H. G. Wells rags-to-riches-to-rags story, stars Hal Holden as the singing and dancing cockney lad who moves blithely from one class and one fortune to another. Aug. 7-13.

MUSIC THEATER, Brunswick, Me. Funny Girl, the story of Fanny Brice, who could make men laugh more easily than make them love, until Aug. 12. Then Aug. 14-19, it will be On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Alan lay Lerner's musical trip through the worlds of the extrasensory, the clairvoyant, and the reincarnated, followed by The Music Man and his 76 trombones, Aug. 21-Sept. 2.

CAPE COD MELODY TENT, Hyannis, Mass. Dorothy Collins stars in Do I Hear a Waltz? as the spinster who finds love on the lagoons of Venice, Aug. 14-19.

MOUNTAINDALE PLAYHOUSE, Mountaindale, N.Y. Annie Get Your Gun, Aug. 10-13; Camelot, Aug. 17-20; The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Aug. 24-27; The Most Happy Fella, Aug. 31-Sept. 3.

SHADY GROVE MUSIC FAIR, Rockville, Md. John Raitt stars as the psychiatrist in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Aug. 8-13. Richard Chamberlain is the Hell's Kitchen Romeo of West Side Story, Aug. 15-20. Oklahoma! comes sweeping down the plains with Gordon MacRae, Sept. 5-10, followed by Carol Lawrence as Funny Girl, Sept. 19-Oct. 1.

MELODY TOP, Milwaukee, Wis. Jane Powell is the unflappable flapper of The Boy Friend until Aug. 13, after which On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, with Van Johnson, comes into view, Aug. 15-27; and finally John Raitt takes a spin with Carousel, Aug. 29-Sept. 10.

DALLAS THEATER CENTER, Dallas, Texas. The Decline and Fall of the Entire World as Seen Through the Eyes of Cole Porter. There was a lighter side to life during the crash, the Depression and World War II, and Porter's urbane eye found it and used it for his cornucopia of worldly wise and witty songs. Aug. 17-Sept. 23.

MELODYLAND THEATER, Anaheim, Calif. Elaine Dunn in Sweet Charity, Aug. 8-20; Betsy Palmer will be washing that man out of her hair in South Pacific, Aug. 22-Sept. 3.

CIRCLE ARTS THEATER, San Diego, Calif. Janet Blair leads The Sound of Music until Aug. 13. Carnival, with Anna Maria Alberghetti, takes over Aug. 15-27; The Unsinkahle Molly Brown with Gisele MacKenzie holds the berth Aug. 29-Sept. 10.

MUSIC

Europe in summertime offers nearly as much music as sightseeing--and sometimes both combined. Among the festivals:

BAYREUTH FESTIVAL (Germany, to Aug. 24) is the tops among summer festivals--provided, of course, that Wagner is your idea of great music. After the death of Co-Director Wieland Wagner last year, Richard's other grandson, Wolfgang, assumed the artistic as well as his administrative responsibility. Many of Wieland's productions return to the stage, complete with their conductors (Karl Bohm, Pierre Boulez) and singers (Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen).

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL (Scotland, Aug. 20-Sept. 9) will sweeten the bonny air with Vincenzo Bellini's / Capuletti ed i Montecchi, his bel canto version of Romeo and Juliet. Other programs include two Stravinsky operas, Joan Sutherland in Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice, George Balanchine's

New York City Ballet, George Szell's Cleveland Orchestra, and the omnipresent Boulez conducting the BBC Orchestra.

SALZBURG FESTIVAL (Austria, to Aug. 30) offers Herbert von Karajan's versions of Carmen and Boris Godunov, along with a diversified collection of other artists and works: Zubin Mehta and George Szell conducting in the orchestral series, Christa Ludwig and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing lieder, and Pianists Wilhelm Backhaus and Sviatoslav Richter providing virtuoso fillips in the instrumental series.

DUBROVNIK FESTIVAL (Yugoslavia, to Aug. 25) has a variety of performers ranging from the Harvard Glee Club to Soviet Pianist Richter and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra.

STOCKHOLM FESTIVAL (Sweden, Sept. 5-25) gives its fans opera. And more opera. Connoisseurs of spectacular metamorphosis will want to hear Birgit Nilsson on Sept. 5, when she switches her image from a monumental, silver-voiced Briinn-hilde to the spitfire passion of Floria Tosca.

THE WARSAW AUTUMN FESTIVAL (Poland, Sept. 16-24) will provide heavy but always enlightening doses of mostly contemporary music by Composers Penderecki, Varese, Stockhausen and Schoenberg as well as still-obscure youngsters. Performers include the Taneyev String Quartet from Moscow and the Groupe de Recherches Musicales from Paris.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL (Switzerland, Aug. 16-Sept. 7) boasts a familiar cast of vagabond troubadours: Szell, Von Karajan, Stern, Szeryng, Cliburn and others. But the scenery is different.

ISRAEL FESTIVAL (to Aug. 28) will go on with the show despite the recent noisy unpleasantness in the environs. Tourists who make the quick flight across the Mediterranean will sit in an ancient Roman theater in Caesarea while the strains of classic, romantic, contemporary, Indian and Yiddish music float about. Artists include Pianist Lili Kraus and Conductor Pierre Boulez leading the Kol Yisrael Symphony Orchestra.

CINEMA

THE WHISPERERS. Dame Edith Evans, 79, playing a lonely, penurious old woman, creates new proof that there is no age limit on greatness.

DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE. The split of a suburban couple (Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Reynolds) provokes some tart dialogue: "The uranium mine to her, the shaft to me."

EL DORADO. John Wayne and Robert Mitchum both get shot in this old-style oater--but it just gives them a chance to prove that two old pros are better on one good leg apiece than most of the younger stars on two.

THE FAMILY WAY. John Mills is superb as a lout-mouthed father whose newlywed son (Hywel Bennett) and daughter-in-law (Hayley Mills) are unable to consummate their marriage.

THE DIRTY DOZEN. A World War II major (Lee Marvin) is ordered to transform twelve criminals and psychopaths from the camp stockade into a fighting unit fit for a suicide mission behind enemy lines. The denouement is grim and gory.

TO SIR, WITH LOVE. This film about a British Guianan (Sidney Poitier) who takes a teaching job at a London slum school attempts to blend realism with idealism--an unstable mixture saved only by Poitier's catalyzing warmth.

A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN. A sprightly scenario, the taut direction of Gene Kelly, and the uncommon acting talent of Walter Matthau turn this into one of the best sex comedies of the season.

BOOKS

Best Reading

THE DEVIL DRIVES: A LIFE OF SIR RICHARD BURTON, by Fawn Brodie. The author maps the life of the flamboyant Victorian explorer, linguist and erotologist and concludes that his real passion was not for geographical discovery, "but for the hidden in man, for the unknowable and therefore the unthinkable."

THE TIME OF FRIENDSHIP, by Paul Bowles. The title of this story collection, the author's first in 17 years, is ironic. For a Bowles character, it is always the time of hostility and hallucination, destruction and death.

NABOKOV: HIS LIFE IN ART, by Andrew Field. A 29-year-old American critic, Field thinks that Nabokov would be more easily understood if U.S. readers knew his Russian work as well as his English. So he analyzes all of Nabokov and makes a persuasive case that he is the best novelist now writing.

OUR CROWD, by Stephen Birmingham. Novelist Birmingham has undertaken to become the Cleveland Amory of Proper Jewish Society in New York, the fabulously rich mercantile wizards, and he makes a chatty, genial social historian.

SIGNS AND WONDERS, by Francoise Mallet-Joris. Hero Nicholas Leclusier decides that life is really not worth living, which is somewhat difficult to understand, since Author Mallet-Joris has surrounded him with a collection of vivid people and a fascinating picture of France at the end of the bitter, bloody Algerian war.

SELECTED LETTERS OF DYLAN THOMAS, edited by Constantine FitzGibbon. This careful selection shows that the great Welsh poet was incapable of writing badly--and just as incapable of living well.

Best Sellers

FICTION 1. The Arrangement, Kazan (1 last week)

2. The Chosen, Potok (5)

3. The Eighth Day, Wilder (2)

4. Washington, D.C., Vidal (4)

5. The Plot, Wallace (3)

6. Rosemary's Baby, Levin (6)

7. The Secret of Santa Vittoria, Crichton (7)

8. When She Was Good, Roth

9. The King of the Castle, Holt (8)

10. Tales of Manhattan, Auchincloss (9)

NONFICTION 1. The New Industrial State, Galbraith (1)

2. A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church, Kavanaugh (5) 3. Our Crowd, Birmingham (9) 4. At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, Eisenhower (4)

5. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (3)

6. Everything But Money, Levenson (2)

7. Anyone Can Make a Million, Shulman (6)

8. By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, White, ed.

9. The Death of a President, Manchester (8)

10. Games People Play, Berne (10)

* All times E.D.T.

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