TELEVISION
Wednesday, December 6 ALADDIN (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).-o Once upon a time New York City's Prince Street Players repertory company was unknown and struggling. Tonight it returns to TV with its fourth fairy-tale special, the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp and genie.
JACK PAAR AND A FUNNY THING HAPPENED EVERYWHERE (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Acting as his own writer, producer and star, Jack makes an earnest effort to prove that the real things in life that count the most are those that draw the most laughs.
CBS PLAYHOUSE (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). "Dear Friends," written for TV by Reginald Rose, is a contemporary drama of four married couples -- Anne Jackson and David Wayne, Rosemary Harris and Pernell Roberts, Patricia Berry and Eli Wallach, and Hope Lange and James Daly.
Thursday, December 7 CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIES (CBS, 9-1 1 p.m.). Under Capricorn. Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Gotten, Michael Wilding and Margaret Leighton are the stars in this 1949 Alfred Hitchcock thriller about a rehabilitated convict and his household in 19th century Australia.
Friday, December 8 G.E. FANTASY HOUR (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Burl Ives as the voice of Sam the Snowman tells of that brightly beaked buck who saved the sleigh when snow threatened to cancel Christmas in the fourth annual repeat of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
A WHITE HOUSE WEDDING (CBS, 10:45-11:15 p.m.). This preview includes glimpses of the preparations for the first White House wedding ceremony since 1900.
Saturday, December 9 N.C.A.A. FOOTBALL (ABC, 1:45 p.m. to conclusion). University of Florida v. Uni versity of Miami at Miami.
N.F.L. GAME (CBS, 3:45 p.m. to conclusion). The Green Bay Packers v. the Los Angeles Rams at Los Angeles.
LYNDA BIRD JOHNSON'S WEDDING (NBC, 5-5:30 p.m.). The reception live and in color from the White House, starring Marine Captain Charles Robb and his bride Lynda.
WEDDING IN THE WHITE HOUSE (ABC, 7-7:30 p.m.). A postwedding look at film clips of the guests' arrival, the ceremony, and Captain and Mrs. Robb departing the White House under the traditional arch of crossed swords.
Sunday, December 10 MEET THE PRESS (NBC, 1-1:30 p.m.). Today's guests come from the Republican Governors' Conference in Palm Beach: the incoming chairman of the conference, Rhode Island's Governor John Chafee, and the outgoing chairman, Colorado's John Love.
A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS (CBS, 7:30-8 p.m.). Poor Charlie Brown searches earnestly for the real meaning of Christmas while his Peanuts playmates loudly enjoy the tinsel and presents in this Emmy Award-winning rebroadcast.
THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW (CBS, 8-9 p.m.). CBS Studio 50 will be renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater on tonight's show, making Sullivan the first TV personality in history to have a Broadway theater bear his name. Guests Pearl Bailey, Gwen Verdon, Alan King and Wayne & Shuster are among the celebrators.
Monday, December 11 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY SPECIAL (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). "Winged World" makes the whole globe its aviary, tracking birds from New Guinea to Africa, tracing their origins back to their reptilian ancestors, and discussing the mysteries of migration as well as the oddities of courtship.
THE DANNY THOMAS HOUR (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). "Royal Follies of 1933" stars Danny as a prince whose betrothal to a meatpacking heiress (Eve Arden) does not keep him from falling for a chorine (Shirley Jones). Other Folliers include Hans Conned and Kurt Kasznar, with cameos by Bob Hope and Johnny Carson.
Tuesday, December 12 MR. DICKENS OF LONDON (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Sir Michael Redgrave as Charles Dickens conducts British Actress Juliet Mills on a tour of the city that he and his characters--Oliver Twist, Bill Sykes and Nancy, David Copperfield, Tiny Tim and Scrooge--knew in the 1800s.
HOLLYWOOD PALACE (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass surround themselves with musicians: the Baja Marimba Band, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, Liza Minnelli, Jazz Guitarist Wes Montgomery and Songwriter Burt Bacharach.
CBS REPORTS (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). "What About Ronald Reagan?" Correspondents Harry Reasoner and Bill Stout report on California's Governor--his early life, his years in Hollywood, his political career--with the help of Producer Jack Warner, among others.
NET PLAYHOUSE (Shown on Fridays). "The Successor" is a fictionalized documentary of backstage events during a modern papal election, starring Rupert Davies as the "simple man" who is chosen Pope after 14 days of balloting.
NET JOURNAL (Shown on Mondays). "Where Is Prejudice?" Twelve nice, reputedly unbiased college students of differing faiths and races are brought together for an exercise in venom during a week-long workshop. The catalyst fusing their experience turns out to be naked prejudice.
PUBLIC BROADCAST LABORATORY. A $10 million experimental series dedicated to the proposition that noncommercial television can provide a worthwhile alternative to commercial TV, PBL programs two hours of culture and public affairs each Sunday night.
THEATER
On Broadway THE PROMISE, by Aleksei Arbuzov. Two teen-age boys meet a teen-age girl in a gutted Leningrad flat during the siege of 1942. The girl loves the would-be engineer, but he leaves, and she marries the would-be poet, but he fails. Thirteen years later, the situation is reversed. To compound the confusion, the cast is as incorrigibly British (Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Ian McShane) as the play is Russian. This particular brand of Soviet drama should have been exiled to Siberia.
THE LITTLE FOXES. Lillian Hellman's 1939 drama is in that old-fashioned form, a play with a plot. Mike Nichols draws driving performances from Anne Bancroft, E.G Marshall and George C. Scott as members of a predatory Southern family with taste for pillage.
ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD puts a Shakespearean duo in a Pirandellian situation, then confers on them Beckettian angst mixed with Beyond the Fringe humor. British Playwright Tom Stoppard's play is well served by the acting of Brian Murray and John Wood and the direction of Derek Goldby.
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, by Harold Pinter. A man whose birthday it is not finds himseIf the guest of honor at its celebration and behaves as if he were a corpse at his own wake. Which well might be the case. The early Pinter puzzler is brought to the Broadway stage with an American cast
Off Broadway IPHIGENIA IN AULIS. After 2,400 years, the human truths presented in this drama by Euripides are as gapingly fresh as open wounds. Directed with musical cadence and poetic tension by Michael Cacoyannis, the story of Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter for the Greek cause is a moving lament for all who die young in war. As Clytemnestra, Irene Papas brings the adrenal flow of a mother's love and grief to the stage.
THE TRIALS OF BROTHER JERO and THE STRONG BREED, by African Playwright Wole Soyinka, introduce two aspects of Nigerian life to Manhattan audiences. In the first play, Harold Scott is a devil of a "prophet" as he gathers his "flock" on the beaches. In the second, Scott gives a taut interpretation of a voluntary victim of tribal taboos.
IN CIRCLES is a circular play: in other words, a play that is written in circles: in her words, round. The words are by Gertrude Stein, which means that Gertrude Stein made up the words. Al Carmines is the musical composer, that is, the music was composed by a man called Carmines. A delight is a delight is a delight.
SCUBA DUBA. Bruce Jay Friedman constructs a comedy of offhand cruelty. Forcing his audience to laughter while smashing their shibboleths, Actor Jerry Orbach is a one-man implosion as a super-neurotic who spends his Riviera holiday stalking around a chateau in his bathrobe, screaming maledictions through the night at mankind in general and his wife and her Negro lover in particular.
ClNEMA
HOW I WON THE WAR. Richard Lester juxtaposes slapstick with hard slaps at the brutality of battle in his surrealistic film about a platoon (Michael Crawford, Jack MacGowran, John Lennon) of World War II tommies hell-bent on building an officers' cricket field behind enemy lines.
CHAPPAQUA. Conrad Rooks gives his own 82-minute phantasmagoric apologia pro sua dolce vita in which the ex-junkie-alcoholic takes himself into and then out the world of addiction.
COOL HAND LUKE. This tough film about a cocky chain-gang prisoner (Paul Newman) who keeps his cool in the face of brutal guards makes excruciating viewing.
MORE THAN A MIRACLE. A flying monk, a gaggle of witches, 3,000 hexed eggs, seven princesses and a dishwashing contest stand between a peasant girl (Sophia Loren) and her prince (Omar Sharif), but only temporarily--for this is a fairy tale, and a fanciful delight at that.
THE COMEDIANS. Graham Greeneland lies somewhere between Purgatory and Hell, and, in the case of this particular film, it is in Haiti, where a highly skilled cast (including Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov, Alec Guinness, Paul Ford and Elizabeth Taylor) find some transcendently dramatic moments.
CAMELOT. Vanessa Redgrave's performance as Guinevere is the only reason to see Josh Logan's disappointing screen version of the Broadway hit musical.
BOOKS
Best Reading Some Christmas recommendations for children aged seven to twelve: FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER, by F. L. Konigsburg (Atheneum; $3.95). Two children run away from their suburban home and hide for a week in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They bathe in the museum fountain, sleep in a 16th century bed, and mingle with tour groups. Also recommended: Mrs. Konigsburg's Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth, a story of two girls who spend the school year pretending to be witches.
A HANDFUL OF THIEVES, by Nina Bawden (Lippincott; $3.50). In an effort to catch a cagey con man and robber, five English youngsters turn thieves and almost end up in jail. Exciting and amusing.
THE CRICKET WINTER, by Felice Holman, illustrated by Ralph Pinto (Norton; $3.95). A lovely fantasy, realistically wrought, of a lonely boy and a cricket who talk to each other via Morse code.
IRVING AND ME, by Syd Hoff (Harper & Row; $3.95). The adventures and mishaps that befall a 13-year-old Brooklyn boy when he moves to Florida. A good-humored novel by one of The New Yorker's cartoonists.
ADAM BOOKOUT, by Louisa R. Shotwell (Viking; $3.95). Going the other way, a splendid story of an Oklahoma farm boy's welcome in a Brooklyn public school.
NORSE GODS AND GIANTS, by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire (Doubleday; $5.95). Another wonderful D'Aulaire book, with vibrant illustrations of the lively old tales of northern mythology.
A LIKELY PLACE, by Paula Fox (Macmillan; $2.95). Lewis, at nine, is so overwhelmed by parental advice that he thinks of running away. But then he meets Mr. Madruga, a retired Spanish shoemaker, and together they solve their problems. Also recommended: Paula Fox's How Many Miles to Babylon?, the story of a Negro boy in Brooklyn who is held captive by young dog thieves.
MY BROTHER STEVIE, by Eleanor Clymer (Holt, Rinehart & Winston; $3.50). A sentimental story of two poor New York City children who take a train trip to the country to visit a favorite teacher.
THE PAI-PAI PIG, by Joy Anderson, illustrated by Jay Yang (Harcourt, Brace & World; $2.75). Two Formosan boys prepare for the annual pai-pai festival, at which the biggest pig in the village wins prize money for its owner before being eaten at the banquet.
THE BLACK PEARL, by Scott O'Dell (Houghton Mifflin; $3.25). The author of The Island of the Blue Dolphins has turned out another excellent novel; this one captures all the mysteries and dangers of pearl diving off the Baja California coast. For good measure, it adds a real live sea monster.
GlLGAMESH, by Bernarda Bryson (Holt, Rinehart & Winston; $4.95). A retelling of what is said to be the oldest legend known to man: the story of Gilgamesh, the great king of a Sumerian city, and his friend Enkidu, the half-beast, half-man originally created by the gods to destroy him. With its magnificent illustrations by the author, this book should appeal to all ages.
THE GREAT BRAIN, by John D. Fitzgerald, illustrated by Mercer Mayer (Dial; $3.95). In Mormon Utah in 1896, Tom ("The Great Brain") is the craftiest kid around. Whether figuring a way to make money when his father gets the first flush toilet in town or teaching a one-legged boy how not to be "useless," Tom is very funny; the illustrations are excellent.
EARLY THUNDER, by Jean Fritz (Coward-McCann; $4.50). A historical novel set in Salem, Mass., in 1775, about Daniel West, a 14-year-old torn between the Tory loyalties of his family and his own awakening devotion to independence.
OVER THE BLUE MOUNTAIN, by Conrad Richter, illustrated by Herbert Danska (Knopf; $3.75). The old Pennsylvania Dutch legend holds that on the second of July, a woman named Mary walks over the mountain; if it rains that day, Mary doesn't come back and there are 40 days of rain. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Richter's story tells what happens when two boys meet a real Mary.
ROAM THE WILD COUNTRY, by Ella Thorp Ellis, illustrated by Bret Schlesinger (Atheneum; $4.25). A South American story of horsebreaking with a 13-year-old hero.
A CLOUD OVER HIROSHIMA, by Burt Hirschfeld (Julian Messner; $3.95). The story of the atomic bomb, told with accuracy and excitement.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. The Confessions of Nat Turner, Styron (1 last week)
2. Topaz, Uris (2)
3. The Gabriel Hounds, Stewart (3)
4. The Chosen, Potok (4)
5. The Exhibitionist, Sutton (5)
6. Christy, Marshall (8)
7. Rosemary's Baby, Levin (7)
8. A Night of Watching, Arnold (6)
9. The Arrangement, Kazan (9)
10. Night Falls on the City, Gainham (10)
NONFICTION
1. Our Crowd, Birmingham (1)
2. Nicholas and Alexandra, Massie (2)
3. The New Industrial State, Galbraith (5)
4. Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker (3)
5. Twenty Letters to a Friend, Alliluyeva (4)
6. A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church, Kavanaugh (7)
7. Incredible Victory, Lord (8)
8. Memoirs: 1925-1950, Kennan (9)
9. Anyone Can Make a Million, Shulman (6)
10. At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, Eisenhower
*All times E.S.T.
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