Tunes of Glory. Alec Guinness is uncannily lifelike as a roaring extravert of a mustang colonel who becomes both hero and villain in a Scottish garrison tragedy.
Exodus. Although it runs nearly four hours and is full of pro-Zionist tirades, the film version of the bestseller about the birth of Israel is a serious, frightening and inspiring political thriller.
The Sundowners. A lusty slice of life in Australia's sheep-steeped outback, with Robert Mitchum as a bushtown drifter, Deborah Kerr as his worried wife.
The Magnificent Seven. An expert, sensitive study of the fateful tie that inevitably binds the strong to the weak, this film may well be the best western of 1960.
The Virgin Spring (in Swedish). Ingmar Bergman's beautifully filmed, holy if horrible Gothic myth in which good and evil, Christian and pagan powers collaborate in the continuous nativity of love.
Village of the Damned. In one of the neatest little chillers since Peter Lorre went straight, an English town drops suddenly senseless, wakes to find its womenfolk unaccountably pregnant.
The Love Game (inFrench). Jean-Pierre Cassel, playing a ludicrous but lovable mixture of Don Juan and Peter Pan, emerges as the funniest Frenchman since Tati's Hulot.
General della Rovere (in Italian). Back in his top form of the 1940s, Roberto (Open City) Rossellini directs a poignant piece about a trivial swindler--brilliantly played by Vittorio De Sica--who stops impersonating the role of a wartime hero to become one.
TELEVISION
Thurs., Dec. 29
Project Twenty (NBC, 9:30-11 p.m.).* A superb abridgment of the 1952-53 documentary series Victory at Sea, with the excellent original score by Richard Rodgers. .
Years of Crisis (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Edward R. Murrow once again moderates CBS's year-end roundtable of correspond ents called in from all over the world to discuss the great events of the past year.
Fri., Dec. 30
Projection '61 (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Same idea as above, but with Huntley-Brinkley and the rest of the squad from the other side of the electronic curtain.
Sat., Dec. 31
The 'Gator Bowl (CBS, starts at 2 p.m.). Florida v. Baylor.
The Nation's Future (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). This week's debate subject is Amer ican comedy: Mort Sahl v. Steve Allen.
New Year's Eve in New York (NBC, 11:15 p.m.-l a.m.). NBC gives people in Indiana and Iowa a chance to watch those crowds of people from Indiana and Iowa thronging Times Square.
Sun., Jan. 1
The Orange Bowl Regatta (CBS, 1-2 p.m.). All sorts of powerboats tearing wakes in Miami's Biscayne Bay, dodging the artificial islands in the Sid Street Memorial.
The NBC Opera Company (NBC, 3-5 p.m.). First presentation of Leonard Kastle's Deseret, an opera about Brigham Young. Color.
American Football League Championship (ABC, starts at 3:30 p.m.). Houston Oilers v. Los Angeles Chargers.
The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). First of two parts on American prisoners of war in Korea and the "persuasion" methods used on them by the Communists.
Mon., Jan. 2
Tournament of Roses Parade (ABC, 11:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.). This year's Pasadena, Calif, splash is called "Ballads in Blossoms"--bands, horses, more than 60 floats.
Tournament of Roses Parade (NBC, 11:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.). Ditto, in color after 11:45.
The Orange Bowl (CBS, starts at 12:45 p.m.). Missouri v. Navy.
The Sugar Bowl (NBC, starts at 1:45 p.m.). Mississippi v. Rice, Red Grange commenting. Color.
The Cotton Bowl (CBS, starts at 3:30 p.m.). Duke v. Arkansas.
The Rose Bowl (NBC, after the Sugar Bowl, approximately 4:45 p.m.). Minnesota v. Washington.
THEATER
Camelot. While failing to live up to its extravagant expectations and to the richness of the Arthurian legend, the Lerner-Loewe work has sumptuous sets, some fine songs, some stylishly medieval choreography, and an expert performance by Richard Burton.
All the Way Home. A well-acted, deeply moving adaptation, retaining much of the poetry and relentless power of James Agee's Knoxville chronicle, A Death in the Family.
Advise and Consent. Although never once cutting below the surface, this political contrivance (based on Allen Drury's bestselling novel) gets behind the scenes often enough to produce brisk, even gripping theater.
Period of Adjustment. Tennessee Williams' South has become unprecedentedly sunny in a lively, skillful but somehow disappointing comedy about marital adjustment.
An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Whether enacting Mamma and Papa, lover and mistress, P.T.A. program chairman and Southern playwright, the versatile improvisationists are funny and sharply satirical.
A Taste of Honey. An unhistrionic evocation of a world of misfits and misfortunes, with a brilliant performance by Joan Plowright.
Irma La Douce. In a pert and piquant Parisian musical, Elizabeth Seal proves herself Broadway's yummiest yum-yum girl.
The Hostage. A ramshackle showcase for the hilarious shenanigans, vaudeville stunts, irreverences, tongue-in-cheekiness and occasional profundities of Playwright Brendan Behan.
BOOKS
Best Reading
Winne Ille Pu, by A. A. Milne, translated into Latin by Alexander Lenard. Liber virginibus puerisque legendis, si quis adhuc vivit satis impiger qui alienum sermonem a maioribus pantopere excultum non fastiviat.
It Had Been a Mild, Delicate Night, by Tom Kaye. The author writes of a nymph and a satyr in London, of all places; his pagan first novel is in praise of Eros, the deity he believes makes the world go around.
Trumpets from the Steep, by Diana Cooper. Lady Diana has the delightful ability to make real people seem like Waugh characters, but there is a touch of sadness to the third volume of her autobiography, in which the brightest of the Bright Young People of the '20s say goodbye to her generation.
A Zoo in My Luggage, by Gerald Durrell. The author, who must be extremely tired of being described as the brother of Novelist Lawrence Durrell, is crackers about animals, and here he writes very well of the ones he met on an eventful trip to the Cameroons.
Goodbye to a River, by John Graves. An uncommonly well-told account of the author's sentimental journey by canoe down the Brazos River of western Texas, a watercourse that was to be destroyed by a power dam project.
Summoned by Bells, by John Betjeman. Neither major poetry nor the record of an extraordinary life, this autobiography in verse is nevertheless a singing recollection of what it was to live in an older England, and to be a young poet.
Sermons and Soda Water, by John O'Hara. Abandoning his attempt to write his own Remembrance of Things Past, he returns to his early task of concise social observation, and to his early excellence--in three related novellas.
Advise Hawaii,
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)*
2. Hawaii, Michener (2)
3. The Last of the Just, Schwarz-Bart (4)
4. Decision at Delphi, Maclnnes (5)
5. The Dean's Watch, Goudge (9)
6. The Lovely Ambition, Chase (8)
7. Mistress of Mellyn, Holt (6)
8. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (3)
9. The Leopard, Di Lampedusa (7)
10. Sermons and Soda-Water, O'Hara (10)
NONFICTION
1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer (1)
2. The Waste Makers, Packard (2)
3. The American Heritage Picture His tory of the Civil War (3)
4. Born Free, Adamson (6)
5. The Snake Has All the Lines, Kerr (5)
6. Vanity Fair, ed. by Amory and Bradlee (8)
7. Baruch: The Public Years (4)
8. Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, Frankfurter with Phillips
9. The Politics of Upheaval, Schlesinger (7)
10. The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater
* All times E.S.T. * Position on last week's list.
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