Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers/Compiled by Linda Williams

BOOKS

KING EDWARD VIII by Philip Ziegler (Knopf; $24.95). The great crown-for-love scandal gets a decidedly unromantic treatment in this diplomatic but by no means flattering portrait of the moonstruck Duke of Windsor, the man who gave up his throne for a career as the husband of American-born Wallis Simpson.

A DANGEROUS WOMAN by Mary McGarry Morris (Viking; $19.95). This searching novel about a woman who is one of life's losers creates a character who is crazy enough to be interesting and sane enough to describe her own incompetence.

I AM A TEACHER: A TRIBUTE TO AMERICA'S TEACHERS by David Marshall Marquis and Robin Sachs (Simon & Schuster; $29.95). In this chronicle of the nation's best teachers, 78 classroom veterans speak thoughtfully, sometimes passionately, of their profession's rewards and sorrows; accompanied by Sachs' evocative photographs.

TELEVISION

LUCY & DESI: BEFORE THE LAUGHTER (CBS, Feb. 10, 9 p.m. EST). Frances Fisher and Maurice Benard, winners of CBS's anyone-can-star contest, play the former First Couple of Comedy in a TV movie about their "loving but stormy" marriage.

KISSES (TNT, Feb. 11, 8 p.m. EST). Ted Turner keeps finding new ways to mine his extensive movie collection: Lauren Bacall is the host of this lighthearted documentary on the history of the movie kiss.

MUSIC

PAUL MCCARTNEY: TRIPPING THE LIVE FANTASTIC (Capitol). Could McCartney's 1990 world tour have been as good as this larky, occasionally inspired live set makes it sound? Missed it? Check out these two CDs, and let some older memories kick in.

THE TRASH CAN SINATRAS: CAKE (Go! Discs Ltd./London). Nice name, guys. But you already knew that. Actually, these five English lads lay down an excellent brand of pub pop: simple, insinuating melodies, lyrics with propulsive good humor. Has the guy from Hoboken heard you yet?

SCHONBERG: CHORUS

MUSIC (Sony Classical). Arnold Schonberg's reputation for atonality, serialism and 12-tone composition has created widespread resistance to his work, some of which is indeed forbidding. But if converts to his remarkably disparate choral music are to be won, these authoritative Pierre Boulez-led performances ought to do the job.

THEATER

LOST IN YONKERS. Neil Simon elevated himself from jokester to artist in an autobiographical trilogy during the mid-1980s. He returns to themes from his youth in his 26th Broadway-bound play, now at Washington's National Theater.

TRU. Robert Morse brings back to life the author, wit, bon vivant, self-pitier and true enchanter that was Truman Capote in this Tony-winning one-man performance, now on national tour, in Los Angeles through March 10.

GRAND HOTEL. The main reason to see this show on Broadway was Tommy Tune's sinuous staging, superbly fitted to its space. On tour, this week in Cleveland, it looks at once distant and squashed. The only compelling performance is by Brent Barrett as a doomed, down-on-his-luck aristocrat.

MULE BONE. There's historical curiosity, at least, in this never-before- produce d 1930 script by Harlem literati Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, now in previews on Broadway, with music by Taj Mahal and a stellar cast, including Frances Foster, Arthur French and Theresa Merritt. Scholars judge the comedy, set in Florida, to be a landmark of black-American culture.

MOVIES

MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE. A wonderful movie from Evan S. Connell's brace of anecdotal novels about buttoned-up banker Walter Bridge and his dithery wife | India, brought to full and funny life by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Poignant and deftly satirical, director James Ivory's mood piece raises observation to an art form.

ALICE. Woody Allen goes whimsical in this contemporary fairy tale about a Manhattan woman (Mia Farrow) who dares to fly from her troubles toward her dreams. William Hurt and Alec Baldwin are among the men who hold her down -- or help her soar.

ETCETERA

LISETTE MODEL, International Center of Photography, New York. To Model, the human form was a landscape and the human race was something both gamy and unearthly -- a zoo full of mammals in derby hats and polka-dot dresses. Through March 24.

ORPHEUS UND EURYDIKE. Berlin's adventurous Komische Oper makes its U.S. debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a radical updating of Gluck's masterwork. Orpheus is now a pop singer and the underworld he must traverse a lunatic asylum. Feb. 11-17.

COPPELIA. American Ballet Theater's only major new effort, with its irresistible Delibes score, moves to Chicago. Tony Straiges, who made the wizardly sets for Sunday in the Park with George, designed the production. Feb. 8-10.

VINTAGE VIDEOS

LEONARD MALTIN'S MOVIE MEMORIES (RCA/BMG Video; $16.98 each). Something different. Not the usual clips of dear departed superstars and great moments from Hollywood classics. These are collections of "soundies": pre-MTV shorts from the '40s, made to be shown on a type of coin-operated movie jukebox and featuring . . ., well, not to put too fine a point on it, some of the giants of American music, jazz department. Vol. I, The 1940's Music Machine, boasts the likes of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in performance. Vol. II, Singing Stars of the Swing Era, features rare film glimpses of the supernal June Christy and Anita O'Day, as well as Hoagy Carmichael's incomparable rendering of Lazy Bones. Vol. III chronicles Big Band Swing, including Count Basie's Air Mail Special. Vol. IV covers Harlem Highlights, featuring Rosetta Tharpe and Lucky Millinder doing a steamy version of Four or Five Times, which could have been the Justify My Love of its day. Gone. Real gone.