CINEMA

Sunrise at Campobello. As in his stage version, Dore Schary worships rather than evaluates Franklin Roosevelt during the period when he conquers polio, setting the mold for the President-to-be. But for all this, the film offers rich, commercial entertainment, ranging from heroic drama to soap opera to political pleading.

The Entertainer. In a seedy music-hall performer, England's Angry Playwright-Scenarist John Osborne has a farfetched but arresting symbol of all that is wrong with England. But the vigor of Osborne's complaint and, above all, Laurence Olivier's relentless grotesqueries as the fatuous vaudevillian provide fascination on the screen.

The World of Apu. The third, last and most striking section in the trilogy of Indian life by Satyajit Ray brings its hero to marriage and deeper tragedy than either Pather Panchali or Aparajito, the first two parts, making it the moving culmination of a naturalistic film masterpiece.

Let's Make Love. A trumped-up plot to bring Marilyn Monroe and France's rugged, gaunt-faced, charming Yves Montand together takes the long way around to Marilyn's arms, since Montand is an unlikely billionaire who wants to be loved for himself alone. The game is forced but fun.

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. William Inge's careful insights into the problems of an Oklahoma harness salesman and his troubled family are well illuminated in the screen version, with Robert Preston setting the acting pace though occasionally running ahead of Inge's harness.

High Time. An amiable spoof of the old-fashioned campus musicals brings Old Groaner Bing Crosby back to college to fill the gap in his career as a tycoon. Along the way, Bing also gets a refresher course in romance. No harm done at all.

TELEVISION

Tues., Oct. 18

Thriller (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).*Latest in the new crime series, hosted by Boris Karloff. This edition, starring Everett Sloane, Frank Silvera and Jay C. Flippen, is about an underground lawyer and his difficult relations with a narcotics syndicate boss.

The Garry Moore Show (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Guests: Alan King, Anna Maria Alberghetti.

Wed., Oct. 19

Step on the Gas (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). A Max Liebman musical comedy based on the bumpy evolution of the automobile, with Jackie Cooper and Shirley Jones.

Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Guests: Jack Paar, Keeley Smith, Hugh Downs and Kokomo Jr. Color.

Fri., Oct. 21

Nixon and Kennedy (CBS, NBC, ABC, 10-11 p.m.). The fourth TV encounter between the presidential candidates.

The Equitable's Our American Heritage (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Not Without Honor, a historical drama, stars Arthur Kennedy as Alexander Hamilton and Ralph Bellamy as Thomas Jefferson.

Sat., Oct. 22

N.C.A.A. Football Game (ABC, 2:15 p.m. to final gun). Notre Dame at Northwestern.

The Bob Hope Buick Show (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Hope plays Gaylord Goober, the people's choice, with Guest Stars Ginger Rogers and Perry Como.

The Campaign and the Candidates (NBC, 9:30-10:30 p.m.). Recap of campaign developments.

Sun., Oct. 23

Meet the Press (NBC, 6-6:30 p.m.). Guests: Democratic and Republican National Committee Chairmen Henry M. Jackson and Thruston B. Morton.

The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6:30-7 p.m.). Revolt in Hungary, a rebroadcast of the memorable films about the 1956 uprising.

The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (NBC, 9-10 p.m.). Featured: Tahitian singers, dancers and musicians. Color.

Mon., Oct. 24

The Right Man (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Dramatized history of the American presidential campaigns over the last century.

Continental Classroom (NBC, 6-7 a.m.). John F. Baxter teaches "The Electron and Convalence" during the first half hour, and John L. Kelley offers "Ordered Pairs and Ordered Triples" in mathematics during the second.

THEATER

On Broadway

Irma La Douce. A musical that is French to its very bedposts provides a tingling mixture of sweetness and bite. As a prostitute who can make iniquity seem perfectly charming, Britain's Elizabeth Seal suggests that she really can do no wrong, despite Irma's vocation.

A Taste of Honey. Written by Britain's Shelagh Delaney when she was only 19, the play tells the story of an English girl trapped in sad and sordid situations, makes up for its too episodic style with leaping language, a sense of truth, and a brilliant performance by Joan Plowright.

The Hostage, by Brendan Behan, fills its characters with the wild humors of its bigger-than-life playwright, runs an exhilarating gamut from bawdiness and irreverence to keening Irish lyricism.

Still holding up on Broadway against the tide of new shows are several holdovers, notably The Miracle Worker, Toys in the Attic, Bye Bye Birdie.

BOOKS

Best Reading

The Sabres of Paradise, by Lesley Blanch. This history of Russia's struggles to subdue the wild tribesmen of the Caucasus during the first half of the 19th century is hardly an orderly chronicle, but its digressions are fascinating, and its heroes are thundering horsemen and high-bouncing lovers.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer. Though it offers no new insights or literary distinction, this massive history by a veteran reporter holds the reader's interest to the Wagnerian end.

The Nephew, by James Purdy. The accomplished author of The Color of Darkness achieves eerie effects with clear, simple prose in this impressive novel about an elderly Ohio woman who makes the mistake of looking too deeply into the life of a soldier nephew who has died.

The Child Buyer, by John Hersey. A first-rate satire, in the form of hearings before a state senate committee, of national vagaries in education and superpatriotism.

Rome for Ourselves, by Aubrey Menen. A fond, mocking assessment of Rome, ancient and modern, suggesting that even in imperial days Romans were less interested in glory than in la dolce vita.

The Worlds of Chippy Patterson, by Arthur H. Lewis. A readable biography of the flamboyant Main Line lawyer who preferred broads to ladies, penniless--and crooked--clients to rich corporations.

The Trial Begins, by Abram Tertz. A bitter and brilliant novel, smuggled from Russia, mocking the Soviet monolith.

Victory in the Pacific, by Samuel Eliot Morison. The author reaches port with the last volume of narrative in his masterly history of U.S. naval operations in World War II.

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant, by Anthony Powell. A witty novel about Britain in the '30s and that period's curious miscegenation between Society and Art.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee, with photographs by Walker Evans. Since it was written in 1936, this prose account of sharecroppers' lives, set down with the dark rage of a poet, has become a classic.

Decision at Trafalgar, by Dudley Pope. Best of the current blood-in-the-scuppers accounts of the great battle.

The Black Book, by Lawrence Durrell. A glittering, impudent, outrageous novel, all murk and manifesto, written by the author of the Alexandria tetralogy when he was 24 and had just made the heady discovery that he was a very good writer.

Best Sellers

FICTION 1. Advise and Consent, Drury (1)

2. Hawaii, Michener (2)

3. The Leopard, Di Lampedusa (3)

4. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee (5)

5. The Chapman Report, Wallace (4)

6. The Lovely Ambition, Chase (8)

7. Diamond Head, Oilman (7)

8. The Last Temptation of Christ, Kazantzakis (6)

9. Mistress of Mellyn, Holt (9) 10. The Child Buyer, Hersey

NONFICTION 1. Born Free, Adamson (1)

2. How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market, Darvas (2)

3. Taken at the Flood, Gunther (4)

4. Enjoy, Enjoy! Golden (5)

5. The Waste Makers, Packard (8)

6. Folk Medicine, Jarvis (6)

7. Felix Frankfurter Reminisces, Frankfurter with Phillips (3)

8. The Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater 9. The Liberal Hour, Galbraith (7)

10. May This House Be Safe from Tigers, King

*All times E.D.T. *Position on last week's list.

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