Thursday, September 1 CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIE (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). * Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra in familiar roles: the former a priest, the latter a criminal in The Devil at Four 0'Clock (1961), an adventure on a Pacific island.
THE AVENGERS (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). In "The Town of No Return," the Avengers set out to discover what evil befell four fellow spooks who vanished without a trace from a bleak coastal village.
Friday, September 2
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE (CBS, 10 p.m. to conclusion). The Dallas Cowboys, one of the N.F.L.'s preseason favorites for the Eastern Division crown, meet the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth and last warm-up exhibition.
Saturday, September 3
U.S. MEN'S AMATEUR GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP (ABC, 4-5 p.m.). The final rounds, from the Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa.
ABC'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS (ABC, 5-6:30 p.m.). At last, after knocking themselves--and their parents--out since early spring, the Little Leaguers play for the world championship at Williamsport, Pa.
SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (NBC, 9-11 p.m.). The Tin Star (1957), starring Henry Fonda as a onetime sheriff turned bounty hunter who is drawn into a showdown of strength-between a gunman and an inexperienced lawman, played by Tony Perkins.
Sunday, September 4
AMERICAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE (NBC, 4:30-7:30 p.m!). The season's opener in the A.F.L.: the defending-champion Buffalo Bills v. the runner-up San Diego Chargers, at San Diego.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). Walter Cronkite looks at "Nehru: Man of Two Worlds," his background, schooling, return to India and his efforts in the struggle for world peace. Repeat.
THE ROUNDERS (ABC, 8:30-9 p.m.). The premiere of a modern horselaugh opera recounting the adventures of two cowboys, their wheeler-dealer ranch boss and a horse called "Old Fooler," who would rather sit than buck. Chill Wills stars as the rancher, with Ron Hayes and Patrick Wayne as the cowpokes. Old Fooler up stages them all in "A Horse for Jim Ed Love."
THE PRUITTS OF SOUTHAMPTON (ABC, 9-9:30 p.m.). Phyllis Diller as the widowed head of the poor but proud Pruitts of Long Island. The first episode, "Phyllis Goes for Broke," chronicles Uncle Ned's (Reginald Gardiner) efforts to marry Phyllis off to moneyed stuffiness, General Cannon (John McGiver). Gypsy Rose Lee plays a noisy neighbor.
LOVE ON A ROOFTOP (ABC, 9:30-10 p.m.). Newlyweds in San Francisco make $85 a week seem like a fortune and their windowless apartment like the Hall of Mirrors in this new comedy romance featuring Judy Carne as an art-student wife and Peter Deuel as an apprentice architect. Premiere.
THEATER
Straw Hat
Leave 'em laughing, the old vaudevillian philosophy, is still the thing along the straw-hat circuit. Some situation comedies chosen for the closing weeks of summer productions:
THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT, Kennebunkport Playhouse, Kennebunkport, Me.; Star Playhouse, Ephrata, Pa.; Green Hills Theater, Reading, Pa.; Tappan Zee Playhouse, Nyack, N.Y.
THE COFFEE LOVER, Ogunquit Playhouse, Ogunquit, Me.
DEAR ME, THE SKY IS FALLING, Cape Playhouse, Dennis, Mass.
RATTLE OF A SIMPLE MAN, Warwick Playhouse, Warwick, N.Y.
YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, Lake Whalom Playhouse, Fitchburg, Mass.
BORN YESTERDAY, Colonie Summer Theater, Latham, N.Y.
BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, Totem Pole Playhouse, Fayetteville, Pa.
BIOGRAPHY, Bucks County Playhouse, New Hope, Pa.
THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS, Pocono Playhouse, Mountainhome, Pa.
MARY, MARY, Foothill Playhouse, Middlesex, N.J.
ANY WEDNESDAY, Oakdale Musical Theater, Wallingford, Conn.; Gretna Playhouse, Mt. Gretna, Pa.; Peninsula Playhouse, Fish Creek, Wis.
A THOUSAND CLOWNS, Belfry Players, Williams Bay, Wis.
SUNDAY IN NEW YORK, Flat Rock Playhouse, Flat Rock, N.C.
THE ODD COUPLE, Elitch Theater, Denver, Colo.
MARRIAGE GO ROUND, Black Hills Playhouse, Custer State Park, S. Dak.
RECORDS
Jazz
Jazz piano has such a wide vocabulary that it forms a category by itself. Some new piano releases, plus two reissues of jazz classics in another vein:
HAMPTON HAWES, HERE AND NOW (Contemporary). In this record, Hawes adds new harmonic colorings to his bright percussive style, most notably in Fly Me to the Moon and Chim Chim Cher-ee. Helping him along on bass is Chuck Israels, whose gracefully looping rhythms give another dimension to The Girl from Ipanema and What Kind of Fool Am I?
HERBIE HANCOCK, MAIDEN VOYAGE (Blue Note). Hancock is-an inventive young (26) modernist best known for his work with Miles Davis. Here he sets out to fathom the mysteries of the sea. His crew of Ron Carter on bass, Tony Williams, drums, Freddie Hubbard, trumpet, and George Coleman, tenor sax, pull together perfectly to express a variety of moods--from the quiet swirling sound of Little One to the growling agitation of Eye of the Hurricane. Survival of the Fittest features a Hancock solo that pits one hand against the other in a sort of riptide effect.
ROGER KELLAWAY TRIO (Prestige). A gem for piano lovers of all persuasions by one of the most versatile creators around. Kellaway can play full-bodied romps like One Night Stand (composed by his wife, Singer Patte Hale), tricky little capers like Sweet and Lovely, and moody ballads such as I'll Follow the Sun. He is at his most inventive in his own composition, Brats, in which he draws a fascinating metallic sound from the piano by randomly attaching nuts and bolts to its strings.
LES McCANN LTD. LIVE AT SHELLY'S MANNE HOLE (Limelight). Infusing this album is that welcome but all-too-infrequent spirit --humor. McCann gives the injection willfully in She Broke My Heart (But I Broke Her Jaw), wittily in That Was the Freak That Was, and with downright homey good nature in How's Your Mother? For counterpoint, he gives his fans a sensitive and lyrical treatment of Young and Foolish, and a sort of half-pop, half-bop vocal on All Alone.
JACK TEAGARDEN (RCA Victor Vintage Series). Buzzy echoes of F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazz era are the seven tracks recorded in 1928-29, along with some later tunes that show the talented trombonist dipping into the bop of the mid-'40s. The sides, featuring Fats Waller, Eddie Condon and Louis Armstrong, are reissued in medium-high fidelity and extra-high vitality. If you like echoes.
BILLIE HOLIDAY, THE GOLDEN YEARS, VOL. II (Columbia). Lady Day at her finest with her special pianist Teddy Wilson and scores of top jazzman friends from the Basic and Ellington bands, notably Lester ("Prez") Young, Buck Clayton and Johnny Hodges. Her emotive, slim-toned voice etches its way indelibly through 48 standards and show tunes in a three-record set.
ClNEMA
THE WRONG BOX. Bryan Forbes, who directed King Rat, is now plotting a furiously funny race to kill off one of the two surviving members of a Victorian tontine, with John Mills and Ralph Richardson at the not-so-tender mercies of their loving heirs--Michael Caine, Nanette Newman, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
KHARTOUM. Charlton Heston pulls on still another heroic hat as British General Charles ("Chinese") Gordon, with Laurence Olivier as the Moslem Mahdi, in a Cinerama version of the bitter 317-day siege of Khartoum.
HOW TO STEAL A MILLION. A clever museum heist is pulled off with slick, professional comedy by Audrey Hepburn and her second-story pal, Peter O'Toole.
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis star in the screen version of Edward Albee's violently verbal shock treatment, subtly directed by Mike Nichols.
THE ENDLESS SUMMER. A dazzling ode to sun, sand and surf, starring two young Californians as they travel the globe in search of paradise: the perfect beach with the perfect wave.
THE NAKED PREY. In a fearsomely dogged epic of survival, native man hunters chase after Director-Star Cornel Wilde as the lone survivor of a safari in scenic Africa of a century ago.
LE BONHEUR. Gentle yet profoundly cynical, this film by French Director Agnes Varda shows that the happiness of man is not necessarily that of woman.
"THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING." Cold war humor crackles on an island off New England when a Russian sub runs aground on a sand , bar and its jittery crew, led by Broadway's Alan Arkin, inadvertently panic the populace in their hilarious efforts to get the tub launched again.
BOOKS
Best Reading
THE ANTI-DEATH LEAGUE, by Kingsley Amis. A lively spy story that hovers in the nervous neutralism of the cold war. Amis keeps the reader looking in the wrong direction until the highly sophisticated and almost credible solution.
THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, by Carl Bakal. An angry but thought-provoking polemic against the easy availability of firearms in the U.S.--which the author, a Manhattan public relations man, claims is responsible for 50 deaths daily.
LOVE'S BODY, by Norman O. Brown. University of Rochester Professor Brown elaborates and enlarges on his theme, set forth in Life Against Death, that sexual repression is the skulking killer of laughter and freedom.
A VOICE THROUGH A CLOUD, by Denton Welch. A crippling auto accident, which ended Author Welch's studies as a promising painter, launched a writing career that comes fully to flower in this terrible, brilliant memoir of the invalid years that eventually ended in death.
The midsummer has produced a bumper harvest of first novels far above the average in literary skill and temperamental resonance. Four are especially noteworthy for their rippling readability. The Secret of Santa Vittoria, by Robert Crichton, probably the funniest war novel since Mister Roberts, is a rollicking account of how a poverty-galled Italian village keeps its cache of 1,320,000 bottles of vino out of the hands of the Germans during World War II. Beggars on Horseback, by James Mossman, is a savagely hilarious satire on how a British legation, staffed with blimps and misfits, strives to keep its grip on a mythical Middle Eastern kingdom. Trust, by Cynthia Ozick, is an elephant of a book (568 pages) that reconstructs with delightful irony the experience of American Jewry in the troubled '30s, when Marxism was embraced by many as the religion of social justice. Moss on the North Side, by Sylvia Wilkinson, is a lyrical evocation of a hardscrabble North Carolina childhood, by one of the most talented young (26) Southern belletrists to appear since Carson McCullers.
Best Sellers
FICTION
1. Valley of the Dolls, Susann (1 last week)
2. The Adventurers, Robbins (2)
3. Tai-Pan, Clavell (3)
4. The Detective, Thorp (4)
5. The Source, Michener (5)
6. Tell No Man, St. Johns (6)
7. The Double Image, Maclnnes (10)
8. Those Who Love, Stone (8)
9. The Embezzler, Auchincloss
10. I, the King, Keyes (9)
NONFICTION
1. How to Avoid Probate, Dacey (1)
2. Human Sexual Response, Masters and Johnson (3)
3. The Last Battle, Ryan (4)
4. Papa Hemingway, Hotchner (2)
5. Games People Play, Berne (5)
6. Flying Saucers--Serious Business, Edwards (10)
7. In Cold Blood, Capote (6)
8. Two Under the Indian Sun, Godden and Godden (9)
9. The Big Spenders, Beebe (8)
10. Incident at Exeter, Fuller
*All times E.D.T.
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