Thursday, December 19

THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY (NBC, 7:30-8 p.m.).* An animated musical, based on the popular Christmas song, featuring the voices of Greer Garson, Jose Ferrer and the Vienna Choir Boys.

THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIE (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Guns at Batasi (1964), a tart, topical drama about a military coup in Africa, starring Richard Attenborough as a starched relic of the Kipling era, hopelessly out of touch with the age of Kenyatta.

Friday, December 20

THE NUTCRACKER (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). The New York City Ballet, with Edward Villella, Melissa Hayden and Patricia McBride in the Tchaikovsky classic. Repeat.

Saturday, December 21

APOLLO 8 LUNAR SPACE MISSION. ABC, CBS and NBC begin network coverage at 7 a.m. (takeoff: 7:51 a.m.) of the space shot that is scheduled to send three astronauts around the moon. Reportage will continue with bulletins and spectacular space telecasts until splashdown Friday morning, Dec. 27.

THE BANANA SPLITS ADVENTURE HOUR (NBC, 10:30-11:30 a.m.). Johnny Carson narrates a production of E. B. White's Stuart Little. Repeat.

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (NBC, 9-11:30 p.m.). White Christmas (1954). Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney in Irving Berlin's holiday favorite.

Sunday, December 22

L'ENFANCE DU CHRIST (CBS, 10-11 a.m.). Hector Berlioz's oratorio, performed by Giorgio Tozzi, Charles Anthony, Helen Vanni, Sherrill Milnes and Asa Berberian, assisted by the John Butler Dance Theater and the Camerata Singers. Repeat.

DR. SEUSS'S "HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS" (CBS, 7-7:30 p.m.). Boris Karloff narrates the children's story about the parsimonious, crotchety Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. Repeat.

Tuesday, December 24

THE RED SKELTON HOUR (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Senator Everett Dirksen reads "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and narrates an original story by Skelton about a soldier at Valley Forge.

THE WORLD OF CHRISTMAS (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Victor Borge plays host to 400 boys and girls representing 20 nationalities singing Christmas songs from around the world.

SAGA OF WESTERN MAN (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Christ Is Born. The story of the Wandering Jew, from the time of Abraham to the birth of Christ. John Secondari and John Huston narrate.

Check local listings for dates and times of these NET programs:

NET PLAYHOUSE. An Evening's Journey to Conway, Massachusetts. A historical drama by Archibald MacLeish commemorating the bicentennial of his New Eng land home town. Repeat.

THE PLAY OF DANIEL (Dec. 25, 8:30-9:45 p.m.). NET's Christmas special with the New York Pro Musica.

THEATER

On Broadway

PROMISES, PROMISES is a Neil Simon musical to remember other musicals by: slick, amiable and derivative. With a plot line borrowed from the Wilder-Diamond film The Apartment and a structure copied from How to Succeed in Business With out Really Trying, the show is not so much viewed as deja vu'd. While Jerry Orbach will probably light up Broadway from this show onwards, his performance is not equal to his acting in Scuba Duba.

JIMMY SHINE is an attempt at an inner journey by Author Murray Schisgal. The trouble is that it doesn't go anywhere. Jimmy Shine is a transparent character; to see him once is to know him totally. What makes him a winning loser is Dustin Hoffman's bravura performance. Hoffman takes thimblefuls of humor, absurdity, poignance, honesty, desire and passion and drains them as if they were foaming crystal goblets of dramatic life.

THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. James Earl Jones as Jack Johnson, the first Negro heavyweight champion, roars through the role with jungle magnetism and the pride of a lion. Otherwise this semidocumentary succeeds only in easing the conscience without facing the tragedy of its story.

KING LEAR. The consummate skill of Lee J. Cobb has elevated Lear's pain into a kingship of the spirit. The play is by far the best work the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater has ever offered.

HUUI, HUUI, by Anne Burr, is no shining example of the playwright's art. But Producer-Director Joseph Papp of New York's Shakespeare Festival manages to make it bright enough to provide an evening of unusual interest. Barry Primus plays an eccentric loner with a father fixation who utters, "Huui, hum" in moments of distress. Two women, charmed by his innocence, try to change him, but he eludes them only to meet final disillusionment.

RECORDS

Opera

BILLY BUDD (London: 3 LPs). Benjamin Britten's music is filled with a mystic intensity that illuminates rather than beclouds the libretto, which was beautifully crafted by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier from Melville's tale of an innocent's execution. The album has been meticulously produced with a cast that includes Peter Glossop as Billy and Peter Pears as Captain Vere: Britten himself conducts.

LUCIA Dl LAMMERMOOR (Seraphim: 2 LPs). Recognition first came to Maria Callas for her voice, and her voice alone. This reissue of a recording made at the 1953 Florence Festival documents the origin of her reputation as one of the finest dramatic sopranos in opera history. Her voice then had an almost unbelievable poignancy and precision, reinforced by an intelligence that makes most other singers' version of the mad scene seem like inane twittering. Tenor Giuseppi Di Stefano, Baritone Tito Gobbi and Conductor Tullio Serafin provide rousingly good support.

MEDEA (London: 3 LPs). Despite its powerful theme--the myth of the murdering mother--this 'opera has been infrequently performed since its composition 171 years ago. One reason is Cherubini's static, pedantic score. Another is the sadistic vocal demands of Medea, the lead role. In this album Gwyneth Jones lamentably fails to match her magnificent voice to the emotional exigencies of Medea, and Lamberto Gardelli's conducting is scandalously lethargic. The Callas version of Medea, released by Mercury in 1958, is an infinitely better listener's choice.

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (Angel: 3 LPs). In this, his third completed opera, Wagner took full advantage of every nuance--rollicking or gloomy--in the ancient tale of the wandering mariner who could not die until redeemed by the love of a woman Conductor Otto Klemperer proves to be a sound and sure-handed captain for this sea story. Baritone Theo Adam portrays the Dutchman with appropriate darkling intonations while Anja Silja, a protege of Wagner's grandson Wieland, sings Senta with an unusually light touch. A very satisfactory album.

COSI FAN TUTTE (RCA Victor: 4 LPs). Only Mozart could render such a silly story with such exquisite craftsmanship. The opera, whose title means, roughly, Women Are Like That is a comedy about female frivolity. Musically, it is an ensemble opera requiring the close cooperation of six lead singers; Leontyne Price and Sherrill Milnes stand out in an excellent cast led by Erich Leinsdorf.

CINEMA

THE FIXER is a relentless parable of a modern Job, based on Bernard Malamud's prize-winning novel. Under the inventive and often brilliant direction of John Frankenheimer, the actors--especially Alan Bates and Dirk Bogarde--bring to the film a truly Dostoevskian resonance and moral force.

OLIVER. A gleaming, steaming, rum plum pudding of a musical. Gone is Dickens' sociological sting, but in its place is a Christmas package of breathtaking sets, period costumes, and a full-throated, joyous score by Lionel Bart. Best of a twinkling cast are Ron Moody as Fagin and a Toby jug of a boy named Jack Wild as The Artful Dodger.

THE FIREMEN'S BALL. Director Milos Forman (Loves of a Blonde) has fashioned a delicious parody-fable of Communist bureaucracy in pre-Dubcek Czechoslovakia from this slight and funny anecdote about a group of firemen who stage a party in honor of their retiring chief.

YELLOW SUBMARINE. The Beatles appear in cartoon form as the stars of this eclectic animated film about a voyage to Pepperland on a yellow submarine. The real star of the trip, however, is Animator Heinz Edelmann, whose visual puns and graphic artistry delight the eye.

PRETTY POISON. Murder for laughs is the subject of this tidy little satire, which features fine performances by Tony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, and excellent direction by Noel Black, 31, a newcomer to Hollywood with only a few short subjects to his credit until now.

BULLITT. Steve McQueen plays it fast and supercool as a San Francisco police lieutenant in this modish, violent thriller about current life styles in the underworld.

FUNNY GIRL is a loud, brassy musical biography of Fanny Brice that seems tailor-made for the loud, brassy talents of Barbra Streisand.

COOGAN'S BLUFF. Director Don Siegal, hailed as a minor genius by French critics, proves that his reputation is no Gallie caprice with this tough film about an Arizona sheriff (Clint Eastwood) who travels to New York to extradite a prisoner.

WEEKEND. Jean-Luc Godard excoriates the bourgeoisie in a savage satire that would be sharper were its Maoist political harangues not so dull.

BOOKS

Best Reading

TURPIN, by Stephen Jones. In this first novel, a series of unlikely events and uncertain conversations is transformed by the author's gift for satire into a curiously engaging book.

THE BEASTLY BEATITUDES OF BALTHAZAR B, by J. P. Donleavy. The comic and sensual adventures of a rich and dreamy young man in Paris and Dublin. Donleavy at his best.

INSTANT REPLAY: THE GREEN BAY DIARY OF JERRY KRAMER. A succinct answer to that overasked question: What has happened to the Packers this year? Simple. Vince Lombardi is no longer coach. The Grand Old Martinet of pro football raged, cussed, threatened and coaxed his athletes into winning every Sunday, and Kramer, his all-pro right guard, makes a perceptive witness to his antics.

THE COLLECTED ESSAYS, JOURNALISM AND LETTERS OF GEORGE ORWELL (four volumes), edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus. A remarkable record of the political and intellectual history of Western Europe during the '30s and '40s by the brilliant author of Animal Farm and 1984.

O'NEILL: SON AND PLAYWRIGHT, by Louis Sheaffer. O'Neill did what only a major artist can do: he made his public share his private demon. In this painstaking biography, the first of two volumes, Author Sheaffer traces the tensions that defined the playwright's life.

THE CAT'S PAJAMAS AND WITCH'S MILK, by Peter De Vries. In these two grotesquely humorous novellas, a gifted, discontented man works hard at being a failure, and a gentle, down-at-heart woman struggles with domestic disaster.

THE PUBLIC IMAGE, by Muriel Spark. A wickedly witty novel about a movie star who rises and falls on her public image.

Best Sellers

FICTION 1. A Small Town in Germany, le Carre (1 last week)

2. The Salzburg Connection, Maclnnes (2)

3. Preserve and Protect, Drury (3)

4. Airport, Hailey (5)

5. The Hurricane Years, Hawley (4)

6. The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn (9)

7. And Other Stories, O'Hara

8. Savage Sleep, Brand (6)

9. The Senator, Pearson (7)

10. Testimony of Two Men, Caldwell (8)

NONFICTION

1. The Day Kennedy Was Shot, Bishop (5)

2. The Money Game, 'Adam Smith' (1)

3. The Arms of Krupp, Manchester

4. Instant Replay, Kramer (6)

5. Sixty Years on the Firing Line, Krock (2)

6. The American Challenge, Servan-Schreiber (7)

7. Lonesome Cities, McKuen (9)

8. The Rich and the Super-Rich, Lundberg (3)

9. On Reflection, Hayes (10) 10. Anti-Memoirs, Malraux (4)

* All times E.S.T.

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