Two above-average novels made two far-above-average TV plays last week:
¶ A. J. Cronin's The Citadel (ABC) was superbly acted by James Donald and Hugh Griffith, retelling the story of an English physician whose Hippocratical beginnings disappear in a hypocritical practice on London's fashionable Harley Street. If the play suffered from an excess of blood sugar, Dr. Cronin's professional authenticity more than compensated. No one could write Medic so well.
¶ Edith Wharton's Ethan Frame was the Show of the Month (CBS), skillfully adapted and powerfully acted. With angular hulkiness, Sterling Hayden as Ethan, the Yankee farmer, all but invented a cubist...
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