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THE ODD COUPLE. Art Carney and Walter Matthau are supremely funny as a mismatched pair of shell-shocked husbands beating a retreat from the frays of marriage. Living together is enough to send them back into the thick of the battle.
LUV frolics through the mazes and labyrinths of three pseudo-Freudian psyches —all suffering from nothing more than acute self-attention. Anne Jackson, Alan Arkin, and Eli Wallach are brilliant.
THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT. In Bill Manhoff's romantic merry-go-round, a neurotic prostitute (Diana Sands) has a priggish book clerk (Alan Alda) running around in sidesplitting circles.
Off Broadway
KRAPP'S LAST TAPE and THE ZOO STORY. In a fifth-anniversary revival of this double bill, Edward Albee's Story is still provocative and dramatic and Samuel Beckett's Tape has the charisma of a classic.
SQUARE IN THE EYE. While too many themes and techniques are crowded within its angle of vision, Eye is alive with a phantasmagoric sense of the present. Playwright Jack Gelber's latest satiric work tickles the ribs to stab the brain.
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENTIRE WORLD AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF COLE PORTER REVISITED romps through the lighter side of life during the crash, the Depression and World War II. The Porter wit and comic insight prove there was indeed a lighter side.
RECORDS
HERMAN'S HERMITS ON TOUR (M-G-M). "The worst singer in the world can sing our songs," says Herman, cheerfully explaining away such hits as the million-selling Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter. The second collection of what Herman correctly calls "the simplest music there is" includes his teen love ditties, Silhouettes and Can't You Hear My Heartbeat, as well as I'm Henry VIII, I Am ("I got married to the widow next door. She's been married seven times before.")
WAYNE FONTANA AND THE MINDBENDERS: THE GAME OF LOVE (Fontana). Manchester's Mindbenders mind their rhythm 'n' blues as they holler "The purpose of a man is to love a woman," and then whoop, "Come on, baby, let's play the game of love." They are equally exuberant as they beat out Keep Your Hands Off My Baby and Girl Can't Help It.
TOM JONES: IT'S NOT UNUSUAL (Parrot). Now it is a Welsh miner's son, a curlyheaded six-footer with a bronze voice and a pair of leather lungs, who belts out Chuck Berry songs like Memphis Tennessee. Jones dips into folk as well (Skye Boat Song), but runs down in sentimental ballads like It's Just a Matter of Time.
SAM THE SHAM AND THE PHARAOHS: WOOLY BULLY. Sam, who comes from Dallas, plays a jazzy organ and travels by hearse with his harum-scarum pharaohs, who sing falsetto or blow the sax. Wooly Bully is their runaway hit, but there are other lightheaded numbers like Gangster of Love and a Latin piece by Sam called Juimonos (meaning "Let's Went" in slangy Spanish).