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A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. Tension, desperation and ultimate tragedy invade the home of a longshoreman, his wife and the niece whom he loves incestuously. Taut direction and an extremely able cast revivify this ten-year-old Arthur Miller drama.
WAR AND PEACE. Though it is never easy to shrink an oak back into an acorn, Phoenix Theater's production of the mammoth Tolstoy classic is surprisingly dramatic. In this play, and in an alternate offering, Man and Superman, individual performances are submerged in beautiful ensemble playing.
THE SLAVE and THE TOILET. The problem —interracial conflict—is timeless; the expressions of hate and violence in LeRoi Jones's two one-acters are venomously attuned to the present.
RECORDS
Pop IPs
GOLDFINGER (United Artists). 007 would wince at the thought, but the movie sound track is the latest music-to-do-homework-by. Besides the weird, wild title song belted out by Shirley Bassey, there are aeons of suspenseful drum rolls, some instrumental shivering, and what seems to be a stuck phonograph needle during the rat-a-tat-tat Dawn Raid on Fort Knox. The performance has a raw vitality, injected by the composer-conductor John Barry, a rock-'n'-roll maestro before he boarded the Bondwagon.
BEATLES '65 (Capitol). "I'm a loser," they wail—all the way to the bank. Their fifth album to become No. 1 U.S. bestseller contains seven fabmost new songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS: YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN' FEELING (Philles). The album leads with the latest hit by Songwriter Phil Spector, whose post-pubescent pop rarely misses. But the versatile Righteous Brothers go into some other grooves as well—a frenzied, jazzy Ray Charles number, What'd I Say, a deep rumbling Old Man River (Bill's solo), and a simmering hot Summertime, with Bob wailing like a soprano banshee.
THE SUPREMES: WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO (Motown). Now everyone wants the Detroit Sound, which lodges on a rock between Nashville and the Mersey. At the moment the pride of Detroit are the Supremes, three thrushes who have a touch of gospel and can get away with lyrics like "I'm standing at the crossroads of love."
SAM COOKE: SHAKE (RCA Victor). This is the ninth LP by Sam Cooke to be issued since he was shot to death last December. Shake, written by Sam himself, is a posthumous single hit and about describes Side 1. Mood is the key to Side 2, as in I'm in the Mood for Love and his other current bestseller, A Change Is Gonna Come.
PETULA CLARK: DOWNTOWN (Warner Bros.) Compared with most rock-'n'-roll singers, England's Petula Clark has a voice of pale, rustling silk, but its summons Downtown has come over the transistors clearly and ceaselessly for two months. Her other songs (In Love, Be Good to Me) are also genteel. Pretty, blonde Pet-choo-la hardly needs to raise her voice: she has already sold more than 20 million records in Europe.
THE MONSTER ALBUM (United Artists). There seems to be an underground audience for monster songs, which feature sepulchral voices, shrieks and sobs, all to a wicked beat. The Monster Mash ("It was a graveyard smash") is a standard by now, and the Werewolf Waltz and Dracula Drag are real ghoul.
CINEMA