(3 of 4)
RED DESERT. Displaying a painterly sense of color, Italian Director Michelangelo Antonioni (L'Avventura, La Notte) daringly raids the spectrum to explore the neurosis of an engineer's young wife (Monica Vitti) whose problems seem aggravated by her environment—a wasteland created by heavy industry in the city of Ravenna. But Antonioni's inferno is often more exciting than its inhabitants.
JOY HOUSE. Director René Clément (Purple Noon) mixes chills with chuckles in an absurd but enjoyable thriller about a Gallic gigolo (Alain Delon) who eludes assassins on the Riviera, only to fall into the clutches of a coltish femme fatale (Jane Fonda).
TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC. This stark and timeless historical drama by Director Robert Bresson is based on actual transcripts of Joan's heresy trial, preserved in French archives since 1431.
HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE. As a carefree bachelor who gets waylaid into matrimony, Jack Lemmon pleads the case for uxoricide, though his manservant (Terry-Thomas) makes the crime nonsensical, and his scrumptious lady (Italy's Virna Lisi) makes it practically unthinkable.
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG. Young love's spring song fades gradually to a swan song in this vivid, sadly cynical French musical by Director Jacques Demy.
MARRIAGE-ITALIAN STYLE. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni pour all their charm and vitality into a hilarious old tearjerker about a home-loving harlot who parlays a few crumbs of love into a wedding feast.
NOTHING BUT A MAN. This forceful drama gets under the skin of a troubled young American Negro (Ivan Dixon) who resents being black in a white world.
GOLDFINGER. Ian Fleming's girl-and gadget-happy Agent 007—alias James Bond, alias Actor Sean Connery—brilliantly foils a plot to take Fort Knox off the gold standard.
SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON. A very mad, very English, very nearly preposterous melodrama about a kidnaping masterminded by an unhappy medium, played with blood-chilling conviction by American Actress Kim Stanley.
MY FAIR LADY. The bountiful classic by Lerner and Loewe out of G. B. Shaw, with Audrey Hepburn as the cockney guttersnipe who learns social graces from Rex Harrison, a masterly professor indeed.
BOOKS
Best Reading
THE NEGRO COWBOYS, by Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones. Probably no group of slaves became emancipated more quickly or completely than the 5,000 Negro cowboys who rode the ranges from Texas to Montana, many earning fame and fortune. The authors' lively prose and vivid detail help fill in one of the most notable gaps in U.S. history.
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK, by David Stacton. Author Stacton stands alone for the wit and learning that he lavishes on his historical novels. Though his plot sometimes gets lost in this tale of the Thirty Years' War, his prose has never been better.
MERIWETHER LEWIS, by Richard Dillon. An absorbing biography of the gifted young Virginian whom Jefferson sent out to explore the Louisiana territory. With William Clark, Lewis showed the way west—but he could never readjust to civilization. Three years after his triumphant return, he died under mysterious circumstances, a penniless alcoholic.