Everybody Go Home. Alberto Sordi is fairly funny in a fairly funny comedy about Italy's armed farces during World War II.
The Reluctant Saint. Maximilian Schell attains new histrionic heights in the amusing, amazing story of San Giuseppe of Cupertino (1603-63), a saint who could literally fly.
Two for the Seesaw. Love comes to Gittel Moscowitz in a pretty funny film version of William Gibson's play about what happens when a blue-eyed Babbitt from Omaha meets a blackstocking in Greenwich Village.
The Long Absence. The old reliable Enoch Arden story, told with skill and significant variations by France's Henri Colpi.
Mutiny on the Bounty. MGM's $18.5 million reconstruction of The Bounty goes bounding along at a great rate for two hours, but all at once the story springs a leak and sinks beneath contempt. Marlon Brando is a sight too cute as Fletcher Christian, but even in disaster Trevor Howard makes a superlative curmudgeon of Captain Bligh.
Gypsy. Rosalind Russell is loud and funny in this stripping good show, from the Broadway musical abstracted from Gypsy Rose Lee's autobiography.
Billy Budd. Herman Melville's didactic tale has been transformed by Peter Ustinov—who directed the picture, helped write the script, and plays one of the leading roles—into a vividly affecting film.
Long Day's Journey into Night. Eugene O'Neill's play, one of the greatest of the century, is brought to the screen without significant changes and with a better than competent cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards Jr. and Dean Stockwell.
TELEVISION
Wed., Dec. 12 CBS Reports (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).* Two days before the Mariner II space probe passes within 21,000 miles of Venus, CBS probes the possible discoveries that its instruments could make.
The Beverly Hillbillies (CBS, 9-9:30 p.m.). The Clampetts open fire on some of their Hollywood neighbors in the show that has topped the season's ratings.
Fri., Dec. 14 The Jack Paar Program (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Films of Paar & family in Africa plus Guest Stars Jonathan Winters and Robert Merrill.
Eyewitness (CBS, 10:30-11 p.m.). The top news story of the week.
Sat., Dec. 15 Football (CBS, 4:30 p.m. to end).
Cleveland Browns v. San Francisco Forty-Niners.
As Caesar Sees It (ABC, 8:30-9 p.m.).
Having conquered unfamiliar Broadway in Little Me, great Caesar is having a rough go this fall in his own accustomed medium. This is his third of nine specials, hopefully the first good one.
Sun., Dec. 16
This Is NBC News (NBC, 4:30-5 p.m.). Synopsis of the top news stories of the week.
The Twentieth Century (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). The story of two Russian divisions that defected during the Second World War and fought for the Nazis.
The Sunday Night Movie (ABC, 8-10 p.m.). Orson Welles and Gregory Peck in Moby Dick.
The Voice of Firestone (ABC, 10-10:30 p.m.). Guests: Singers Howard Keel and Patrice Munsel. Dancers Melissa Hayden and Jacques d'Amboise.
Howard K. Smith (ABC, 10:30-11 p.m.). News and comment, but mostly comment.
Mon., Dec. 17
David Brinkley's Journal (NBC, 10-10:30 p.m.). Cuban rebels training in Florida and a look at the military dictatorship in Paraguay.
Tues., Dec. 18