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THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN. As a girl from the mining camps, Debbie Reynolds makes waves in Denver society and energetically keeps this big, brassy version of Meredith Willson's Broadway musical from going under.
NOTHING BUT THE BEST. A lower-crust clerk (Alan Bates) hires an upper-crust crumb to teach him the niceties of Establishment snobbery in this cheeky, stylish, often superlative British satire.
THE ORGANIZER. Director Mario Monicelli's drama about a 19th century strike in Turin has warmth, humor, stunning photography, and a superb performance by Marcello Mastroianni as a sort of Socialist Savonarola.
BOOKS
Best Reading
THE GAY PLACE, by William Brammer. Hardly noticed when it was first published in 1961, this first novel by a sometime aide to Lyndon Johnson has become a top-selling paperback and a political conversation piece. Deservedly, for despite fictional camouflage, it is an adroitly written roman á clef about L.B.J. in the days when he was ringmaster of the U.S. Senate.
THE SCOTCH, by John Galbraith. In this memoir of his childhood in a frugal Scotch community in Ontario, the author of The Affluent Society documents the tightwad society. It is a diverting study of the Scotch and an intriguing, ironic insight into the formative influences that made Economist Galbraith an evangelist of big spending.
THE OYSTERS OF LOCMARIAQUER, by Eleanor Clark. All about the care and feeding of the world's best oysters, and the Bretons who attend them. With love and encyclopedic knowledge of Ostrea edulis, the author has written a nourishing and succulent book, which can be safely read before the R months begin.
EUGENE ONEGIN, by Vladimir Nabokov. Novelist-Scholar Nabokov has rendered Alexander Pushkin's 19th century novel-in-verse with accuracy and range of meaning closer to the original than any previous translation. By contrast, his volumes of notes show Nabokov as an obsessive genius of the species that he kidded so guilefully in his novel Pale Fire.
CORNELIUS SHIELDS ON SAILING. Corny's own philosophy for winning races is also a frank memoir of the man, who at 70, is the champion U.S. skipper.
THE SIEGE OF HARLEM, by Warren Miller. In this book's fantasy plot, Harlem grows tired of riots and declares itself an independent nation. Miller, who lived there for five years, proves his skill both as satirist and Harlemologist.
SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE, by John P. Roche. The A.D.A.'s national chairman says that Americans have more civil liberties than any other people in history. His refreshingly forthright list of personal fears puts nuclear war in first place. The Birchers are only Fear 23.
THE RECTOR OF JUSTIN, by Louis Auchincloss. A better chronicler of Massachusetts' elite Groton School and its wise, eccentric founder, Endicott Peabody, could hardly be hoped for. In this intricate, fascinating chronicle of "Dr. Prescott" of "Justin," Author Auchincloss finally fulfills his long-time promise of major distinction as a novelist.
TWO NOVELS, by Brigid Brophy. In these elegant and wickedly brilliant novellas about a masquerade ball and a lesbian schoolmistress, Brigid Brophy shows subtlety of both thought and style.