Cinema: May 3, 1963

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Fiasco in Milan. This one takes up where Big Deal on Madonna Street leaves off, with Flubber-faced Comic Carlo Pisacane trying desperately to keep his tapeworm living in the style to which it has become accustomed. Vittorio Gassman and his Madonna Street gang wiggle through some funny scenes, but early-bird honors still go to Pisacane: he's got the worm.

The Man from the Diners' Club. Danny Kaye has got into the clutches of the Jerry Lewis people, and is forced to caper through a series of predictable sight gags with nary a line from Sylvia Fine to brighten the charade. An encounter with a Diners' Club electronic brain is Danny's best bit, but television's Telly Savalas as a murderous mobster almost hijacks the show with his menacing geniality.

Landru. A colorful (and highly colored) documentary on France's World War I Bluebeard who killed ten women for their money, Landru is the work of New Wave Pioneer Claude Chabrol and Past Mistress of Tristesse Francoise Sagan. Mile. Sagan's script drips cynicism, but Chabrol's provocative camera work and the archly stylized acting of the cast (Charles Denner, Danielle Darrieux, Michele Morgan) manage to make it worthwhile.

The Ugly American. Marlon Brando arrives in mythical South Sarkhan (or possibly South Viet Nam) to take over the embassy, and walks smack into a revolution triggered by his old wartime buddy, a native named Deong. As an ambassador, Brando looks like something out of an old Grace Moore movie, but he seems cut out for the job: his Sarkhanese is better than his English.

Bye Bye Birdie. This adolescent operetta loses a lot in translation from stage to screen. Ann-Margret, as the girl from Sweet Apple, Ohio, who gets involved with a mush-mouthed rock-'n'-roller named Conrad Birdie, can't fool anybody into believing that she is 16 years old. But then she doesn't really try.

I Could Go On Singing. If much of this movie is like a collection of scenes from some as-yet-unproduced Judy Garland Story (she wrangles over the custody of a child, she twitches with distress, she Goes On with the Show), Judy is acting every minute. And Garland's acting, unlike her singing, gets better and better.

Love Is a Ball. In this Riviera-based frappe, Hope Lange is an heiress who chases Chauffeur Glenn Ford. Charles Boyer adds a zestful touch of Gallic.

The Birds. Alfred Hitchcock hates birds and the Audubon Society hates Alfred Hitchcock.

TELEVISION

Wednesday, May

CBS Reports (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.)* Walter Lippmann's midyear report on the state of events, personalities and world forces.

Thursday, May 2

Premiere (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). Bradford Dillman, Diana Hyland and Robert Redford star in "The Voice of Charlie Pont," the story of a Harvard graduate who becomes a bum. Repeat.

Friday, May 3

The Jack Paar Program (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). An evening of sickness & light, with guests Phyllis Diller, Alexander King and Gisele MacKenzie.

Saturday, May 4

The Kentucky Derby (CBS, 5-6 p.m.). The 89th running of the Churchill Downs classic.

The Defenders (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). A teen-age American Nazi is tried for murder; Dennis Hopper and Shepperd Strud-wick star. Repeat.