Television: Dec. 24, 1965

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Wednesday, December 22

MICHELANGELO: THE LAST GIANT (NBC, 9-10 p.m.).* The first of two programs tracing Michelangelo's life through his painting, sculpture, architecture and writing. Color.

Thursday, December 23

CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIE (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Sunrise at Campobello. Ralph Bellamy plays F.D.R. Color.

Friday, December 24

CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICES. Handel's Messiah, by the congregation of Dallas' First Baptist Church (ABC, 11:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.); Baptist services from the Myers Park Baptist Church, Charlotte, N.C. (CBS, midnight1 a.m.); Mass from Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral (NBC, midnight-1:30 a.m.).

Saturday, December 25

CBS GOLF CLASSIC (CBS, 3-4 p.m.). Third annual tournament, with 32 leading professional golfers competing for $166,000 at La Costa Country Club, Carlsbad, Calif.

NORTH-SOUTH ALL-STAR SHRINE FOOTBALL GAME (ABC, 4:30-7:30 p.m.). From the Orange Bowl in Miami.

Sunday, December 26

PROJECTION '66 (NBC, 2-4 p.m.). Eleven NBC news correspondents from the Far East, Europe, Africa, South America and Washington appear before members of the Foreign Policy Association in New York to discuss the year's events. Color.

AMERICAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME (NBC, 4 p.m.). Contending teams to be announced.

THEATER

On Broadway

CACTUS FLOWER is a French farce seasoned to U.S. tastes by Adapter-Director Abe Burrows and served with unerring timing by a well-chosen cast. Lauren Bacall is drolly dry as a spinsterish nurse with a voice that would intimidate gangrene, and Barry Nelson is convincingly mock-innocent as a dentist with a master's degree in bachelorhood.

INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE is a compulsively fascinating dramatic typhoon in which John Osborne's voice—splenetic, grieving, raging—is heard with more furious personal intensity than at any time since Look Back in Anger. As a defeated solicitor for whom life in the modern world has be come a playing field of pain, Nicol Williamson, 28, gives a bravura perform ance of epic dimensions and phenomenal resourcefulness.

YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU. The screwball humor of George Kaufman and Moss Hart today seems brushed with tender nostalgia in a superb revival of the 29-year-old comedy by the APA repertory company. A new generation of theater goers is introduced to the slightly zany and entirely winning Sycamore family.

THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN. Tired philosophy and an undocumented personal interpretation of the relationship between Conquistador Pizarro and Inca Ruler Atahuallpa are injected into a historical spectacle that pleases visually but fails to satisfy dramatically.

GENERATION. A Chicago advertising man (Henry Fonda) sends his daughter to finishing school, and she ends up in a Greenwich Village loft with the kind of kooky husband who wears blue beads because he likes the way they catch the light. Fonda's graphic consternation provides the entertainment.

HALF A SIXPENCE. Tommy Steele is a most happy fella. His grin is honest, his toes are nimble, and as a consummate entertainer he gives value for money.