On Broadway: Dec. 3, 1965

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THE ODD COUPLE. Scarred from the battlefield of marriage, two husbands try to find peace and comfort in an all-male stronghold. After some sidesplitting domestic misadventures, they decide to go back into the marital fray.

LUV. Suburban Sartre and soap-opera sensibilities are the springs from which three moderns drink in Murray Schisgal's hilarious satire of the chatter of Freudian analysis and the jargon of the theater of the absurd.

Off Broadway

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE looks into the home and mind of a Brooklyn longshoreman who destroys self and family rather than lose a beloved niece to another man.

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENTIRE WORLD AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF COLE PORTER REVISITED. The witty and urbane talent of the tunemaster is shown to full advantage in this sprightly revue of his lesser-known songs.

RECORDS

Ballads & Broadway

FRANK SINATRA: SEPTEMBER OF MY YEARS (Reprise) is music to brood by as Frankie at 50 reflects on yesterday's loves and warms himself on old memories (Hello, Young Lovers; September Song; Last Night When We Were Young). Tabloid readers do not have to believe a word of it, but he does sound romantically resigned to it all.

PETULA CLARK: THE WORLD'S GREATEST INTERNATIONAL HITS (Warner). The Downtown darling of the younger generation smoothly shifts gears and heads uptown, where the ballad lovers live, picking her wistful way through ethnic pop favorites like Volare, Girl From Ipanerna and Never on Sunday. The beat is still tricky enough to please the youngsters, although they might balk at her slow version of Britain's second national anthem— I Want to Hold Your Hand.

JOHN GARY SINGS YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE SONGS (RCA Victor). He sounds like Muzak with words—a bland, clean-cut voice that has made him a favorite with the over-35 ladies who sent his album sales soaring. All the old standards (Autumn Leaves, Night and Day, Star Dust, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) seem to get the same beat and treatment, making them interchangeable.

BARBRA STREISAND: MY NAME IS BARBRA, TWO (Columbia). Whether clowning her way through a medley of down-and-out songs (Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?; I Got Plenty of Nothin') or recalling the wondrous first moment of love (He Touched Me), the Streisand zing for living is still the most zestful around. She polishes off a couple of lesser-known Rodgers and Hart tunes and, best of all, a ricky-tick rendition of the Fanny Brice favorite, Second Hand Rose.

TONY'S GREAT HITS, VOLUME III (Columbia). Tony Bennett seems to sing nothing but hits: In San Francisco, I Wanna Be Around, Who Can I Turn To, This Is All I Ask. The ingredients of his success: a voice that makes a virtue out of sounding like incipient laryngitis, a delivery distinguished for being relaxed even in a field of relaxed singers, and top arrangements.

DEAN MARTIN: I'M THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU (Reprise). Dean trades his Neapolitan approach to a song for a country-and-Western beat that fits in fine with his own easy style. Guitars twang and fiddles saw the hillbilly sound in King of the Road, My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, Walk On By—all sung without a trace of tomato paste.