Television: Dec. 31, 1965

• Share

Wednesday, December 29

I SPY (NBC, 10-11 p.m.).*In "Affair in Tsien Cha," Agents Scott and Robinson solve the mystery of a train that disappears en route from Hong Kong. Color.

Thursday, December 30

CBS THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIE (CBS, 9-11 p.m.). Rossano Brazzi, Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donahue star in Rome Adventure, a naive drama of an American girl determined to learn about love in Italy. Color.

Friday, December 31

THE GATOR BOWL GAME (ABC, 2-5 p.m.). Georgia Tech v. Texas Tech, from Jacksonville. Color.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Napoleon and Illya resort to their own brand of witchcraft to outwit a voodoo dictator in "The Very Important Zombie Affair." Color.

Saturday, January 1

SUGAR BOWL (NBC, 1:45 p.m.). Missouri v. Florida, from New Orleans. Color.

COTTON BOWL (CBS, 1:45 p.m.). Arkansas v. Louisiana State University, from Dallas. Color.

ROSE BOWL (NBC, 4:45 p.m.). Michigan State v. U.C.L.A., from Pasadena.

ORANGE BOWL (NBC, 7:45 p.m.). Nebraska v. Alabama, from Miami. Color.

Sunday,January 2

N.F.L. CHAMPIONSHIP GAME (CBS, 2 p.m.). The top of the Eastern Conference v. the best in the West. Color.

N.B.A. GAME OF THE WEEK (ABC, 4-6 p.m.). New York Knickerbockers v. Philadelphia 76ers, from Philadelphia.

Tuesday, January 4

CBS REPORTS: THE VOLGA (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). A view of Russian industry, farming, education, and the life of the ordinary citizen in the Soviet Union today. Color.

THEATER

On Broadway

INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE. John Osborne's threnody on the middle years electrifies with bolts of bitterness and sparks of caustic humor. Bill Maitland, the effigy that Osborne burns in his anathema on the modern world, is played with stunning force by Nicol Williamson, a 28-year-old Scotsman, who spares neither himself nor his audience with a gripping performance. .

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.

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 about 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. The battle between age groups is second only to the battle of the sexes as the stuff of which life and plays are made. William Goodhart makes it laughing matter in a lighthearted comedy about a doting father (Henry Fonda) who finds his daughter and her nonconformist husband living in a Greenwich Village loft and—much to Fonda's distress—liking it.

Off Broadway