the thursday critics .sx KENNETH ALLSOP .sx THE NEW BOOKS .sx BEHAN BESTOWS AN ACCOLADE ON DELANEY .sx She's the flower in a cultural desert , he says .sx IT is mid-morning on a Dublin Sunday .sx The streets are tranquilly sunny and still , for the town is at Mass .sx Most of it .sx In the front room of a house in Anglesey-road is a congregation who never actually got to church , but who are gathered with devotion around Brendan Behan and a brandy bottle .sx Where the bhoys are .sx In the hallway are the empties ; through the door hearts are full , hopes are high .sx There are still a few amber inches in the bottle .sx Present are some hard-core Friends of Brendan .sx They listen with many an obliging guffaw to the brandy owner's solo swish on his anecdotal roller-coaster , with occasional stops for an old I.R.A. air or a Connemara tear-jerker .sx Pluckily .sx ALSO present is a London journalist who arrived two hours earlier by appointment to talk to the author of Borstal Boy and The Hostage about his new work , if any , and who is now being pluckily convivial to fight off the frustration .sx The telephone has rung a couple of times , calls from other chums sniffing the wind and offering to drop by for a chat .sx At last Brendan- to the journalist's relief- turns his attention to the writing scene .sx He proceeds to place himself in the literary hierarchy .sx " I consider myself , " he says , " a cut above Evelyn Waugh socially , a cut above Nancy Mitford artistically , a cut above Frank Haxell conversationally .sx " But , " he continues , " the greatest is Shelagh Delaney .sx Just because A Taste of Honey was set in Salford they put on her the limiting label of working-class writer .sx That's as bloody silly as calling a Rolls-Royce a type of transport .sx She's the flower in a cultural desert .sx " Now , me- I'm a journalist , I write to entertain rather than educate .sx And I don't write at all unless I'm exceedingly skint .sx " But I'll say this .sx I'd like to live in America and do some writing there .sx It's a very free place to write in , and there's the advantage that no one knows what you're writing about anyway .sx " Not that I did much when I was over this past two times , not with that great little Irish bar on Seventh Avenue , The Pigsty , always open .sx I was there , in even faster orbit , when that third astronaut went up- what's his name ?sx I'm the only man on earth who doesn't know what his name is .sx Don't tell me .sx I want to preserve that distinction .sx " I already know about Shepard and that Salvation Army chap Gagarin- the two biggest bores since Cardinal Newman .sx That's enough of all that hooey .sx " Gravely .sx HE plunges on into reminiscences of his trips .sx There is much to recall .sx Among other incidents he was banned from New York's St. Patrick's Day parade as a " disorderly person .sx " He was in a fight after telling a Canadian , during a chat about space-flight :sx " Ireland will put a shillelagh into orbit , Israel will put a matzo ball into orbit , and Lichtenstein will put a postage stamp into orbit before you Canadians put up a mouse .sx " And he suffered an alcoholic seizure and was gravely ill in hospital with a diabetic and heart condition .sx His return to Dublin was heralded by the announcement that he was " off the gargle- a retired alcoholic .sx " Since then he has been heard of often in the newspapers- three times up before the beaks for drunk and disorderly conduct .sx Partially .sx LESS has been heard of Brendan's work .sx It is now five years since his first play , The Quare Fellow , was produced , three years since Borstal Boy was published and The Hostage was put on .sx What has happened to the play , Richard's Cork Leg , begun 18 months ago and due for presentation at the Theatre Royal , Stratford , last spring ?sx It was never finished .sx What happened to the new book partially tape-recorded by his publishers in March of last year ?sx Still a skeleton .sx Yet I have before me now a 12,000-word manuscript of a book planned to be called Confessions of an Irish Rebel which was delivered to his agents in June .sx Zestfully .sx IT begins :sx " There was a party to celebrate Deirdre's return from her abortion in Bristol .sx " It is ribald , funny , brilliantly observant of character , and authentic as a glass of draught porter .sx But will we see its end ?sx The last scene of this fragment is in a pub where the author throws a +10 note on to the bar and orders a round for the pals , one of whom cries :sx " Now aren't you the great sport , though , Brendan Behan !sx " It is apparently praise that is still so important to him that he lets his talent drown- for not very deep under the histrionics of having a zest for life must be a great fear of living .sx BOOKS IN BRIEF .sx STEPHEN MORRIS , by Nevil Shute ( Heinemann , ) .sx This first attempt at novel writing- two unpublished stories from the '20s- is the last work we shall see of the late Nevil Shute .sx It will interest devotees , but , despite the accurate flying-lore and natural story-telling skill , it is a creaky piece of apprenticeship .sx L. S. LOWRY ( Studio books , ) .sx The Painters of Today series issues this attractive collection of the work of perhaps the most fascinating artist in Britain today- the Lancastrian who does those vivid crowded dream pictures of the industrial scene .sx There is a warm and illuminating monograph by Mervyn Levy .sx PULL MY DAISY ( Evergreen Books , 10s .sx ) .sx Jack Kerouac's ad-libbed text for the beat film made in a Bowery flat by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie , with stills of the strolling players , including Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso .sx It reads like a demented kind of litany- the American free-livers doing what comes naturally , and with the beat between their teeth .sx EVE PERRICK .sx THE NEW FILMS .sx La Lollo and the hockey girl bully-off .sx I AM happy to report that I saw something this week I have never before witnessed , either in pictures or outside- a budgerigar playing a drunk scene , and playing it with perfect timing and technique .sx It gives one loud , clear hiccup and falls flat on its back .sx This brilliant budge , I may add , gets no credit in the cast list of Come September ( Odeon , Leicester-square ) , which suggests that it is either using a stand-in for the stunt stuff or needs a more pushful personal manager .sx The performance of our talented feathered friend is not the only good thing ( although the one original touch ) in the film , which is better-than-average glossy comedy , Hollywood-styled , European set .sx Most of it has been shot in and around the sun-terrace of the Hotel Splendido ( renamed the Dolce Vista for the picture ) in Portofino- and if there's a better view to be had from a more comfortable vantage point anywhere , I'd like to see it .sx NIGHTIES .sx It also parades Gina Lollobrigida in a selection of neglige@2e-and-nightie ensembles not too well designed for sleeping in , and Rock Hudson at the wheel of a shining silver Rolls-Royce .sx Mr. Hudson is an American millionaire who spends each September in his Italian villa and the company of Signorina Lollobrigida .sx In the holiday seasonal months before and after this annual idyll his major-domo ( Walter Slezak at his most nauseating ) turns the palazzo into a luxury hotel .sx Inevitably there comes the time when Mr. Hudson suddenly breaks with tradition and arrives there in July , when , just as inevitably , the place is full of American teenagers on an escorted tour .sx Result :sx Mr. Hudson and lady love Lollo find themselves playing chaperon ( Brenda de Banzie , the official one , has broken a leg ) to the girls , who have just been joined by a Jeep-load of boys .sx It's hereabouts that the budge takes to the bottle , but I don't think it was through boredom .sx The film is funny enough in places and has a line or two of painful home truths thrown in .sx GOODIES .sx " I don't want to talk like an adult , " screams Gina , walking out on the man who has so far failed to make an honest woman of her .sx " That's how I got into all this trouble .sx " " He's got to be 35 , " says Bobby Darin , the chief spokesman of the jeans-and-Jeep brigadiers as they're scheming to get rid of old man , solid Rock .sx " How many hills can he take ?sx " Of course Mr. Hudson can take one more hill than the youngsters .sx So all ends as you know it will , with the middle-aged romancers respectably wed and Master Darin going steady with the delectable Sandra Dee ( to whom , I believe , he is married in real life) .sx Miss Dee , incidentally , who keeps turning up as the typical teenager in all the " good girl " parts ( Tuesday Weld gets the " bad girl " ones ) , is becoming quite an accomplished actress .sx STUDIES .sx THE Marriage-Go-Round ( Carlton ) is also a comedy of manners , but fun-films toting an X certificate have to keep a sharp look-out that the jokes about sex ( what else would they joke about with an X ?sx ) are of the witty , verbal variety and not the visual slapstick .sx This has only one gag- that of the entry of a gladiator ( female , 7ft .sx high , 'stacked' and Scandinavian ) into the cosy but unbelievably elegant household of a pair of married college professors .sx The girl is a knock-out ( see picture of Julie Newmar for confirmation) .sx She also has quite a mission in mind .sx She , " younger , prettier , stronger , and more intelligent " than the wife ( as she soon tells her ) , wants to have the perfect baby .sx And she has chosen the husband ( James Mason ) , who is an academic friend of her Nobel prize-winning father to be Big Daddy .sx This sort of situation calls for some subtle , slightly sardonic handling .sx It doesn't get it .sx But The Marriage-Go-Round is not entirely a waste of time .sx I learned from it that in the Institutes of Advanced Studies attached to some American universities the subject Social Psychology used to be called Home-making and is now known as Domestic Relations .sx Susan Hayward plays the wife sharply and sweetly .sx Mason is always good for a glower .sx And Miss Newmar is a stunner in every sense of the word .sx According to the script she was once captain of the junior hockey team at her school .sx So help me so was I. ESSAYS .sx IL GRIDO ( The Cry)- Paris Pullman- is an earlier essay in atmospheric meandering by the L'Avventura man , Michelangelo Antonioni .sx In it Steve Cochran , deserted by Alida Valli , roams the Pontine Marshes , alternately enjoying the hospitality of three lonely , sex-starved women , before returning home .sx Whereupon he climbs to the top of the tower in the sugar-beet refinery , suffers an unexplained attack of vertigo and falls to his death .sx Maybe this is a masterpiece , too .sx I just wouldn't know .sx the thursday critics .sx KENNETH ALLSOP .sx Did the electric chair fully avenge this baby's murder ?sx .sx Now new doubts are raised about the most notorious kidnapping of the century .sx ON a March evening in 1932 in the New Jersey family household the nursemaid tiptoed into the baby's room to see that 20-month-old Charles Jun .sx was sleeping .sx Bending over the cot , she suddenly realised that there was no sound of breathing .sx She thrust out her hand- and felt emptiness .sx NATIONAL AGONY .sx A FEW minutes later the father gripping a loaded rifle , told his wife :sx " Anne , they have stolen our baby .sx " It was not only their baby- it was America's .sx The grief of the young parents became a national agony that erupted into hysteria when nine weeks later the child of Charles Lindbergh , hero aviator and golden boy , was found murdered .sx Kidnap , by George Waller ( out today , Hamish Hamilton 30s .sx ) , is a painstaking , meticulous account of the most notorious and publicised crime of the 30's .sx The plain , sober manner of its style all the more tellingly points up not only the horror of the case itself , which floundered on to the electrocution four years later of a German-born Bronx carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann , but to the raree-show emotionalism and sensation-hunger of that era .sx