THE SCREEN

Conspiracy theories seem to abound everywhere at the moment, film being no exception. One of the better of the Oswald-Nixon-Sirhan Sirhan-Hunt-Walt Disney-Did-It genre, Three Days of the Condor, now showing at the Circle Theater in Brookline, makes the trip over the Charles to Cleveland Circle worthwhile. Robert Redford battles the mailman, Faye Dunaway, paranoid and the CIA in a taut and suspenseful film. By the end, it's tough to figure out whom to trust, except the Sundance Kid.

Paranoia in a different shape turns up in The Caine Mutiny, a Dudley House offering at Lehman Hall. Humphrey Bogart plays the psychotic Captain Queeg, a petty tyrant with some strange habits. When you've seen the movie, you'll understand why at the end of Watergate top level aides were comparing Nixon to the ball-bearing-rolling skipper.

At Harkness Commons, Night of the Living Dead feeds other fears with a story of ghoul-like aliens taking over Pittsburgh, Why do they want it?

One of my favorites, Jean Arthur, appears in Only Angels Have Wings at Dunster. Cary Grant is the hero in a tale of South American aviation. Jeff Flanders

The Mother and the Whore. A little-known masterpiece that deserves to be seen. Jean Eustache has turned trivial and quotidian dialogue into a powerful commentary on deep and diverse issues. Four hours long but worth every minute. Jean Pierre Leaud is even better here that he is in Truffaut's mold. One of the most thought-provoking films of recent years.

Love and Death. In my opinion, Woody Allen's best and funniest film. Parodies of Bergman, Tolstoy and earlier films of his own are hilarious.

If ... Lindsay Anderson's tough-minded treatment of adolescent rebellion, leaving out none of its cruelty and poetic beauty. As well as a film with value for the future, If ... is one of the loci classics of late sixties student counterculture. Distin Hoffman's Straw Dogs, playing with it, is even bloodier and makes less sense.

None for the Taking. Ernesto Bellochio's early neo-realist phase--the story of a peasant village and its refusal to pay scutage.