CAMBRIDGE

BRATLE: Last two days for Ashes and Diamonds, a sensitively-handled Polish movie about a resistance fighter at the end of World War II. Starting Monday, October 16, is Vittorio de Sica's newest masterpiece of acting-direction: General Della Rovere, the story of a down-and-out Italian pimp who finally sees the light. Somewhat overdrawn, it's still in the best tradition of Italian realism. Evenings at 5:15, 7:30, 9:45. TR 6-4226.

UNIVERSITY: Today and tomorrow are, fortunately, the last days for Peter Ustinov's tedious tour-de-farce, Romanoff and Juliet, based on you know what. (Second feature is that first-rate horror movie, Scream of Fear.) Things look up almost immediately, however, with Sidney Poitier in A Rasin in the Sun. Poitier brings to the movie version of this prize-winning play the same vitality and sense of timing he showed on Broadway. With it is Solid Gold Cadillac, which is Judy Holliday at her incomparable best. UN 4-4580.

BOSTON

CAPRI: One of the most startling and influential pictures in recent years is La Dolce Vita, Frederico Fellini's rambling exposure of the degradation of Rome's cafe-society. Take a cushion with you if you like (it's three hours long), but by all means see it. Direction, acting, and camerawork are unparalleled and stunning.

FENWAY: Another Italian in the same vein, Michaelangelo Antonini, has turned out L'Avventura, which deals with the same society as La Dolce Vita, and draws many of the same conclusions. In telling his story of a missing person at an island party, Antonini produces a slow but polished work of art. (Won a Special Award at Cannes, and took first prize at the London Film Festival.) KE 6-0610.

EXETER: Rene Clement has created a superior suspense film in Purple Noon. The French title, Plein Soleil (probably best translated "Broad Daylight") is more accurate; the film is concerned with a daring attempt to execute the perfect daylight crime. Color photographs of the Adriatic and luscious Marie de la Foret guarantees spectacular footage, and Alain Delon as the top crook turns in an excellent performance. KE 6-7067.

GARY: If you want to suspend your reason for a couple of hours and have a whale of a time, take in The Guns of Navarone. If you've heard the music, or even read Alastair MacLean's bestseller, by all means go all the way and plunk down your coins to see Carl Foreman's version. Though unbelievable, it's spectacular, and with shipwrecks, cliff-climbers, saboteurs, informers, captures, escapes, and explosions, (and Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn), how can you lose? LI 2-7040.

ASTOR: A pair of biting and powerful British films about angry young men on the way to nowhere. The much celebrated ROOM at the Top has all the punch of John Braine's novel, thanks to the acting of Simone Signoret and Lawrence Harvey. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is, if anything better. It has the advantage of superb screenplay by young Alan Sillitoe ("The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner") and near perfect execution of the lead by Albert Finney, an actor hailed by some as the next Olivier. See them both.