May 5, 1995

IF ever a film seemed destined to age badly, it was "The Seventh Seal," Ingmar Bergman's medieval fantasy about a Knight playing chess with Death. The 1957 film was a major part of Mr. Bergman's international breakthrough, and the white-faced, black-robed Death figure was parodied almost as soon as it appeared. The image has passed from the still hilarious 1968 short "De Duva" ("The Dove"), in which Death plays a mean game of badminton, to a cameo appearance by Death two years ago in "The Last Action Hero." By the time an image appears in a Schwarzenegger movie, it has probably been co-opted beyond recovery. One of the many glorious surprises in the Bergman retrospective opening today at the Walter Reade Theater is how well "The Seventh Seal" holds up, its haunting and eloquent emotional power shining clear through the decades. Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, "Landscape of the Soul: The Films of Ingmar Bergman" is the centerpiece of a vast Bergman Festival. For the next two months, New York will be rich with work that displays the many forms of Mr. Bergman's genius.

Three hospitals with combined revenues of $635 million, 9,000 employees and 1,600 beds would consolidate, under plans announced here yesterday, to create the largest multihospital system in the state. All three hospitals -- Morristown Memorial, Overlook in Summit and Mountainside in Montclair -- would stay open under the plan, which must be approved by the Federal Trade Commission and the State Department of Health.

In the streets rising from Marseilles's old port, couscous is easier to find than croissants. Cockney neighborhoods in London are now bazaars for Muslims from Bangladesh. Muezzins call Turks to prayer from new minarets in Cologne. With 10 million to 13 million Muslims living in Western Europe, conservative and far-right politicians, including some voices in the French presidential campaign, have appealed to prejudice against the Muslim presence.

After months of on-again, off-again negotiations, Hoechst A.G., the German chemical and pharmaceuticals giant, agreed yesterday to buy Marion Merrell Dow Inc. for $25.75 a share, or $7.1 billion. The deal would create the world's second-largest drug maker, behind the recently merged Glaxo Wellcome of Britain and just ahead of Merck & Company. The sale is the latest multibillion-dollar merger of drug companies. Last year, Roche Holdings of Switzerland acquired Syntex, and the American Home Products Corporation bought American Cyanamid.

The Dow Corning Corporation said yesterday that it might file for bankruptcy to work its way out of a morass created by breast implant litigation. The company said it was "actively considering" filing for Chapter 11 protection, which would halt all litigation, as a result of the breakdown of a $4.25 billion settlement negotiated with it and several other companies last year. Dow Corning, which manufactured silicone breast implants given to more than one million women between 1964 and 1992, now faces 20,000 lawsuits, some with multiple plaintiffs.

ON a bitter cold and rainy night last winter, when the sidewalks were so wet that a four-step sprint from a cab to a doorway could bring a pair of dancing pumps to the point of ruin, I decided to attend the winter ball given annually by an organization called Colonial Dances Ltd. ("founded in 1952 as a series of events that would emphasize good music, good dancing and social friendship"). I had learned about Colonial Dances, which also sponsors a spring ball each year, from other amateur ballroom enthusiasts. They had learned about it through the major communications medium of the ballroom scene in New York -- word of mouth -- and they were attracted by the elegant setting and the black-tie formality of the dress code. Colonial Dances holds its events in various fancy spaces around New York City. This ball took place in one of midtown Manhattan's large, posh private clubs, with a reception room so big that Cinderella could elude the Prince in it, and a two-story ballroom long enough to house a Knicks game. The ball lived up to Colonial's mandate. The impeccably dressed and friendly patrons liked to dance; the orchestra (Robbie Scott and the New Deal Swing Orchestra) was disciplined and knowledgeable, and the gleaming room was a pleasure to spend time in. For my friends, the only problem was that they didn't get worn out.

EX-AIDE LINKS SHEIK TO CALL FOR KILLING A former close aide to the Muslim cleric charged in New York City bombing plots testified that the sheik told him to assassinate Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, while the leader was visiting the United States two years ago. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a fiercely anti-secular cleric with a wide following in Egypt and among radical Muslims in the United States and elsewhere, has been portrayed by prosecutors as the spiritual leader of the band of terrorists who carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. A1. FEAR CHURNS HOME MARKET IN QUEENS When the letters began arriving, the elderly residents of New Hyde Park, Queens, quietly panicked. Real estate agents were offering cash to buy their white clapboard houses, which were not for sale. If their neighbors took the nibble, they feared, their stable community of longtime friends would break up. Real estate agents began calling, writing and ringing doorbells across New York City last summer, almost immediately after the state, under court order, reversed a series of prohibitions against homeowner solicitation that dated to 1971. A1.

Last Bodies Are Found Searchers in Oklahoma City found 19 bodies and called an end to their rescue effort. The toll in the bombing stands at 164. Page A22. Mixed Verdict on Giuliani Most New Yorkers say their quality of life has not improved or worsened under Mayor Giuliani, a New York Times poll shows. Page B3. Aide Has Clinton's Support A Presidential aide facing possible indictment will not be asked to resign and will fight any charges, White House officials said. Page A21. A Victory for Murdoch The F.C.C. gave Rupert Murdoch a clear map for getting an exception to rules that limit foreign ownership of American TV stations. Page D5.

Door-to-door campaigning has long been a linchpin of local elections, but here, a candidate's right to political speech stops at the steps of the township's public housing towers. Three anti-administration candidates in the May 9 Township Council election say that is wrong. They said yesterday that they were appealing a Superior Court ruling upholding the North Bergen Housing Authority's ban on politicking on authority property.

The Clinton Administration, which has taken steps in recent days signaling a new cooperation with Cuba, told Congress today that it opposed key parts of a Republican-sponsored bill that seeks to do just the opposite -- further isolate Fidel Castro. A letter from a State Department official criticized the bill, which is intended to strengthen the 33-year-old American trade embargo against Cuba, on the ground that it would anger allies of the United States and force Washington to violate several international agreements.

Camden County's Prosecutor and a police chiefs' group are at odds over whether there should be an inquiry into a shooting in Haddon Heights that left two law enforcement officers dead and a third critically wounded. The executive board of the County Police Chiefs Association unanimously endorsed the inquiry, saying that it could provide lessons on how to protect officers better. But Prosecutor Edward F. Borden called the request "unfortunate, ill advised and well beyond the authority" of the group, and said the officers behaved "bravely, prudently and professionally."

Leading Senate Republicans abandoned their effort to pass a broad overhaul of the nation's civil litigation system today, after they twice tried and failed to bring it to a vote on the Senate floor. The action came after President Clinton mounted one of his sharpest attacks yet on the Republican legislative agenda, and threatened to veto the measure if it passed in its current form.