Review

Omnibus: He was a cathedral of tics. As his Boswell put it: "He had on a little old shriveled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; the knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stockings ill drawn up ... But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the moment that he began to talk." It was from that shining moment in English letters, when James Boswell first came upon Dr. Sam Johnson, that Author James (Career) Lee's mannered and meticulous TV adaptation of The Life of Samuel Johnson really caught fire. Though there was little dramatic continuity to Boswell's massive chronicle, the scenes that Omnibus selected--a rowdy night at Drury Lane, a fashionable gathering at Mrs. Thrale's home, a packed Old Bailey courtroom--were charged with both drollery and drama. For, more than any other Englishman, Sam Johnson raised "a life of talk to the level of a life of action."

The talk, of course, was witty and waspish, pithy and pulverizing, often profound; but "the slovenly particularities" of the man were never forgotten by Directors Alan Schneider and Seymour Robbie, or by Makeup Man Bob O'Bradovich, who helped make Peter Ustinov's Johnson the goutiest, twitchingest, most scarred and scrofulous hulk of a man ever to wobble across the TV screen. It took 36-year-old British Actor Ustinov two hours to glue down his beard, stuff himself with padding, and secure the five-piece foam latex mask that had been modeled on Sir Joshua Reynolds' celebrated portrait of Johnson. Ustinov joked that it was made of marzipan, and "the wonderful thing is you can eat it after the show." Actually, he confessed later, "it smelled like a rancid omelet." The makeup nicely underscored Boswell's own assertion: "I will not make my tiger a cat to please anybody." The old tiger was even more eloquent. In a swipe at the crusty Scottish father of Boswell (Kenneth Haigh) he roared: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel!" After a round of bullying Oliver Goldsmith he purred: "Come, come, we offended one another with our contention. Let us not offend the company by our compliments."

Omnibus' scrupulous attention to detail almost resulted in tragedy. When Actor Theodore Tenley (as Dr. Dodd) was "hanged," he actually blacked out on camera from what doctors said might have been "a psychological reaction to overrealistic acting." But Tenley so admired Ustinov's strikingly original portrayal that he sent a note saying, "I'd be glad to be hanged again," to which Ustinov replied: "Sir, I believe that for the crime of playing with Ustinov, the death penalty would be too severe. But I shall include in my Dictionary the definition of the word Dodd as 'a man who would die more than once for his friends (rare word and rarer person).' Signed: Sam. Johnson."

General Electric Theater: As Director and narrator of The Trail to Christmas, Hollywood's James Stewart spun a seasonal western yarn about an hombre named Ebenezer Scrooge, "the richest man in the whole territory." Sure enough, Dickens' A Christmas Carol made itself right at home on the range. When Bob Cratchit, a cowhand squatting on Scrooge's land, made his entrance, Scrooge snapped: "Where've you been? Rustlin' some of my cattle? It don't seem you're ever at the ranch when I come by." Marley's ghost wore a ten-gallon hat, toted a burden of land grants, mortgages and gold nuggets, and the Ghost of Christmas Past was a young cowpuncher who greeted Scrooge: "Howdy, pardner. I reckon you've been expecting me." For an idea that might have driven some viewers to Earp, it all went down quite smoothly, suggesting the not altogether happy possibility that A Christmas Carol may endure on TV till the cows come home. It also stirred some speculation about what the dickens the TV adapters may do next with the Yule classic. The time may be ripening for a modern-dress version, with Scrooge as a tough old union boss; a psychiatric adaptation ("These hallucinations of yours," says Scrooge's analyst nephew, "suggest a guilt syndrome"); or even a major switch as foreseen in a recent cartoon in which a clubroom lounger growls of his book: "It's a new story by that Dickens fellow about a worthy banker named Scrooge who finally degenerates into a sentimental weakling."

Hallmark Hall of Fame: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is the kind of play that gives classics a bad name. The 350-year-old romantic comedy acts its age. Its plot conventions are no less archaic than its Elizabethan jargon, e.g., tillyvally, bawcock, clodpole. Such venerable comics as Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek are no subtler or funnier than the names they bear. However fetchingly its poetry may glisten through the monkeyshines, it is a comedy of errors usually compounded in production. To handle this thorny flower at all on sponsored TV takes courage beyond the call of drama; to evoke as much fragrance as NBC's Hall of Fame succeeded in doing last week is a phenomenon rare even in the theater.

Adapter William Nichols conceived of the TV version as fantasy--all a dream of Feste the clown--set in the rococo grandeur of an 18th century pleasure park. For scenery and costumes, Designer Rouben Ter-Arutunian borrowed brilliantly from the delicate woodland scenes of Watteau and Fragonard, gave the NBC color cameras an enchanting palette of shimmering pastels. Through a dream world as mannered as a minuet glided fauns, harlequins and unicorns, dwarf attendants and monkey footmen. Olivia (Frances Hyland) wooed the disguised Viola (radiantly played by Rosemary Harris) while floating in an elegant barge. When Malvolio (Maurice Evans) puffed with pride over the forged love letter from his mistress, he stepped into a decorated balloon and soared straight up.

Within this magic atmosphere, the poetry's charms yielded to a fine cast directed by David Greene. In all, at the cost of their lowest rating (5.1), the Hallmark producers robbed Twelfth Night of the Bardolaters' ancient alibi, i.e., poor production, and almost scored a triumph of manner over matter. Unfortunately, the play was the thing.

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