To the Table Down at David's

The low table around which Producer Performer David Susskind assembles his Open End panelists each week is always amply stocked with refreshments--for Susskind is a genial host who wants everybody to be relaxed. Sometimes, indeed, the guests have become too relaxed. There was the memorable evening last winter when the London Observer's Patrick O'Donovan dissolved in an Irish mist; he caused such a stir with his groans, hiccups and toasts that Susskind had him removed from view during a hasty message from the sponsor. Then there was the night when good old reliable Brendan Behan cut loose with a rendition of the largely unquotable song, Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Last week Susskind's hostmanship finally blew the cork, deluged the show in fizz and fuzz. The occasion was the seasonal opener of Open End, and the evening's topic was a weighty one: Frank Sinatra's Clan. As panelists, Susskind invited some celebrated tosspots, including Jackie Gleason, Joe E. Lewis, Toots Shor and Actress Lenore Lemmon. When the program opened, it was apparent that most everyone was well fortified, and as it progressed, everybody helped himself to a liquid refreshment camouflaged in a teapot. Susskind, with some help from sharp-tongued Critic Marya Mannes, tried manfully to keep the conversation on target, but the table would speak no ill of Frankie. "Gentlemen, you have a marvelous way of making him sound like Albert Schweitzer," groaned Susskind, later was drowned out in bibulous guffaws when he archly remarked that apparently he and Marya Mannes were the only ones "not prepared to accept The Clan as the Red Cross."

It was soon clear that no one was really interested in Sinatra et al. Comedian Ernie Kovacs and Lenore Lemmon began talking Hungarian. "I think this program is all outer space," sloshed Joe E. Lewis at one point. Queried Host David: "What's outer space?" Reply: "Outer space is when you're 20 feet away from the bar." Trouble was, hardly anyone was. Gleason rose up, announced, "I'm going to retire to my home in Peekskill," then sat down again. Said Shor: "I'll take a little tea here." "Somebody throw another tea ball in that poor guy's tea," bellowed Gleason.

In the confusion, Critic Mannes asked, "Why is The Clan worth two hours of valuable air time?" No one knew, and nobody thought of asking her why she had agreed to discuss The Clan in the first place. And so the program lurched toward the murky end. Gleason: "I'm loaded." Lemmon: "I know that." Mannes: "I feel like a deaf mute in a field of hog callers." Joe E. Lewis: "Out of the mouths of babes very often comes--oatmeal."

This week, in what Susskind called his "first serious show" of the new season, sobriety returned to Open End in the person of Harry S. Truman. The proceedings were no more boring and a lot shorter (the program has been trimmed to two hours) than Susskind's long night session with Richard Nixon last year. Susskind approached the former President with what seemed abnormal relief. "I'm so grateful that you're here," he gushed. "You're 77 years old. You look marvelous. And I wonder--how do you explain your good health and your ebullience?" Replied Truman: "Well, temperance in all things ..."

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