ON THE AIR THE Elti4it•IC Washington, D. L. 1 • • • • Tuesday, Nor. 15, 1966 Barefoot in Athens' DIsappointing TV-Radio By BERNIE HARRISON union's four largest and most Commission report on eduea- Star TV Critic CHANNEL CHUCKLES important locals, Las Angeles, tional TV, due to be issued Jan. To tell 'er the truth, I never —By Bil Keane New York, Chicago and Wash- 4, won't recommend an excise 44 cared for Maxwell Anderson's ington, have given their leaders tax on TV sets or assessmentsii "Barefoot in Athens" in its the authority to call a strike in against commercial broadeaV entirety, on stage, and the "Hall the event negotiations fail. A ters, TV Digest reports . . In of Fame's" abbreviated version spokesman for the union said fact, the report will skirt the 1:r of it last riday on NBC shot off that if such a strike were called, issue of ETV financing, contrary some sparks, but never enough the networks stations would be to the current rash of published •- to light up the trial scene that running nothing except old reports. made it worth all the intermin- movies or records. So what else , 4 - able talking and pasturing. is new? Listen to Bernie Harrison weekdays, Maybe I've seen too many 5:40 p.m., WQMR. plays lately that rake the ears Hockey Tonight with talk and no matter how Channel 20 undertakes its first brilliant the words, there de- "live" telecast of ice hockey yelps a craving for something to tonight (8 o'clock, Baltimore vs. happen, someone to move the Buffalo); this is one of the play forward with action instead toughest of TV sports for the of a speech. cameras to follow . . . A special Anyway; it's obvious that talk American Research Bureau shows, Western style, had their coincidental report for election genesis in that communication night, by the way, showed medium known as the agora, Washington's two independent and a play about Socrates, of stations, 5 and 20, scoring course, scarcely avoid being an impressively with movies while exercise in argument and lan- the network stations were guage. But Anderson's approach running the returns . WRC to the meaning of the teachings was first, followed by WTTG of this classic seeker of truth ("Dark Passage") tied with always seemed to me to be too WTOP, then WDCA ("Two convenient and, last Friday, I think Clift didn't try a Midwest- ern accent simply because it Women"), WMAL and WETA. felt that Peter Ustinov's inter- . That upcoming Carnegie pretation was too clever. The wouldn't have helped in the trial scene is the hymn to de- least. mocracy, the timeless plea fro the past to successive genera Socrates Needed tions of book-burners, and it I watched nearly an hour of came out as something less, far the three-hour marathon WTTG- less. I fully expected Ustinov at 5 special Saturday,- "A Re- one time to break into a g examination Of the Warren shuffle and croak something e Commission Findings" by its "The Impossible Dream." critics, and., a Socratic modera- Still, in a TV dominate by tor mighthave been just the comic •strip melodramas and man to_ brink Some perspective comedies, it was a 'thrill to hear to the arguments and theories such lines as "it is every marqs tumultously advance d. Jim right to tire of another" (so off- Bishop was the moderator, handedly delivered by Socrates although referee is the better at his trial), or to see Ustiriov word. (Now he knows what Billy with the great Geraldine Page in Conn was up against in Mexico.) their marvelous little scene What the program proved, it where she comes to him weaning proved in the first 15 minutes, perfume. Anthony Quayle's King and what it was proving was of Sparta was excellent; S4ep- something that we have always perd Strudwick struck the right known, namely, they are still note at the trial, The production, writing books and arguing about as usual, was presented with the the assassination of Lincoln impeccable good taste .of its and who was REALLY behind sponsor, Hallmark. it, and we shall have the same, endlessly, over ' the Dallas tragedy.