The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 113

Wit (Emxltrmml Times Drama Movies Art Music TV Radio Travel The Arts SECTION SUNDAY, MAY 7, 1967 Lively If i v. Sj LnJ TV Bails Itself Out By Reruns By CYNTHIA LOWRY r-tk jilt 'Odd Couple' Opening Monday George Gobel reacts to his wife's threat to divorce him in 'The Odd Couple," which will open Monday at 8:30 p.m. for a week's run at the Brown Theatre. The girls are Laura May Lewis and Gloria Beezarde, who, in the play; live upstairs above the apartment in which Gobel and co-star Phil Foster set up bachelor quarters when both get into wife trouble. Tickets for the six evening and two matinee (Wednesday and Saturday) performances are available at the Brown.

ATL Offers 'Bonus' Play By JEAN DIETRICH, Courier-Journal Staff Writer NEW YORK (AP) That television set has taken on its dreary late-spring look. Reruns are in full bloom, to be followed by summer-replacement shows designed to keep people from putting dust covers on the tube. At the moment, about seven out of nine regular programs are showing episodes originally aired within the last few months. Others will soon start reruns as television networks obey the law of diminishing audiences until a week after Labor Day. There will continue to be some fresh spots in the schedules.

"Peyton Place" of course, will continue in the classic tradition of soap operas. "The Lucy Show," which usually leads the pack into reruns, will, as usual, drop them early in July in favor of a couple of months devoted to showing "dead" half-hour comedy pilots. These are demonstration films that failed to find either network or sponsor. More Replacements Steve Allen, his wife Jayne Meadows and Louis Nye will bring in a straw-hat show in Danny Kay's Wednesday-night hour on CBS, starting June 14. NBC's "Dean Martin Show" will take a holiday while Vic Damone and company move in for a brief stay starting June 22.

Jackie Gleason's CBS Saturday hour will be filled, starting June 3, with a Hollywood-based hour called "Away We Go." English-made shows which are cheaper to produce will replace CBS's Red Skelton, starting on June and ABC's "Hollywood Palace," starting on May 20. The former is called "Spotlight" and the latter "London Laughs." Even CBS's "Coliseum," a late starter, will have some summer relief re-reruns of Lucy-Desi hour-long programs that date back to the mid-1950s. "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," also a late starter, will be replaced on July 2 with a variety hour headlined by the comedy team of Burns and Shrieber, plus the Doodletown Pipers. CBS will also drop its midseason replacements, "To Tell the Truth" and "Password," after May 22 for "Coronet Blue," an adventure series made but passed over two seasons ago. The question is why television almost closes up shop for five months a year.

The answer involves both economics and viewing habits. In the first place, the long, arid period of oft-told tales is the time when people who produce and pay for programs get a chance to catch up with their expenditures. The average half-hour show costs at least $75,000 an episode to produce; the hour show, at least $150,000. Reruns Pay Off The cost of buying air time from the networks varies with the hour and audience size, but can run as much as 50 per cent higher than production costs. Obviously, if an episode can be used a second time, there are no new production costs.

This saving helps balance the books. If there is to be a concentrated period of re-using shows, obviously the period starting in May is the logical time. As soon as the days lengthen, viewing starts to drop off. In July and August, early evening watching drops 40 per cent from the midwinter peak. It appears that summer and the dark tube are inseparable.

'Ulysses5 Coming Acclaimed by some, protested by others, the movie of James Joyce's novel "Ulysses" will open Tuesday at the Bard on a reserved-seat basis. Milo O'Shea, right, as Leopold Bloom, and Maurice Roeves as Stephen Dedalus are shown in a scene from the film, which co-stars Barbara Jefford as Molly. There will be four performances during the 3-day run: Evenings at 8:30 and Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. Children under 18 will not be admitted. Why film Ulysses? 'Because it's there' By DON ALPERT, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post Service MMMiwuw.y..

1 i 11 1 111 i j) filial 1 iMt. "THE MIRACLE WORKER," William Gibson's play about Helen Keller as a young girl and her remarkable teacher, Annie Sullivan, will open Monday at 3:30 p.m. at Ahrens Trade School as a post-season production of Actors Theatre of Louisville. There will be 1 performances at the school every weekday afternoon through May 20, with evening performances at 8:30 Fridays and Saturdays. There will be no Sunday performances.

Members of the community are Included in the cast, but most of the leading roles are played by members of the Actors Theatre company. Matinee performances are being given to accommodate students as well as the general public. Student Featured Young Helen Keller is being played by Kathy Amos, 17, a junior at Westport High SchooL Members of the Actors Theatre company who will appear in leading roles include Jane Singer as Annie Sullivan, J. S. Johnson as Helen's father and Jo Deodato as Mrs.

Keller. Karl Eigsti, a member of the directors' unit of New York's Actors Studio, has directed the production. Tickets are available at Actors Theatre for all performances. After tomorrow, tickets will also be available at Ahrens prior to each performance. relationships between men and women.

I promise you it is not done in a style you will take exception to." Strick's interest in "Ulysses" reaches back to his youth. "My father smuggled the book into this country from Paris in 1929," he said, "and it became sort of a holy artifact in our house." Joyce's "Ulysses" had been banned from the United States, and it was not until Dec. 7, 1933, that Federal Judge John M. Woolsey ordered that it be admitted. Strick's quest for the screen rights to "Ulysses" almost parallels the Homer version.

Strick reached his goal after first becoming interested in 1959. He was outbid by 20th Century-Fox and producer Jerry Wald. When Wald died, director Jack Cardiff took over the option. Cardiff was unable to get backing, and Strick offered the Joyce estate $75,000 without having the money to back it up just confidence. Staff Phot Jane Singer plays teacher Annie Sullivan and Kathy Amos plays Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker," which Actors Theatre of Louisville will open at Ahrens Trade School Monday afternoon.

Batman' Is a Man of Action, Even Without That Cape and Mask By DUANE VALENTRY, Special Writer HOLLYWOOD The "Ulysses" of James Joyce and that of Homer are centuries apart, although based on the same theme. Where Homer's "Odyssey" took Ulysses on literal travels, Joyce does so in the mind. But Homer didn't have to contend with the censorship problems that faced Joyce and the film's producer-director, Joseph Strick. "The reputation of the book was such that the censors felt the movie had to be trouble," said Strick. "They felt a movie faithful to the book would be dangerous.

As Marshall McLuhan says, 'What you see and hear eventually become what you see and Two Police Actions' "We've had two sub rosa police actions that were successful in keeping 'Ulysses out of the theaters one in St. Louis and the other in Whitehead, Pa. In Chicago, we were successful in restraining the police from interfering." "I am not," Strick maintains, "a cheap exploitation-film maker. If I am, I've fooled a lot of award-givers and critics." Why, then, did he make "First, it Is the central literary work of our time. It is a book in many ways more screenplay than novel.

Joyce attempted to open the first movie house in Dublin in 1909. The book is generally not read because of the difficulty of the style. "I felt I knew the book and could make a movie of it that would be lucid from the words, themselves. Then there's the answer my 16-year-old son gave. Why make this book into a movie? 'Because it's "Joyce parallels the life of the mind with everyday reality.

The thing that makes the book difficult to read is he flips from one to another without telling you. If your imagination is as lurid as mine, it would be pretty wild stuff. Aim Was Analogue "Joyce worked in stream-of-conscious-ness, and was so direct people couldn't bring themselves to say it was true. The reaction to the film is the same. I'm not saying the film is as good as the book.

I don't think it could be. "We set out to make an analogue of the book and not cop out on old James Joyce. But it's hard to conceive of a film that has stronger words and ideas principally the ideas. What we're saying is (that) cinema has to be as free as publishing and it is, now. I'm not saying we did it, but we did our part." Strick said the admission fee is the highest yet for a movie, "and we've not had a case of a refund in the United States." "We want a highly informed audience," he said, "people who know what they're coming to see.

This is a specialized film. We're not after an audience of sensation seekers. "There's nothing in the images that isn't conventional in motion pictures. The Jaocuage is mostly concerned with the Ideas that are generally prohibited and forbidden in public; ideas dealing with svr A 'T HA cape with exactly the right degree of dignity. He's a good-enough actor with sufficient experience to enable him to give even this role just what it seems to need.

But who, really, is Adam West? Leaving the high-paying nonsense behind him at every opportunity, he's a sailor who loves taking his new Swedish sailboat out for a run off the California coast He's an expert skier off to the mountains when any white is showing, and a motorcyclist racing his machine around the roads of Malibu Beach, where he maintains what else? a smart bachelor pad. He's also a man named Bill Anderson, remembered by old Army buddies from a while back. "I was quite uncertain about my future when I got out of the service," says West. "I thought I wanted to do some writing, but wound up doing a lot of absorbing seeking a purpose, a goal, I traveled to Hawaii, where I turned to television to direct and occasionally act" After four years of this, he became an account executive for an advertising agency, carefully spicing the sedentary job by working as a bush pilot on the side. Returning to the mainland, he was put under contract by Warner Brothers TV productions, working in "77 Sunset Strip," and other productions and making do by dint of TV commercials.

With Batman, alias Bruce Wayne, he's quite satisfied, understandably, but admits to two minor problems he can think about while making it to the bank "keeping a straight face in some of the and "getting out of my Batman tights." HOLLYWOOD There's this fellow who wears a cape, who can't go anywhere without being mobbed, with youngsters climbing all over him and adults gaping. And there's the other fellow tall, with horn-rimmed glasses, who can go just about anywhere and never cause a ripple. Some 20,000 fans a week ago crowded on a California fishing pier where a "Batman" segment was being filmed. All they asked was to see the action and move in on the star. When it looked as though the frail pier had all the people it could hold, big Adam West stepped forward with a bullhorn and talked to the crowd straining at police lines, explaining what the filming was about and would they mind stepping back please? It took awhile, but then they recognized the speaker behind the horn-rims and without cape and mask.

It usually does take a while, but Adam West says his identity is growing day by day. "I love doing the show, and frankly it's given me more identification than any three movies could have. As a matter of fact, people greet me as Mr. West instead of Batman more and more all the time. That's nice." Portraying the high-flying crusader.

West found himself an overnight success after some 15 years of doing capeless parts. Few fans seem to remember him from "The Detectives" with Robert Taylor or such movies as "The Young Phil-adelphians," "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" and some others he'd as soon forget, too. Though critics jumped on "Batman" tooth and nail, it was a huge and historic success. Part of the praise or blame rests with the tall guy who wears that silly 1-' As TVs "Batman" (right), actor Adam West pilots his Bat-mobile around fighting crime. But, off-screen (above) he's likely to be found at the helm of his sailboat off the California coast..