Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 59

TELEVISION Saturday night live Rfarner: lefore line "i' if il 1 tut egan TNT special looks back at the grand old days of the Hollywood studio. w-. 1 J- Dennis Miller gears up for HBO. By Ray Richmond Los Angeles Daily News LOS ANGELES -Dennis Miller continues to bask in the glow of being the most successful unsuccessful talk-show host in television history. It was almost as if the swift failure of his "The Dennis Miller Show" in syndication helped inexplicably send the "Saturday Night Live" alumnus soaring.

Tomorrow night Miller takes his act to HBO for his third comedy special at the cable network from the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "HBO Comedy Hour: Dennis Miller Live From Washington, D.C. They Shoot HBO Specials, Don't They?" is different from Miller's previous cable excursions for one key reason: it's live. Of course, the fact it's live doesn't faze a guy who logged five years on "Saturday Night Live," which was, after all, live. And not with all of his brushes with vulnerability on the comedy stages of America.

Right? Wrong. "Oh, trust me, it's a daunting prospect, and an exhilarating one," Miller said over the phone last week from his house, where he has spent the past few weeks worriedly poring over tapes of himself and quietly panicking. "I feel like the Bismarck has been bearing down on me. Sure I did but there I was basically scoring off someone else's screw-ups. This is just me for an hour, and it's making me totally nuts just thinking about it.

I perform my act everyday in the car in front of my rear-view mirror, and I dunno, the mirror never laughs." Miller, one of the most intellectual comics working today, delivers an acerbic whirlw ind of arcane references and sharp observations. His grasp of popular culture is positively encyclopedic, his knowledge of politics uncommonly vast. In short, this isn't a comedian who screams at you to get your attention. He just makes you think. And it's not always easy keeping up with him.

"I think a high percentage of the people want to have to figure it out a little. "What's wrong with putting a few things in your act that most people won't get unless they look it up? I like hearing things I don't completely understand, and I'll just bet you that most lay people out there are upset that they're treated like such morons." 'DENNIS MILLER LIVE' It airs tomorrow at 9:30 p.m. on HBO. Humphrey Bogarl and Lauren Bacall, Review by Ron Weiskind TNT laid on the glitz big time in last year's "When the Lion a salute to the MGM film studio. Now it offers an antidote in "Here's Looking At You, Warner Bros." The cure proves to be far worse than the disease.

Now I grant you that "When the Lion Roars" wallowed in excess. Host Patrick Stewart in his-white tax had plenty of scenery to chew in that gaudy extravaganza. But MGM itself was often gaudy and extravagant it proclaimed itself possessor of "more stars than there are in heaven" and so, fortunately, was this tribute when it came to displaying film clips. Warner on the other hand, was the earthiest of the major studios. It produced gangster films and the first talkies.

It provided a home for social realism, women with attitude and open cynicism, Its stable of stars included such scrappers as James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis and Ruby Keeler, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. So forget glitz. But we're still talking movies, and even Warner's films were larger than life. A little pizazz would not have been out of place. But "Here's Looking at You" contains all the showmanship of a corporate board meeting.

The studio no longer is run by four brothers but by the comglomerate Time Warner, so maybe that's appropriate, too, if not exactly inspiring. Clint Eastwood draws most of the hosting duties (Goldie Hawn, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and Chevy Chase also participate). While Eastwood's tight-lipped two of Warner brightest stars, in style may ring box-office chimes and perhaps even win him an Oscar this year, The Man With No Name doesn't have much vocal personality. His leaden monotone sketches out the story of the Warner Brothers, four guys from Youngstown who opened a movie theater in New Castle, started in film distribution in Pittsburgh in 1907 and produced their first hit in Hollywood in 1918. 7 Before long, Eastwood is telling us about Steve Ross, the late chairman of Time Warner, the conglomerate that now owns the studio.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't care less about Steve Ross, who is not my idea of a filmmaker. The show, produced by the estimable David L. Wolper, never mentions Ross' death, which occurred in December. For that matter, it tries to ignore the existence of Time Warner. "Here's Looking at You" wants to preserve the fiction that Warner Bros, exists somewhat as it did during the years when the studio system flourished.

It refers to Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty as a pair of Warner stars. Excuse me, but in this day and age men like Nicholson and Beatty are stars who happened to make some Warner pictures. These guys can star for anyone they want. So, to paraphrase Dooley Wilson in "Casablanca," do the fundamental things still apply as time goes by? The program states that after their first success in 1918, the Warner brothers wanted to build the studio to the point where it could challenge Paramount or MGM. Oops.

MGM didn't come into existence until 1924. Ah, well. We've come for the "To Have and Have Not." film clips and it would be hard to botch that. Start with the essentials Cagney and that grapefruit in "Public Enemy," Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer," and "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Edward G. Robinson in "Little Caesar," Davis in "Now, Voyager," "Jezebel" and "The Letter," Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Robin Hood," Lauren Bacall teaching Bogie how to whistle in "To Have and Have Not," the great ensemble cast of "The Maltese Falcon" and, of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, the one Ingrid Bergman walks into.

But "Here's Looking at You" also delivers the arcane: screen tests of a very young Lana Turner, an equally callow Orson Welles and an unknown Paul Newman clowning with James Dean in hopes of landing the role of Dean's brother in "East of Eden." As it turns out, Warner Bros, turned down both Turner and Welles (and Clark Gable, supposedly because his ears were too big), and Newman didn't get the part. We also see one of the blooper reels that played at annual studio parties. Somehow, I can't imagine Paramount or MGM running blooper reels, much less allowing their cartoon units to make fun of their stars. Warner's unpretentious style was also part of its charm. TNT's tribute to the studio is often just as unpretentious but, alas, seldom does it show any style.

'HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, WARNER It premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday on TNT and repeats at 4 p.m. Sunday..