Alistair Cooke pauses for a moment to cough, his cigarette still burning in his hand. It's 1950s live television and the popular “Omnibus” program can't miss a beat for a smoker's hack. He recovers himself like a professional, and continues his narrative, surrounded by an almost surreal array of women's heads, including busts of Aphrodite and Nefertiti.
The two-DVD set “Omnibus: American Profiles” collects many episodes from the long-running (1952-1961) series. Much of it will strike contemporary eyes as weird, a strange mélange of the spontaneous, the ill prepared (a boom mike sometimes hovers at the top of the screen) and the over scripted. When “Omnibus” traveled “way down South” to honor William Faulkner, the resulting footage is stilted and B Hollywood. But the most memorable moments could not have been planned. When Frank Lloyd Wright stalked into the program's New York studio, he seemed to treat Cooke as the lone student in a classroom of fools.
The great thing to ponder about “Omnibus” is its confidence. Despite production flaws, the directors assumed an intelligent, prime time audience existed for literate (if occasionally bumbling) discussion on photography, architecture, literature and classical music. Maybe a new “Omnibus” with a bit of postmodern panache could bring high ratings on cable?
