Hallmark’s Best to Screen at Melnitz

TV or not TV. . . .

MAIN EVENT: Believe it or not, there’ll be some great television this summer.

Memorable productions from the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” will be showcased at UCLA in July and August in a tribute to four decades of the honored series.

On July 18, for instance, there’s Richard Chamberlain in “Hamlet.” And on July 26, two of Julie Harris’ finest vehicles, “Little Moon of Alban” and “Victoria Regina,” will be shown.

Then, from Aug. 6 through Sept. 5, it’s a veritable feast, with 32 “Hallmark” screenings, including “The Little Foxes,” with Greer Garson; “Macbeth,” with Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson; “The Fantasticks”; “The Magnificent Yankee,” with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne; “All Quiet on the Western Front,” with Richard Thomas; and this year’s success, “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” with Glenn Close.

The Hallmark festival will take place at Melnitz Theater and is a presentation of the UCLA Film and Television Archive in association with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Information: (213) 206-8013.

CULTURE KICK: If you’ve never seen “I, Claudius,” you have another chance starting Sunday when KCET Channel 28 repeats the 13-part series, with Derek Jacobi in the vivid and elegant tale of how things went bad in the Roman Empire.

CHECKING UP: We always hold the networks to their promises, so we asked CBS about its previously announced plans to bring back Shelley Long and Bob Newhart in sitcoms.

Well, said CBS, there are still plans--even though we didn’t hear a word about them at the network’s recent report here to ad agencies.

CBS said that a project for Long (“Cheers”) is still in development. And, as for Newhart, a network spokeswoman added: “We’re looking for a vehicle. We want him back on the air and he wants to be back.”

In the meantime, Newhart will star on ABC this coming season in the TV movie “The Entertainers,” about a vaudevillian and his chimpanzee partner who finally get a chance at the big time in Las Vegas.

JUST FOLKS: Those money-grubbing Carringtons will be back in a four-hour miniseries reprise of “Dynasty” on ABC in the new season, and the principal actors of the once-potent soaper are returning for the occasion--including John Forsythe, Joan Collins and Linda Evans.

NO SURPRISE: A Gallup Poll in the June 7 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine reports that college graduates prefer both Johnny Carson and David Letterman over Arsenio Hall. But you didn’t have to be a college graduate to appreciate Carson’s deadpan, side-splitting segment last week with high-school students showing off their bird-calling skills. It was a textbook comedy lesson from a master.

GOODFELLA: An ABC press release we never finished reading: “Robert Conrad is a gangster with a warm heart. . . .”

EQUAL TIME: Susan Dey’s reason for switching plans and returning to “L.A. Law” next season is that “it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.” A man’s too.

NO JOKE: If you can’t find CTV: the Comedy Network, no wonder. The 24-hour cable channel changed its name to Comedy Central last weekend.

SUGGESTION BOX: Worst possible idea would be for ABC to bring back the canceled “thirty-something” for a few episodes to wrap up loose ends--a total anticlimax. We have a better idea: Why not an annual two-hour film updating us on the lives and status of the characters? Can’t miss.

ROYALTY: Coral Browne, who died last week, left so many grand performances--but for TV viewers, she is etched in memory for “An Englishman Abroad,” based on her real-life meeting in the Soviet Union with British spy Guy Burgess (Alan Bates) while she was on tour in “Hamlet.” I never saw a better TV drama. Never.

GETAWAY: Well, let’s see--Deborah Norville co-anchored NBC’s “Today” show for about a year, got a few million in settlement on leaving and now will take over Sally Jessy Raphael’s nightly show on the ABC Radio network in September. She has a new baby, she’s left the shaky NBC network and she’s still in her 30s. There are worse fates.

CHANGE OF PACE: Shelley Duvall, who does those hip fairy tales for TV, has teamed with--Roseanne Barr. She’s an executive producer for Barr’s ABC movie for next season, “Backfield in Motion,” about a single mother who tries to get closer to her young son by forming an all-women’s football team. Sounds like money in the bank, especially if Barr plays fullback.

TURNABOUT: Tough guy Ray Sharkey (“Wiseguy”) arrives June 19 in a new ABC sitcom, “The Man in the Family,” as a hustler who reluctantly promises his dying father that he’ll take over his grocery store.

BENCH STRENGTH: The supporting cast in Norman Lear’s new comedy, “Sunday Dinner,” is terrific--holds the show together.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS: Those Gulf War briefings were such good TV that a producer informs us the following shows are being pitched: “There’s a teen-age briefing series for Fox with Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder doing the briefing. Universal has a briefing series with a crusty old briefer and three young rookie briefers. There’s a ‘mean streets’ briefing series with Mickey Rourke punching out the reporters as he briefs them.” No, no, no--just kidding.

BEING THERE: From our favorite-TV-moments file, courtesy of journalist Dan Jenkins: “Walter Cronkite’s guest appearance on ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ . . . Laurence Olivier and Katharine Hepburn in ‘Love Among the Ruins’ . . . Art Carney’s quick-witted ad-lib entrance through the window when the door to Jackie Gleason’s apartment wouldn’t open.”

Say good night, Gracie. . . .