Tea For Two

The scene: December 9, 1985. Teatime at Devon on the Common with Twice in a Lifetime Director/Producer Bud Yorkin of tv-sitcom fame.

Sacher Torte, Earl Grey and Bud Yorkin--what a combination. How many times does one have the opportunity to munch rare German delicacies with the man responsible for bringing Archie Bunker and the Meathead to life and for giving the inimitable Florence countless opportunities to berrate the long-suffering George on The Jeffersons? All this from a man who has, as the tea makes eminently clear, impeccable table manners as well.

In the field of prime-time television, Bud Yorkin has acquired what one could only classify as Bigfoot status. In conjunction with 8 to 11 guru Norman Lear, Yorkin developed, as his press release so modestly proclaims, a string of record breaking hits: "Sanford and Son," "Maude," "Good Times," "Diff'rent Strokes" and "Archie Bunker's Place." Commercial triumphs all, these Yorkin-Lear formula sit-coms were, in retrospect, surprisingly devoid of the socially relevant subject matter so current in many current series.

Similarly lacking in tasteful bravado were his two most recent cinematic exploits, the dull-edged Blade Runner and the utterly forgetable Deal of the Century. Thus, prior to the release of his latest chef d'oeuvre, the largely critically acclaimed Twice in a Lifetime, one had to wonder whether or not Yorkin had a chance of making it in the eighties.

Critics Jay Carr, Judith Crist, Leonard Maltin and of course Siskel and Ebert have now found such qualms are without foundation. With a directorial sleight of hand, a cast of seasoned pros and a cinematographer who can make suburban Seattle look like the Elysian Fields, Yorkin is able to turn a rather tired story of divorce and readjustment into what the such critics are calling this year's Terms of Endearment. Whatever one thinks of the movie itself, the man does know how to throw one heck of a tea party.