Ralph's Trek

ORDEAL - June-July 1963 (The Nurses)

2010-11-09T23:21:00.000-08:00

Come visit my website
RALPH'S CINEMA TREK: A Journey in Film
at http://senensky.com/

After the whirlwind three months on the road with ROUTE 66 and NAKED CITY followed by a short month-long stay in Los Angeles for ARREST AND TRIAL, it was back to New York -- this time for an episode of THE NURSES. I looked forward to this because it would be a reunion with a buddy from MGM. Two years before when I had reported to MGM to join the DR. KILDARE production staff, Buzz Berger was working in the studio’s casting department, casting extras for the their productions. But Buzz was smart...and ambitious. He told me at the time that he was remaining at the studio in the evening after the day’s work was completed to study the casting files. Casting entails so much more than just matching performers to roles. In a sense there was a caste system to casting actors. There were the stars, each of them with his (or her) price and also the information of which ones would do television. There were featured players, again some who would accept television assignments, some who would not; and each of them carried a price tag. And then there were hordes of day players, again each with a price. Some were available only for roles of at least a week’s work; others at least two or three days; and then the many available for a day’s work. All this, Buzz said, he was memorizing; plus the evaluation of the performers’ talent. He felt he needed to know all of this in order to advance to being a casting director of more than just extras. Within the year of my arrival at MGM Buzz left for New York to join Herbert Brodkin’s production team, at that time producing THE DEFENDERS and THE NURSES. Buzz had become the casting director for the latter show.

For our young leading man we cast twenty-one year old Brandon de Wilde. I had seen Brandon a dozen years before when the National company of THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING with Ethel Waters played in Chicago. It had been his Broadway stage debut when he was seven and a half. He had made his feature film debut when the play was transferred to the screen. In the intervening years he had also appeared on screen in the classic western, SHANE, and the Paul Newman starrer, HUD. If that isn’t impressive enough, he had also made two other feature films and guest starred on thirty-eight television shows, including a season of a series in which he starred. This episode, ORDEAL, was only my thirteenth film.

Filming for THE NURSES was at the old Pathe Studios on East 106th Street. The facility was a distinct improvement over the so-called studios in lower Manhattan used by NAKED CITY. But they were a far cry from the MGM studios in Culver City. The sound stages were much smaller than those on the west coast; they did not have the overhanging grids on which lighting could be placed; and the hospital set was far less inclusive than the extensive hospital set for DR. KILDARE. Part of this, I’m sure, was due to Executive Producer Herbert Brodkin. During this production I had little direct contact with Brodkin, but he was no stranger. He had been one of the three rotating producers who replaced Martin Manulis on PLAYHOUSE 90 when Manulis left. I was aware then that Brodkin had been an art director and had a philosophy for television production that stated: the medium is a small screen; large sets are not needed; play the scenes in closeups. This had worked well for him on the excellent series, THE DEFENDERS. So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! And when directing in Rome, do as the Romans do!

This was the first of my fifteen collaborations with twenty-one year old Stephen Brooks, a semi-regular on the series. Two years later he would be on the west coast as JIm Rhodes on THE FBI. And five years later we would work together on the most well-known of our collaborations, OBSESSION, on STAR TREK. (See archives at the right.)

After almost a decade of living on the west coast, having escaped from the hot, humid summers of the midwest, I was taken back to those midwest days at the end of every day when I left the air-conditioned studio and confronted New York City in the summertime. The ride back to my hotel, either by cab or studio driven car, always with no air conditioning, seemed never-ending. As did my future stay in New York. I knew that when I completed this film, I was booked to stay on in New York City for an additional three weeks to direct an episode of EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE.

Nonogen-405 was, of course, a fictitious drug. The initial version of the script named the drug “Nucleogen”. I don’t know whether the change was made because “Nucleogen” was more difficult to pronounce or whether there may have been an actual drug called Nonogen.

I wonder if you’ve noticed that the closeups are unusually large. Again that was a style set by THE DEFENDERS. I used to say jokingly that in a Brodkin production closeup, if you could see the chin or the actor’s hair on top of his head -- that was a wide shot.

THE NURSES was in its second season. It had debuted on CBS in 1962, one season after the great successes the previous year of DR. KILDARE on NBC and BEN CASEY on ABC. I guess the network figured that the squeaky clean KILDARE and the renegade CASEY had covered all of the doctor bases, so their medical series would focus on nurses. Sometimes the nurse’s involvement proved to be peripheral.

That plan may have proved more limiting than anticipated; the third season for the series was called THE DOCTORS AND THE NURSES.

Early in the next sequence you will see the mike pop in at the top of the frame. That was not a missed mistake. What you are seeing is the full screen film, but that was not what was seen on the television screens at home. An aperture matte in the camera designated the shape of the television screen. The area where the mike appeared was in that area cut off by that aperture and therefore not a part of the image that appeared on home screens.

I was excited when I reported to start casting to find that Buzz was trying to get Pert Kelton for the role of Nurse Harmon. I remembered her for her screen appearances in the thirties; and then more recently, like just the previous year, for her role in the film version of Meredith Willson’s paean to Mason City, Iowa (although he called it River City) -- THE MUSIC MAN. (In case you’ve forgotten, I’m from Mason City, Iowa.) But Pert Kelton was not available. Now as I’ve said before, the talent pools are very deep. So Buzz delivered Jan Miner. For those of you old enough to have been around back then, I’m sure you will recognize her -- she was Madge, the manicurist in the Palmolive soap commercials, one of the longest ongoing product endorsement relationshipos in TV history. She did it for twenty-seven years.

Anybody want to venture a guess as to how many takes it took to get that zoom shot into the broken mirror with the five images of Brandon?

One! Because there was no dialog involved, we could use the Arriflex camera with the zoom lens. With the camera lens set to frame the mirror, we carefully arranged that close shot with Brandon’s five images and locked off the camera. Brandon had to freeze his actions; any movement on his part could have lost an image. We then rolled camera, I called action, held for a few seconds and then zoomed out. After the film was developed we then reversed the action and printed it as a zoom in.

Larry Gates was a gem of a performer. If he had been born earlier, he would surely have been under contract to one of the major studios, MGM, Paramount or Warner Bros. But his career began in the early fifties when the studio system with their long list of contractees was coming to an end. So he carved a similar career as befitted those times. Live television, Broadway, feature films, filmed television, even a soap opera -- GUIDING LIGHT. He did them all. And he did it with distinction. As I said, he was a gem of a performer.

I never worked with Brandon de Wilde again. In fact I never saw him again. NIne years after we filmed this ORDEAL, Brandon was killed in an automobile accident in Denver, Colorado. He was thirty years old.

THE HERO - April 1965 (12 O’Clock High)

2010-11-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

The script for my final 12 O’CLOCK HIGH had the most stereotypical protagonist of any of my four airborne adventures on the series. In the thirties and forties, James Cagney practically had a one-man franchise at Warner Bros. on the cocky, brash, undisciplined man in military service. In THE FIGHTING 69TH, HERE COMES THE NAVY, CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS he served disruptively on land, sea and air, but always emerged at the end as a hero. Three decades later we were about to resurrect that character.

My second and third episodes of 12 O’CLOCK HIGH had been grounded. This one sent me back up into the wild black and white yonder of TO HEINIE, WITH LOVE, back again for two days to the small process stage, and back to the airfield in Chino, this time for two days. It also provided me with a welcome reunion with James Whitmore; the previous season we had worked together on ARREST AND TRIAL (see archives to the right).

Let me digress for a moment. The young copilot was played by Peter Deuel. He had little to do, but I was very impressed with him. I remember going to producer Frank Glicksman and telling him I thought Peter was someone to note for future use. I never saw Peter again after that one day’s work. His future was not at QM Productions. The following season Peter was cast by Screen Gems (the television arm of Columbia Pictures) in a sitcom that failed. Not to be deterred Screen Gems cast him in another sitcom the following year, that one too doomed to end after a single season. Peter was then put under contract by Universal, where he spent three years guest starring in the studio’s television productions before being cast to co-star in the series ALIAS SMITH AND JONES, a rip-off of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID that became a huge success. According to interviews at the time, Peter did not find fulfillment in the daily grind of that television series. After only thirty-three episodes he ended his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was thirty-one years old. Again there are eight million stories in tlhe city of Hollywood, Peter Deuel’s is one of them.

Our first day of filming was at the airfield in Chino. It was the last day of March, but April showers were already threatening. Our schedule for the day listed the sixth day’s work as our cover sets in case of inclement weather, but the decision had been made in the production office that the rain was a possibility, not a surety. And so we commenced filming; the conditions for creating the look of England in winter were visually excellent.

But as the work on this sequence progressed, the weather conditions worsened; small raindrops started spitting, but not enough at first to halt filming -- until we were setting up the final setup of that last sequence, the shot under the plane’s wing...

...when Billy Spencer and I agreed it was time to call a halt. Paul Wurtzel, our assistant director, disagreed. “You're under the wing. You can’t even see the rain,” he said. Billy pointed to behind Lansing and Whitmore where a sheet of water was cascading like a waterfall off the wing. His point was made. We wrapped the location, returned to the studio and finished the day working on interior scenes from the sixth day’s schedule. The following day when the weather had cleared, we returned to Chino and picked up where we had left off.

I read today about the difficulty actors have doing scenes in blue screen. I don’t think the actors in this show had it any easier. As in TO HEINIE, WITH LOVE a third of the filming was on the process stage in the plane with rear projection. That meant acting very short scenes, many of them with an actor at a different location (a different section of the airplane or someone in a different plane) or reacting to attacking airplanes that weren’t there and wouldn’t be there until the film editor integrated the stock footage days, even weeks later as he put together the final assemblage.

I also want to commend the film editors of this episode (Marston Fay) and TO HEINIE. WITH LOVE (Jerry Young). Beside selecting the required film for our rear projection they were the ones who plowed through miles of stock footage to create the action footage for the sequences -- the air battles, the fleet of planes in flight, planes taking off and landing. There were scenes in the script marked (STOCK) that were what the screenwriter envisioned -- the editors then had to find film that matched that vision.

On one of the days Frank Overton reported to the Chino location at the crack of dawn. He filmed the following sequence and a longer scene with Lansing and Whitmore (that was edited out of the final film for time). He was then dismissed and sent back to the studio. Seconds after his vehicle left, assistant director Paul Wurtzel realized Frank was not finished, that he still had another sequence to shoot. Today, with cell phones, there would be no problem. The vehicle carrying Frank back to the studio would be phoned in transit, and he would be returned to the location. But those were ancient B.C. days (Before Cellphones). All Paul could do was phone the studio and notify them that when Frank arrived, he was to be sent back to Chino. I think that was a day Frank wished we could have been doing STAR TREK (which he did do for me a couple years later) so that he could just say, “Beam me out to the location, Scotty.” Being the trooper that he was, there were no complaints.

I like doing action sequences. They are exciting to do, they are exciting to watch. But I have to confess, I’m even more challenged and fulfilled confronted with a good dramatic dialogue sequence if it’s intelligently written, built on a strong conflict with interesting nuances, and if I’m fortunate enough to have good actors to play it.

One of the things I learned early on DR. KILDARE was that when there was technical information being dispensed, it was advisable to present it as carefully and clearly as possible. The viewing audience must assimilate the information as completely as the men at the briefing so that they will understand the events that follow.

It’s easy to stage a dramatic scene that is a direct confrontation between opposing forces. A challenge is when the drama is a bit of exposition being related.

I couldn’t resist showing you the scene Frank Overton had to return to the location to film

The radio operator in the next clip is Nigel McKeand. Nigel first acted for me two years before this in an episode of THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Nine years later Nigel had switched hats and wrote THE MARATHON, one of the best THE WALTONS I was priveleged to direct. Two years after that I directed an episode of FAMILY, produced by Nigel. And eleven years later the last film I ever directed was an episode of BLUE SKIES which Nigel produced.

Our American culture has a peculiar attraction to the celebrity of heroes. I liked and appreciated what this script had to say on the subject.

And that brought an end to my involvement with 12 O’CLOCK HIGH. Robert Lansing’s contract was not renewed; he was replaced by Paul Burke. William Spencer with his camera crew and assistant director Paul Wurtzel moved with associate producer Charles Larson, now elevated to producer, to Warner Bros. studio to work on Quinn’s newest series, THE FBI. 12 O’CLOCK HIGH was not Quinn’s most famous series (I think THE FUGITIVE was). It was not his most successful series (THE FBI ran for nine seasons). But it was my favorite of the QM series I directed.

TO HEINIE, WITH LOVE - December 1964 (12 O’Clock High)

2010-10-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

A month following completion of my second THE FUGITIVE I reported to 20th Century Fox for 12 O’CLOCK HIGH, a co-production of QM Productions and 20th Century Fox. I don’t know the exact details for this co-production arrangement, but it’s not too difficult to surmise what it was. ABC wanted a series based on the 1949 film starring Gregory Peck. Quinn Martin was the fair-haired boy at the network because of the huge success the previous season of his series, THE FUGITIVE. (The network may also have been committed to buying a show from him but may not have liked what he submitted.) So the network bought 12 O’CLOCK HIGH from 20th Century Fox and put Quinn in charge of delivering it to them.

This was my first association with 20th Century Fox, but I did not report to their big studio on West Pico Boulevard. 12 O’CLOCK HIGH was being filmed at the old Fox studio located on Western Avenue at Sunset Boulevard. And when I say old, I mean OLD! Built in 1916 by William Fox, one of the pioneer creators of the film industry, the studio fairly reeked of ghosts of the past. This was where Tom Mix became one of the early film western stars, where American born Theda Bara became one of the first International screen vamps, and where sweet little Janet Gaynor, co-starring with Charles Farrell, became a major star and won the first Academy Award for her performances in SEVENTH HEAVEN, SUNRISE and STREET ANGEL.

I liked the feel of the studio, much as I had felt about Desilu (the old RKO Radio Pictures studio) where I had filmed BREAKING POINT. It may have been dilapidated, it may have been small, but it was intimate and had character. It felt friendly. The studio straddled Western Avenue; the producers’ offices and soundstages were east of Western; a small exterior street and a soundstage for process filming were west of the street. And there were friendly faces from my past. Producer Frank Glicksman was an old friend from our days at CBS. I had known casting director John Conwell forever -- from his days as an actor on PLAYHOUSE 90 to his having cast my production of PRINTER’S DEVIL on TWILIGHT ZONE and my earlier episodes that season of THE FUGITIVE. Associate Producer Charles Larson was a new face for me, but we would be working together in fifteen productions during the next two years. Charles was the story editor for the series and this first assignment, TO HEINIE, WITH LOVE (which I liked), was co-written by him.

Casting was easy. Twenty-four year old Keir Dullea had starred in two films I admired, THE HOODLUM PRIEST and DAVID AND LISA (2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was still three years in his future). I didn’t know Jill Haworth’s work, but I trusted John Conwell (the role of Sally Bowles in CABARET on Broadway was just a year in her future). And I also trusted him on his suggestions for the Piccadilly Lily crew; some of them were returning having appeared in earlier episodes of the series.

The following message appeared at the beginning of the 12 O’CLOCK HIGH feature film:

The air battle scenes in this

Motion Picture were photographed

in actual combat by members of

the United States Air Force and

the German Luftwaffe.

Those same photographed battle scenes provided the stock film for our air battle scenes. At this point I had limited experience with rear projection: a few scenes involving automobiles, photographed on large empty soundstages. I was about to get an advanced crash course in the subject. A little more than a third of this episode was to be filmed with rear projection. QM productions were usually scheduled to shoot in seven days. Due to the amount of stock footage that would be used, TO HEINIE was scheduled for six days, the final two days to be filmed on the process stage.

The stage for this activity was an unusually small one. The rear projector was set up in one corner of the stage with the rear projection screen lined up in front of it; the section of the plane to be photographed was in front of that. The camera was in the opposite corner of the stage. As I remember it, there was just room for the operator to slip into his position behind the camera. It was very cramped quarters. Complicating the situation was the number of plane sections where scenes occurred. Each of them was a set to be moved in and then out. And each set had both process and straight shots.

Then figure in the number of crew in that small space: camera, lighting, grips, props, wardrobe, makeup, hair, script supervisor, and don’t forget me. Add the big lamps to light the set. As I said, it was very cramped quarters.

It’s an accepted fact that scenes in film are not shot in sequence. There are factors (mostly related to budget) that determine the way a schedule is laid out. In the case of this film, the final two days of the plane in flight and the battle scenes were scheduled for the last two days. Those scenes would require the presence of all of the Piccadilly Lily crew. Therefore it was financially beneficial to start them as late in the schedule as possible. This was accomplished by starting in Savage’s office the first day; of the crew only Magill was involved. The second day was a location on the Fox ranch with only Keir and Jill. So the members of the crew were booked to start the third day on the location at Chino, and they worked every day from then till the completion of the film; their period of employment had been limited to four days.

Chino, about a half hour ride east of the studio, was the site of our airfield location. The previous fight scene between Muller and Magill was filmed in process on the fifth day; the following scene was filmed in Chino on our third day -- two days before the scene that preceded it.

And the following scene, which followed the previous two sequences, was filmed on the first day.

I think the genesis for this episode came from the 12 O’CLOCK HIGH feature film, in which there was a scene where a lieutenant admits to the general that his father was a Nazi Bund member. But the subject was not pursued. Also in the feature is a scene when a Colonal Gately reports to General Savage for a reprimand, stands at ease, and Savage orders him to stand at attention, just as our General Savage orders Magill to stand at attention.

William Spencer, the regular director of photography for 12 O’CLOCK HIGH, was away filming a pilot for QM Productions. His replacement was Gene Polito, son of Sol Polito, one of the great cameraman of the thirties and forties, known primarily for his work at Warner Bros on such films as THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, SERGEANT YORK, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, NOW, VOYAGER and on and on. Gene asked me as we began if it would be all right if he filmed everything with a 30mm lens. I said okay. At this stage in my career I was not yet knowledgeable on the subject of lenses. (That knowledge was to be acquired within the next year.) I know now that the wide 30mm lens is not the one to use for large closeups. The slightly bloated faces in the previous scene’s closeups prove that. But I also have to acknowledge there is a documentary feel because of the 30mm lens. Maybe that was what Gene had in mind.

Guilt by association! That scene could be played today with a picture of the father as a Muslim.

The Fox ranch in the far valley was the location for our second day of filming. It was very similar to the MGM lot #3, only not as conveniently located. The script called for two shots of a quail running away; the shots were designated to come out of stock. Somehow it was ascertained that they did not have stock shots of a quail running away, I would have to film them. When I questioned just how we did that, I was assured there would be no problem; we would have a quail wrangler.

Did you see the two shots of the quail running away? Well I set up the shot, the quail wrangler placed the bird on her mark, but when I called action the bird ran off in the wrong direction. Take 2. Take 3. Take 4. It was finally understood that the bird did not understand me. I obviously wasn't speaking Quail language. A piece of string tied to one of her legs corrected that and convinced her to follow my directions. And I never placed my faith in a quail wrangler again!

At Chino we did not film planes landing or taking off. That came from stock. We did film planes taxiing.

Filming the men reaching up and pulling themselves into the plane could sometimes become very humorous. The series’ regulars had no problem, but some of the guest crew had difficulty, many times necessitating cutting away to another shot and letting the audience’s imagination fill in the difficult hoist.

Again I point out, the following scene was filmed three days before the scene that preceded it.

I’m not sure why, but this episode illustrates more clearly the difficulties actors face because of film being shot out of sequence. The following scene was filmed on the second day, ahead of the two previous sequences that preceded it.

If Daniels, the new bombardier, took his helmet off, you might recognize Jimmy Hayes. The previous season he had played the blind attendant who wanted to help blind Brad Dillman learn to shave. You can see that in the archives to the right in the SHADOWS OF A STARLESS NIGHT episode of BREAKING POINT.

Now on to the mission.

Jimmie (and I don’t remember his last name) had come to Hollywood from Tennessee as a member of Elvis Presley’s entourage. Somewhere along the line he had broken away from the group to work in Hollywood as an extra. By the time of 12 O’CLOCK HIGH he had become a series’ stand-in. As such he was also used as a background charaacter and when possible (to provide extra income for him) for special business. In the following sequence (which was very scary to shoot) he is the airman in an asbestos suit who is set on fire.

All of Quinn’s shows had the same format: a prolog preceded the opening titles; each act was labelled: ACT I, ACT II, ACT III, ACT IV; and a final wrap-up titled EPILOG.

When I finished filming TO HEINIE..., my agent called and said they wanted to book me for three more 12 O’CLOCK HIGH's, which would finish out my season. I had a problem with this. Arthur Fellows, the executive in charge of post-production, had a standing rule; directors were not allowed in the editing rooms. I turned the offer down. I told my agent I preferred working for production companies where I would be allowed to go into the editing rooms. My agent called the next day to say that he had delivered that message to Quinn, and Quinn's answer was, "Ralph can go into the editing rooms here". And so for the next decade Arthur Fellows constantly teased me with the fact that I was the only director he allowed into his editing rooms. I liked Arthur; I had great respect for him. He really knew film. (Also on A FAREWELL TO ARMS he had decked David O. Selznick.)

One more sidebar bit of information: One day driving out to our Chino location Jack Aldworth, the assistant director on this episode, told me of an incident many years before when he was on a distant mountain location for a feature film starring Glenn Ford. When Glenn arrived at the location he immediately began checking to be sure that all of the rules for location filming were being followed. And he was not shy about raising a fuss if he found any instances where there were infractions of the required rules. Jack, as the assistant director, was the recipient of these complaints, one of which was that the required medical emergency supplies were not present. He demanded that they must be secured or he would not film. Jack said he was pissed; the securing of these supplies fell on his already over-burdened shoulders, but he reluctantly and begrudgingly complied with Ford’s demands. Weeks later there was an emergency; a member of the crew had a heart attack, and the medical equipment that had been so reluctantly secured probably saved his life. That crew member whose hand was held by Glann Ford as he was carried on a stretcher and placed in an ambulance? Jack Aldworth.

A JOURNEY TO SUNRISE - September 1964 (Dr. Kildare)

2010-10-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

Stephen Bowie in his insightful (and at at times even inciteful) CLASSIC TV HISTORY blog recently wrote:

Also this year I’ve watched most of the fourth and penultimate season of NBC’s Dr. Kildare, a once near-great doctor drama that slowly turned mushy and bland. ... I can’t decide which episode is the series’ nadir: “A Journey to Sunrise,” a vanity piece that gives Raymond Massey (who co-starred as Kildare’s windbag boss Dr. Gillespie) a dual role as a dying Hemingway-esque writer, or “Rome Will Never Leave You,” a prophetically titled, turtle-paced three-parter that contrives gooey romances for both Kildare and Gillespie during an Italian business trip.

I felt compelled to leave a comment on this posting.

Stephen, you may be being a bit hard on (producer) David Victor. True, what you said about the fourth season of DR. KILDARE. I should know. I directed one of the shows you listed as the nadir of the series, and I agree.

Yes, I directed the series’ co-nadir, A JOURNEY TO SUNRISE. It was my fifth and final association with DR. KILDARE. The year before had seen my catapulting booking on Herbert Leonard’s ROUTE 66 and NAKED CITY. And my next assignment was THE FUGITIVE, the beginning of my long association with Quinn Martin Productions. But the immediate problem was this JOURNEY, entitled at the time of production, A FAMILY OF SPARROWS. The plot followed the usual format for the series starting with a patient being admitted to the hospital, but this patient arrived with an entourage. I thought the family of sparrows accompanying him were a clone of the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF WRATH, but with a time warp problem; it was as if they had lost their way out of Oklahoma in the thirties and arrived at Blair Hospital in the sixites.

The patient, Graham Lanier, was a famous author. He was the spine of the show and casting director Jane Murray and I very soon narrowed our short list down to James Whitmore and Lew Ayres. My choice depended on whether I wanted to portray him Ernest Hemingwayesque (Whitmore) or F. Scott Fitzgeraldish (Ayres). I had already worked with James Whitmore the previous year on ARREST AND TRIAL, and I had met Lew Ayres socially. I wanted a day or two before deciding, giving me time to evaluate, to visualize the script scene by scene as it would play both ways. Large mistake! While I was deliberating Associate Producer Doug Benton, came up with a suggestion: “We’ve been looking for a way to give Ray Massey more to do; why not have him be the guest star.” And the tidal wave that that suggestion created totally swept over me and quite frankly sank the show.

The McConnell parents were played by Malcolm and Ellen Atterbury. Seven years earlier I had directed them in a theatre production of Robert Anderson’s ALL SUMMER LONG; and Ellen had also appeared in my Equity Library Theatre West production of MORNING’S AT SEVEN. They were very close friends. Malcolm was a fascinating man. He was from Philadelphia. His family owned the Pennsylvania Railroad, but he wanted no part of the railroad businesss. He and Ellen had had their own theatre company in upstate New York, which they left when they migrated to California in the fifties. Malcolm told me on one of his early film interviews he was asked by the casting director (in a very condescending manner) whether he could ride a horse. Malcolm simply replied that yes, he could; his family had had its own stable of horses.

Let me make clear right off -- this was not a happy shoot. I don’t absolve myself of all the blame for the show’s failure, but neither do I accept all of it. It was a difficult script, loaded with dialogue that was sometimes poetic, sometimes verbose, a script fostering a hidden dark secret. The clues to that secret were in Lanier’s speeches, but Massey’s portrayal veered more toward the John Brown fanatic he had played in the Errol Flynn starrer, SANTA FE TRAIL than to a sensitive, guilt-ridden author. There was not much nuance or sensitivity in his bombast.

This production was my first experience with split screen, the process by which Raymond Massey as Dr. Gilleslpie could appear in a shot with Raymond Massey as Graham Lanier. Today’s sophisticated computer capabilities make what we did seem very primitive, and our antiquated process was very time-consuming. (Don't forget this was being filmed on a six day schedule.) The camera would be locked off, everything bolted down and I would film the shot with Raymond Massey as Graham Lanier and a stand-in actor playing Dr. Gillespie. Then we would wait for Massey to change makeup and wardrobe so we could film the same shot with him playing Gillespie and the stand-in playing Lanier. (We couldn't film some other scene while we waited because the camera was locked off and couldn't be moved until we completed the split screen scene.) Later in the lab the two halves of film with Massey in them would be merged.

Contributing to the already difficult situation, Massey felt that the following scene (written as a confrontation between young Dr. Kildare and Lanier) should be between Dr. Gillespie and Lanier. Unfortunately the front office agreed, and a scene that would have shown Kildare trying to solve the mystery of his pain-racked patient, that would have strengthened the bonding between the author and the young doctor, the scene became just another exercise in split screen.

I cry when I think of what that scene would have been with Richard Chamberlain and James Whitmore.

Finally there was a sequence with some visual activity, not just talking heads.

The hidden dark secret in the relationship of Lanier to the McConnell family, behind what was driving Lanier to insist on suffering pain rather than receiving morphine injections -- the time had come for that secret to be revealed.

Most of this show took place in the hospital. That was not unusual for a series in its advanced years. Using standing sets, limiting extra sets and refraining from location work -- all these factors contributed to lowering the budget. We filmed the final scene, which needed to be an exterior, on MGM’s lot 3. Today that area is a mass of apartments and condominiums.

Stephen Bowie also wrote in his blog on DR. KILDARE’s fourth season:

I am also partial to Christopher Knopf’s “Man Is a Rock,” a terrifying study of a heart attack victim (Walter Matthau) forced to confront his own mortality, and “Maybe Love Will Save My Apartment House,” a zany romp by Boris Sobelman, who wrote a handful of very funny black comedies for Thriller and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

You can read about MAYBE LOVE WILL SAVE MY APARTMENT HOUSE in the archives to the right. I also directed that one.

And this journey brought to a conclusion my involvement with the series that had started my journey in film. I don’t think I realized it then; but all these years later I guess I wish I could have gone out with a bang, not a whimper. But there were more bangs ahead -- and more whimpers!

Stephen Bowie’s CLASSIC TV HISTORY blog can be read at: http://classictvhistory.wordpress.com/

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DRIVE - June 1971 THE UNDERGRADUATE - July 1971 (The Partridge Family)

2010-10-09T00:24:00.000-07:00

My final two bookings for THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY were not back-to-back. There had been a PARTRIDGE episode guest starring Bobby Sherman that spurred the network to order the development of a new series to star Sherman, GETTING TOGETHER. The spinoff was being produced by the same Bob Claver executive-produced unit at Screen Gems doing THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and I was booked to direct several of them. Two of those assignments fell between the two PARTRIDGES. More of that later.

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DRIVE was the most situatioh driven (as opposed to character driven) episode of the seven PARTRIDGES I directed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. And that didn’t really change my approach in directing the material. I still approached each scene with the same question: what is this scene about? And then planned the staging (no matter how outrageous I considered it) as realistically as possible. If that meant I couldn’t dig as deep into the motivations and emotions of the characters as I would like to -- so be it!

And what replaces character? Slap stick!

Again are you saying, “What’s wrong with Senensky? Everything seems normal and real. They needed a driver. They hired a driver." Well hold onto your hats; we’re about to make a very sharp turn.

We never left the Columbia Ranch to film this episode. The shots of the bus traveling down the road were lifted out of stock. The gas station was an exterior set on the ranch.

Two years before this I had directed AN F FOR MRS. L on THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER that had a similar format; Eddie suspected Mrs. Livingstone was going to commit Hara Kiri and so he spied on her. But the mood of that piece was serious; it examined what occurred when a seven year old boy’s imagination encountered a frightening circumstance. This outing with Danny was at the other extreme. Danny’s suspicion about Johnny leads to his spying on him. Danny becomes Sam Spade and the comedy was in the eleven year old’s vision of how to be Sam Spade.

Of the PARTRIDGES I directed, this episode gave the versatile Dave Madden the broadest opportunity to shine.

This was the second and final time I got to stage an all-out concert and again I requested that there be no set and no extras. But I didn’t want to just repeat what we had done before, so I asked the gifted director of photography, Fred Jackman, if we could use star filters. He enthusiastically said yes.

The following day the producer phoned the set to tell me how much he liked the dailies. He said to tell Fred Jackman he was especially pleased with the photography in the concert sequence. I suggested that it would be nice if he told Fred personally, so I called Fred to the phone. After the call Fred told me that the producer had asked him what kind of spotlights he used. I asked, “What did you tell him?” Fred said, “Oh, I just told him they were some of my own personal lights.”

And after all of this (and many apologies to Johnny) it all ended in a happy ending.

I think it was during this episode that I realized one day Shirley was very nervous and edgy. That wasn’t like her. She told me she had just found out her son, Shaun, had arranged a performance of his band for that very night. I don’t remember whether the performance was going to be a concert or an appearance in some club, but here was this Academny Award winniing actress, the star of one of the most popular shows currently on television, totally amazed that this twelve year old had accomplished all of this without her knowledge. And beside that she was scared, full of stage fright, behaving like a typical, nervous backstage mother. It was charming.

The Bobby Sherman spinoff, GETTING TOGETHER, was just going into production. Because i was going to direct one of the early episodes (I think possibly even the kickoff first show) I was involved in casting sessions for some of the series running characters. Millie Gussie, a true Hollywood veteran, was the casting director. There was a long parade of talent coming through to compete. The only one I remember was a young DIane Keaton, who auditioned... and giggled a lot. But for some reason beside Millie, the producer and me, there were five or six writers sitting in on the sessions. It was unusual and it was a disaster. The writers must have thought they were in a script conference. You would have thought they were there to audition for some standup comedy show. Their comments and one-liners made it impossible to focus on the acting talent. I felt it was unfair to the actors to have to perform before that inattentive group. Later when callbacks were scheduled, I told Millie I would not be attending; I considered the behavior of the group rude and embarrassing. MIllie understood. I had the feeling she felt the same way.

Television has never been shy about stealing from the movies. I should know. I’ve been involved in several of those thefts. On DR KILDARE, when I was the assistant to the producer, Buzz Kulik directed a lovely episode, SHINING IMAGE starring Suzanne Pleshette, that was a revisit to Bette Davis’ classic weeper, DARK VICTORY. On THE FBI I directed an episode, ORDEAL, that was a rip-off of the French film, WAGES OF FEAR. On STAR TREK the episode OBSESSION was MOBY DICK in space. PRINTERS DEVIL on TWILIGHT ZONE was just another version of FAUST. I directed a Movie-of-the-Week, DEATH CRUISE, that was another version of Agatha Christie’s TEN LITTLE INDIANS that had been filmed as AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. (Our version however only involved six little Indians.) And then there was the series, NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR, which owed a great debt to MARY POPPINS. But all of these shows had one thing in common -- they didn’t acknowledge their connection to their previous source.

Not so my next THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. Direct reference was not only made to its source several times in scenes in the show, the title of the episode itself paid homage: THE UNDERGRADUATE.

The college we chose for our location was USC, the University of Southern California. That was my first time filming there. Many years later I would spend a great deal of time on the campus on PAPER CHASE, which had USC representing Harvard Law School.

The magic of the editing room. There was a scene I filmed of Shirley and Paul in a classroom that came between the scene where they meet and the scene having coffee. We wanted to lose that scene, but there was a line by Paul at the end of the classroom scene (he offered to buy Shirley a cup of coffee) that we needed to bridge from the meeting scene to the coffee scene. How did the editor do it? He took that line and put it in the last shot of the meeting scene when Paul was turned away from the camera.

The day we filmed at USC, we continued after dark to film the following car scene with Shirley and Paul.

This was the only time I worked with Michael Burns, but I had been aware of him since 1962 when he had appeared in what I remember as a wonderful series, IT’S A MAN’S WORLD, produced by Peter Tewksbury. It had to be exceptional. It only lasted for ten episodes. Six years after completing this current episode, Michael retired from film, returned to college to pursue his interest in history. He graduated from the University of California and earned his Ph. D. from Yale University. He was a professor of history for twenty-two years before retiring. Academe's gain -- film's loss!

The next is my favorite scene in this episode (starting with opening the door for the visitors).

I have to interject and say, I think the person who really makes this scene work is Norman Fell. Imagine what this scene would be like if the father had been played leering with the sexy innuendoes. The thought makes me shudder.

And that was the end of my PARTRIDGE FAMILY involvement. In fact after that I only directed two other half hour comedies; I was back directing hour dramatic shows. I guess the comedy producers were saying the David Victor line in reverse: “We can’t hire him to direct comedy; he’s a dramatic director.”

Forty years later I am still a little astounded. What was it about this show that made it so successfu? What was it about this show that still appeals to people all these years later, as proven by the successful marketing of the series on DVD. I don’t have the answer. But I do know that I too am a fan; probably a bigger admirer today than I was back then.

THE FORTY YEAR ITCH, DORA, DORA, DORA - May-June 1971 (The Partridge Family)

2010-10-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

During their first season THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY had a charming episode, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE OLD SONGS, that brought Shirley’s parents to her home for a visit. The parents were played by Ray Bolger and Rosemary De Camp. As happened regularly in series televison, when guest star appearances proved successful, the stars were brought back for repeat performances. It was my good fortune to guide them through their return visit.

The little blond boy coming down the stairs was the newest addition to the family, Brian Forster, who was now playing Chris . The father of Jeremy Gelbwaks, the original Chris, had been transferred out of California and Jeremy, faced with having to choose between the Partridge family and the Gelbwaks family, departed with the family of his birth. End of a drumming career.

It had been five months since I had directed my last THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. I was returning to do four in a row and this recasting of Brian Forster created a minor problem for me. To get to the root of that problem we need to flash back to a Saturday afternoon in 1960 when I received a telephone call from Stanley Smith, the casting director at the Pasadena Playhouse. Stanley told me a production of Somerset Maugham’s THE CIRCLE starring Estelle Winwood had recently gone into rehearsal and they wanted to replace the director. Would I be available to come in and take over. At this point in my career, English high comedy was not one of my strong suits. I had directed a production of Noel Coward’s BLITHE SPIRIT years before, and I considered it one of my poorest achievements. I told Stanley I didn’t think I was the person for this assignment, and I gave him the name of someone who I thought should do itl. A half hour later Stanley called back to say the person I had recommended was not available, would I reconsider. My counter suggestion was that I would like to come in, meet the cast and have a read-through before making a decision. That meeting took place the next evening. After the reading I had only one reservation about the cast. I told the Playhouse if I could replace the actress playing the younger woman with Rachel Ames, I would do it. I had already directed Rachel in two stage productions, and she was well known to the Playhouse; her parents were Dorothy Adams and Byron Foulger, two fine actor closely associated with the Pasadena Playhouse. The Playhouse agreed to my request. The problem as it relates to THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY? Brian Forster’s mother, who would be accompanying him to the set each day, was the actress I dumped.

In their first season visit Shirley’s father decided he wanted to go into show business, wanted to join their singing group. Her mother thought it was a dumb idea. It was a charming, generation gap story and the bickering parents provided an ongoing comedy background to the conflict in the foreground. For this return visit the bickering took center stage; but it was no longer just bickering, it was out-and-out warfare heading for divorce. The problem we faced was to prevent the audience from becoming as disenchanted with the visitors as the Partridge family was.

The production facilities for THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY were excellent. Not only were the exteriors of the Partridge home and its surrounding neighborhood plus the village exteriors we filmed on TO PLAY OR NOT TO PLAY on the Columbia Ranch, there were also two sound stages on the lot for our interiors. It was all very convenient. This episode provided my first departure for a location off the lot.

For the musical number for this episode I was back in the nightclub set I so disliked, but the script necessitated the return. At least the red drapes had been removed. Was I unhappy? Not on your life. Who could be unhappy having OKLAHOMA’s Laurey, CAROUSEL’s Julie Jordan and Marian, the librariam from THE MUSIC MAN singing, while the Scarecrow from THE WIZARD OF OZ danced with the mother of that YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, George M. Cohan. That was a day on a soundstage made in heaven.

The show had two happy endings. Brian’s mother and I had no problem because of the previous Pasadena Playhouse incident. The subject was never mentioned.

My second outing of the quartet, like PARTRIDGE UP A PEAR TREE from the previous season, had a plot that I thought was genuinely funny.

I don’t know who recorded the song that Robyn Millan lip-synced to, but I certainly owed her a big debt of gratitude.

Alvina Krause was a magnificent acting professor at Northwestern University. When I was a student there, she stated something in one of her acting seminars that I found useful throughout my career; people under emotional stress take refuge in props. In the following scene (with that lovely four-poster bed just sitting there) I made that suggestion to Shirley.

The following day after dailies the producer phoned me on the set to tell me how funny he thought that scene was. My response: “Phallic, wasn’t it?”

Jack Burns was an actor, writer, producer -- a jack of all trades, but in his case master of all. He started out as half of a comedy team with George Carlin. I thought he was proof of that adage about directing -- 90% is in the casting.

And once again a return to the set I abhorred, but this time it was a little less objectionable; it was converted into a military base auditorium.

Next: my final two treks down Partridge Lane with Shirley acting a television version of Mrs. Robinson from THE GRADUATE.

TO PLAY OR NOT TO PLAY, PARTRIDGE UP A PEAR TREE - December 1970 (The Partridge Family)

2010-10-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the Swiss village in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF HEIDI?

Eight years before I filmed that, I filmed the same location on the Columbia ranch in Burbank to open the second episode that I directed of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY.

Michael Lembeck, who played Marc, had been in a production of DAN AUGUST that I directed a couple of months earlier. When he came in to audition for the producers, he asked if the role of Marino had been cast. It hadn’t been at that point. Michael was the one who suggested his father, Harvey Lembeck for the role. Harvey was a wonderful actor and comedian. Remember him as one of the prisoners in STALAG 17? Michael Lembeck several years later moved behind the cameras to become an Emmy award-winning director.

I was told that one of the directors (who shall remain nameless) of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY came into the producer’s office on his first day of prep, tossed his script on the producer’s desk and said, “Okay! What are we going to do with this whale shit?” I never did that. Besides, on this script I would have been limited to, possibly, a very large tuna. But from here on this script did present a problem. Laurie, because of her friendship for Marc, refuses to perform. And everything comes to a standstill. Drama is action, doing something. Sitting around refusing to do something isn’t very exciting. Then riding to the rescue is the least believable savior, young Danny. He locks Marino and Marc in the office and conducts a binding arbitration meeting. But this drama is behind locked doors, off camera. That could have been a funny scene. Finally they reach an agreement and the Partridges are able to open -- on the same small nightclub set I had silently objected to on WHEN MOTHER GETS MARRIED, with the same red drapes although they were hung differently, and with 13 extras plus the 5 standins as the packed house audience attending the Partridges’ debut.

The following week the script for PARTRIDGE UP A PEAR TREE was definitely an improvement. It had a totally believable situation involving Keith and the family. And importantly, it was a situation with promising prospects to be funny.

The exterior of the Partridge house was on the Columbia Ranch, same area in Burbank as the exterior club setting of the previous episode. And I have to add, I was happy to direct an opening teaser that hooked its audience without a violent killing like those I had staged on all of the FBI episodes I directed.

Keith’s “I’m thinking, I”m thinking...” came from one of the classic comedy bits of all time. On the Jack Benny radio show in the thirties Jack was at the race track when a race track tout (I’m sure it was Sheldon Leonard) accosts him with “Your money or your life.” Silence. Again, more insistently, “Your money or your life.” Again silence. Then “I said your money or your life.” And Jack’s response, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” I have to admit, I remember listening to that original broadcast.

If you’re going to steal, steal from the best. Remember Orson Welles’ opera sequence in CITIZEN KANE? I had another musical number in this episode, and this time I stated I wanted no set. Which meant no audience. Which meant no extras. I think it was probably the no extras that did it. I had no trouble getting that approved.

I admit, I’m old-fashioned. I like my stories to be entertaining, but I also appreciate when they include a small moral lesson.

I also enjoy a happy ending.

I want to put in a word in defense of the producers. Theirs was a formidable task. There were twenty-five episodes of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY their first season, twenty-four their second. The series lasted four seasons for a grand total of ninety-six episodes. True the number of shows per season had shrunk since 1961, when thirty-two episodes of DR. KILDARE were produced its first year on the air. I don’t think the lesser number was created at the studio based on their ability to deliver. I’m certain it was a decision at the network, where they realized they could make more money by ordering fewer shows.

But the staff responsible for delivering these scripts was small. Besides creator Bernard Slade (and I don’t know how involved he was) there was Executive Producer Bob Claver, Producer Paul Junger Witt and Story Consultant Dale McRaven; and only one of the three was a writer. The scripts were written under their supervision by free lance writers. That was a lot of plot, a lot of funny lines to keep churning out. No one ever started out to write a bad script. But many times what began as possibly a good idea in a one-sentence pitch, just didn’t evolve as hoped for. One time when I was griping because I had just finished directing one of those literary miscarriages during the season I directed every other show on THE FBI, producer Charles Larson said to me, “There are going to be some lemons; you have to accept your share.” Those weren't his exact words, but the meaning was clear. I think the amazing thing was how few sour ones ended up in the basket.

Next on RALPH’S TREK -- the Partridges keep singing.

WHEN MOTHER GETS MARRIED - June, 1970 (The Partridge Family)

2010-09-28T17:17:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of THE THOLIAN WEB debacle (one incident being David Victor refusing to hire me to direct MARCUS WELBY because he said I was now directing comedy), an unexpected booking was to direct an episode of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. My previous nine comedy outings on THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER had really been as much “dramody” as comedy. But by this time I had also directed episodes of THE BILL COSBY SHOW (not the later THE COSBY SHOW about the Huxtable family, his first comedy series about a gym instructor) and NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR. And the prospect of working on a musical series was interesting and challenging.

A technique I had been introduced to very early in my training as a stage director was to break the script down into French scenes. A new French scene occurs whenever the number of characters in the scene changes; in plain words when a new character enters or when one of the characters in the scene exits. It is a way of breaking the script down into manageable units. For film I found the structure of the screenplay already had the script broken down into comparable units. So at the start of every project I would make a chart like the following one for this episode.

The episode I was assigned, WHEN MOTHER GETS MARRIED, was written by the show’s creator, Bernard Slade. I found him to be a very gifted comedy writer. Now I preferred to direct scripts where the plot development arose out of the interaction of the characters, rather than those where the demands of the plot itself was the motivating force driving the plot. I thought if the plot for this episode did not dig too deeply into the possible seriousness of the situation, that if at times it was predictable, his dialogue was very actable; more importantly, it was funny.

Although in the next year I would direct six more episodes of the show, this was the only one where I had any direct contact with Slade. But my suspicions were that he continued to be directly involved with all of the scripts. A dozen years later I would see Earl Hamner carefully Waltonizing the dialogue of material that passed across his desk on its way to the soundstage. There was a consistent comedy quality to the dialogue on this show (and the subsequent ones I directed) that made me think Bernie was doing just that.

At this time he told me about a pilot he had just completed starring Jose Ferrer as an angel who comes to earth each week to solve some person’s dilemma. When Ferrer showed up at the studio to start production, he wore a small pierced gold hoop earring in one ear; he refused to remove it and that was the way the pilot was filmed. Bernie told me that when they screened the completed pilot for the network executives, one of those present questioned, “Why was that character wearing an earring?” Bernie’s response: “Where else would an angel wear his halo when visiting earth.” I told you he wrote funny dialogue.

The production schedule for THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY was unlike the other comedies I had directed. Monday was assigned as the day for a production meeting followed by a reading of the script by the cast and then a rehearsal. The next three days were for filming. Friday was a pick-up day when needed; usually musical numbers that had not been completed would be filmed at that time. So on my first Monday I reported to the studio, had the production meeting and then met with the cast for a reading and a rehearsal. Big mistake! The combination of light weight material and a cast with so many children didn’t work well around a rehearsal table. That was the first and last time I tried that. And the actors were happier with the day off.

If the material was lightweight, the guest casting was not. John McMartin was cast as Shirley’s date. The year before John had starred in the film version of SWEET CHARITY, a role he had created in the Bob Fosse Broadway production. The following year he would be one of the stars of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway production of FOLLIES, my favorite Sondheim musical. John was a magnificent stage actor. When FOLLIES came to the Schubert Theatre in Century City on its national tour, I experienced a rare and exciting moment in theatre. In the second act each of the four main characters had a musical number reflecting their personal emotional problem. For his number John danced in the center of a long line of Rockette-type chorus girls. In the middle of the number John suddenly went out of step with the line, then stopped, frozen, as if he had suddenly lost it. It was mesmerizing and frightening. I truly thought John was having some sort of seizure. But he recovered, the dance continued and I realized it was the character who had the disoriented moment, not John. When I returned to the see the show a second time several months later, John had left the production. I waited anxiously for that exciting second act moment. But when it came, the replacement went out of step for a moment, then picked it back up. He had executed the stage business, but only superficially. He had filled John’s space on the stage, but he couldn’t fill his shoes.

I was not too happy with the set for our musical number. I reallized that a nightclub set required fewer extras in the audience than would be needed for an auditorium set, but I didn’t think a rock group with five minors would be playing in a nightclub. I thought they would be appearing in concert halls or on college campuses. But I was still the new kid on the block, so I didn’t make any waves. Fortunately the performance didn’t last too long; it became the background scoring for Shirley’s courtship montage.

About this time I’m sure you’re thinking, “What’s the matter with Senensky? These people are acting like a normal family.” Well let’s visit a steam room.

See what I mean? All of a sudden we’re doing James Bond. But doing it with two fine farceurs. Dave Madden, who played Reuben, their manager, would be pretty much restricted to playing variations of this scene throughout the run of the series. Eleven year old, precocious Danny Bonaduce was a find. I don’t know what the original plans were for the character of Danny, but I’m sure that once Bonaduce entered the picture, those plans were expanded. Danny had a natural, instinctive flair for delivering comedy lines. And more importantly he did it with total reality. He was an amazingly good actor, especially for one so young. Incidentally that was not steam in the scene. It was created by a bee smoker; not as warm as steam, but it always gave me a headache.

There are still more nefarious plot developments.

Did you recognize the actress playing Tina? That was Jaclyn Smith, six years before she became one of CHARLIE’S ANGELS.

Now we couldn’t leave the plot hanging there; something had to be done so that Shirley remained the single parent of the five Partridge kids (single parents were very much in vogue on television), John McMartin would be free to return to New York to appear in FOLLIES, and Dave Madden would be able to relax, knowing he was not being written out of the series.

When I was booked to direct this episode, I was also booked to direct an episode of THE INTERNES, a new medical series being produced by the same unit at Columbia Studio. I was scheduled to start prep on that show when I finished WHEN MOTHER GETS MARRIED. Before I could report, I was notified the episode was cancelled. Fred Silverman, the head of production at ABC, had told the studio the script for that episode was unacceptable. This being a new series, that was not an unusual occurrence. The studio’s answer was that they did not have another script ready; that they would have to close down production, which would be costly.

Mr. Silverman asked, “How costly?”

The studio’s reply: “$180,000.00.”

Mr. Silverman: “You’ve got it.”

Tne network coughed up the $180,000.00; production on THE INTERNES closed down, and I was paid my director’s salary and rebooked to direct another episode at a later date. But the story doesn’t end there. A couple of weeks later I was back at the studio on a Friday to complete filming the musical number for WHEN MOTHER GETS MARRIED. Jim Hogan, the production manager for both THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and THE INTERNES, took me aside to tell me that the script for THE INTERNES that had been rejected by the network was starting to film the following Monday. The script to be filmed was the same script that had been rejected; no revisons had been made.

And finally, I was booked to return to THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY in December for a double-header, two shows to be filmed back-to--back. Next on RALPH'S TREK!

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF HEIDI - Part Two - June/July 1978

2010-08-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

The evil Luzern cousins were played by two of my favorite and favored actors -- Walter Brooke and Amzie Strickland. I had known Walter Brooke since 1952 when I was an assistant director at the Chevy Chase Summer Theatre in Wheeling, Illinois -- just north of Chicago. You can read about Walter in the archives to the right in the DETOUR GOING NOWHERE episode of THE FUGITIVE. I had known Amzie since 1955 and you can read about her in the AN APPLE A DAY episode of THE FUGITIVE -- again in the archives to the right.

Another favorite and favored shows up next as secretary to Elizabeth’s father; Marlyn Mason and you can read more about her in the archives in THE FBI episode, THE ESCAPE

On the way home, they stop off for Heidi to be enrolled at the Catholic School For Girls where Elizabeth is a student. We selected one of the old mansions in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles to be our school. Ironically the establishment was in fact a nunnery.

My friend and producer, Charlie FitzSimons, was a black Irish, devout Catholic with a Satanic sense of humor. He said of the impressive building we were using, “Isn’t it interesting that the residents here have taken the vow of total abstinence in order to live in such magnificent opulence.”

The Mother Superior was played by a wonderful actress and my friend, Molly Dodd, whom I met in 1954 when I did the lighting for a production in which she appeared of THE ROSE TATTOO at the Players Ring Theatre in Hollywood. Molly later acted in productions I directed, first in 1958 in THE ICEMAN COMETH at Gilmor Brown’s Playbox at the Pasadena Playhouse and in 1960 on the main stage of the Pasadena Playhouse in a production of THE GOLDEN FLEECING. Molly was married to a writer, Bud, and I spent quite a bit of time at their home in Laurel Canyon. When we were doing the latter play, Bud gave me a copy of a pulp fiction novel he had written; he wrote under different names in different genres. This was a Grand Guignol thriller -- WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?. Yes, Bud was Henry Farrell. He had sold the rights to the novel a couple of years before, and he knew that it had been resold a couple of times since. When Robert Aldrich acquired the property for his great Bette Davis-Joan Crawford production, Bud did not get to do the screenplay, but he was closely associated with Mr. Aldrich. In 1962 he took me on the set once.

Bud told me a remarkable story. He spent one evening with Robert Aldrich, socializing and drinking. Weeks later he came home one day and said to Molly, “Do you remember the night several weeks ago when I came home and told you I had told Robert Aldrich an idea for a film? Do you remember what that idea was?” Molly’s replay was, “No. Why?” Bud said, “Well he called me today and he wants to buy it. And I can’t remember what I told him.” Well somehow Bud remembered. The idea turned out to be HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, the successful followup to BABY JANE.

As they arrive at the Wyler home in Zurich, I must emphasize we did not go to Switzerland to film it. Our Wyler home was in the elegant Hancock Park section of Los Angeles, one of my favorite areas in which to film. The mountains behind the mansion were matted in later during post production.

The butler in the Wyler home was actor Bartlett Robinson, whom I had directed before in THE NIGHT OF THE DRUID’S BLOOD on THE WILD WILD WEST. Casting director, Jimmy Merrick, suggested him for the role and I hastily agreed. Bartlett told me he was totally surprised but pleased when the offer came. No casting call; no audition. Just a chance to go act, avoiding the rat race. He had retired to one of the beach towns south of Los Angeles; his reason for retiring -- the profession just wasn’t fun any more. According to the IMDB, Bartlett made only three more film appearances after this in episodes of LOU GRANT.

Let me tell you again how the musical numbers were done. Buz Kohan had been recorded playing the song on the piano. Katy and Sherrie each had a small receiver in one ear and they sang to the accompaniment they were hearing. Take by take, these scenes were filmed live singing performances. The orchestration was added later in postproduction.

Shooting schedules were planned logistically. There was the option of building a cave set at the Selznick studio for the Grandfather-Wild Man scenes or finding a live cave to film. Since there was not a full day’s work in the cave, a live cave would necessitate a company move during the day. Moves took time. The finding of our School for Girls in the Los Feliz area lessened the problem. That location was very close to Bronson Canyon, where I had filmed a cave sequence in BREAD AND CIRCUSES on STAR TREK. So that’s what we did. We filmed all of the scenes at the girls’ school (exterior and interior) on the first Monday back in Los Angeles after our Colorado sojourn; and then we moved to the nearby Bronson Canyon cave for the remainder of that day’s work. The following day we reported to the Selznick Studio in Culver City where we completed filming the production.

We were scheduled to complete all of the scenes in Daniel’s office in one day -- the first Friday of our schedule in Los Angeles. We started the day in the outer office doing Marlyn Mason’s song. That went off without a hitch. Then we moved into Daniel’s office, where we started with John Gavin’s musical number. That took the rest of the day to complete, leaving a lot of work still to be filmed in these offices. Wonderful Charles FitzSimons was right there on the front line with me to rearrange our schedule. We were already booked to film the Hancock Park house on the following Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday we were booked for the Columbia Ranch to film the Dorfli village sequences. Some cuts were made in the script, which we knew was already running long, to free up the following Friday to finish off Daniel’s office.

The exterior of the school with the ground covered with snow turned into a funny problem. The special effects seemed more like soap bubbles than slushy snow, almost like the effect of a giant washing machine overflowing and spewing out gallons of soap bubbles. Since it was not feasible to bring in other equipment to correct the problem, we were faced with the challenge of not letting it show.

Buz’s song for Mady had another beat beyond what you’ve seen where she softened and sang of her private dreams. I wanted to keep Mady angry at Dan for the scene that followed, so I delayed that final bit of music; and here is where we used it.

The day we did the exterior of the Hotel Bonaventure, again with snow on the ground, did not present the problem we later had at the school. Our snow effect that day looked like real slushy snow. In fact we stopped traffic in downtown Los Angeles, as cars driving by were astounded at the snow surrounding the hotel on that warm July day.

I thought the sequence in the kitchen with the mad chef, Andre, could be a very funny scene. But I knew it needed some help. I didn’t feel the collapsing souffles alone were enough. I wanted someone reacting to them to punch up the joke. But I knew it would require more than an extra doing special business. It was going to require a very good actor. But there were no lines to the role. I presented my problem to casting director, Jimmy Merrick. He found me rubber-faced Vernon Weddle. I was so pleaed with Vernon’s work, I used him again in episodes of YOUNG MAVERICK and TRAPPER JOHN, M.D. and the pilot of DYNASTY -- all within the next two years. And those times he got to speak.

Again, if this were a feature film, we would probably have taken the two girls to New York for their THIS IS CHRISTMAS musical number. But under the circumstances I think the art department deserved credit for what they accomplished with a few hanging stars and a treadmill.

I overheard girl talk conversations between Sherrie and Katy regarding the scene in the toy shop. Sherrie was concerned that she would not be able to produce the tears she felt the scene required. Katy was coaching her on how to approach the problem. Now let’s face it; Katy was not the singer that Sherrie was and Sherrie was not the actress that Katy was. So if Sherrie’s final effort was more like Jane Withers than Margaret O’Brien -- well she certainly deserved an A for effort.

John didn’t have the problem doing the lovely ballad Buz had written for him that he had later in the schedule with the WOMEN number.

Now you didn’t think I would end this epic without milking the final tears out of Katy (and you) or without giving Allyn Ferguson a chance to come front and center with his background music finale.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF HEIDI - June/July 1978

2010-08-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

My mother passed away in Iowa in March after a two year battle with cancer. Soon after I returned to the west coast, Robert Jacks, former producer of THE WALTONS, called to inform me that Will Geer had passed away. He said he didn’t want to have me learn about it in the newpspapers. I had been booked to direct their opening episode of the coming season. Andy White, the current WALTONS producer, told me that their plans were to make it a memorial to Will Geer’s character of the Grandfather. He said the episode would start with the family gathered around his grave as they reminisced about the past. It did not take long for me to realize that the combination of my mother’s recent passing and my relationship with Will (you can read in the archives to the right about our final time together on the episode, GRANDMA COMES HOMES) could make this a very painful situation to endure. I explained my feelings to Andy and I was very sympathetically released from the commitment.

A short time after that my friend, Charles FitzSimons called to tell me he was producing a two-hour film for television for Pierre Cossette Productions. It was to be another stab at retrieving one of literature’s seemingly indestructible characters, Heidi, this time in a modern setting. Did I want to come aboard? The chance to work with Charlie again produced a resounding “yes”. As we began work around the first of May, Charlie told me he thought we should turn the John McGreevey script into a musical. I never questioned him as to his reasons; I suspected he felt just another telling of that often-told story, even in a modern setting, wasn’t quite going to justify doing it yet again. I agreed. I had dabbled in musical sequences (THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, the burlesque theatre sequences in one of THE WALTONS, the musical sequences in CASABLANCA) but a book musical -- that was new territory. I liked the idea. So Charlie and I went to work reconstructing the script, eliminating sequences to make room for the musical interludes we planned. Charlie hired Buz Kohan, one of the fine comedy writers in Hollywood, noted for his contributions through the years to so many Award Shows. But Buz was also a composer, although his musical involvement through the years had been secondary to his comedy writing. Charlie and I met with Buz and told him where in the plot we wanted songs and what we wanted the songs to be. We sent him home to start composing -- music and lyrics. Now I must finally tell you what a daunting task we had set for ourselves. Our projected start of filming was just six weeks away.

We hired my friend Jim Merrick, one of the best casting directors in town, to cast our production. The Grandfather was easy-- Burl Ives. We had three youngsters to cast: Heidi; her friend in the mountains, Peter; and the runaway she meets, Elizabeth. Both Heidi and Elizabeth were going to have to be able to sing. Jim brought in three people to audition for us: Katy Kurtzman for Heidi, Sherrie Wills for Elizabeth and Sean Marshall for Peter. We immediately said yes and cast all three, thereby antagonizing the community of childrens’ agents who demanded that we give their clients a chance to audition. But time was short and we stood our ground.

The two other principal roles were Daniel Wyler, Elizabeth’s father, and his secretary, Mady. They too had to be singers. The secretary again was easy -- my friend, Marlyn Mason. Daniel proved a little more difficult. We checked the availability of a couple Broadway singing stars (I’m afraid I can’t remember who) but they were not available. I don’t know who knew that John Gavin was a singer -- Charlie or Jimmy. But he ended up being our final choice. There was a large supporting cast, but that too was no problem. Most of them came from my list of preferred performers, and I trusted Jimmy’s opinion on those few people he recommended that I hadn’t worked with.

Ideally any Heidi production should be filmed in the Swiss Alps. But this was television. An acceptable substitute was our own Rockies. As difficult as it may be to believe, Charlie and I did not go to scout the mountain locations. We sent our production manager and production designer out to Aspen, Colorado, to do that. Their main chore was to select a scenic location where Grandfather’s alm hut would be constructed. Charlie and I busied ourselves finding the local locations. The first two weeks (ten days) of filming were going to be on locations in Los Angeles.

For Daniel Wyler’s New York hotel we chose the Hotel Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles. The hotel was very modern, and it was totally circular. The representative who guided us on our tour of inspection told us of an incident when a patron of the hotel had come up to her and asked where he could find a pay telephone. She said, I told him there was one over there in the corner. His reply was, “What corner. There isn’t a f_____g corner in this whole damned hotel.” And he was so right. The hotel would be our base for filming the first four days.

We were going to need a Swiss village. Charlie and I went up to Solvang, but, charming as it was, it wasn’t suitable. Too Danish instead of Swiss. We checked the MGM back lots, but they were in a disturbingly sad state after years of neglect. We decided on the Columbia ranch, where their village setting with some renovations could be converted into our Swiss village of Dorfli. This also pleased me because I had done a lot of filming at this site, mostly on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY.

In an incredibly short time Buz Kohan came in to play and sing for us the songs he had composed. We were astonished at his speed and pleased at his accomplishment. Now if this had been a feature, the next step would have been to score his work for orchestra and then have a recording session with the singers and the orchestra. Those recordings would then be played back on the set at the time of filming with the actors lip-synching to the prerecorded music. But that could not be done in the short time before we were scheduled to start shooting. So it was arranged for Buz to have individual sessions at a piano with the five performers who would be singing (Burl Ives, Katy Kurtzman, Sherrie Wills, Marlyn Mason and John Gavin). At these sessions he would ascertain the key in which their numbers needed to be played and the tempo. Buz would then be recorded playing these numbers on a piano; these recordings would be used as playback for the actors to sing to in a live performance before the camera. Then Allyn Ferguson would orchestrate and conduct the musical arrangements that would be joined with these original sound tracts at the final dubbing of the film. Sounds simple? It was. Except when Allyn Ferguson heard Buz’s recordings, he rebelled. To put it bluntly he didn’t want his musical orchestration to include Buz’s piano playing. Charlie and I put our heads together and came up with the solution. Rather than having Buz’s accompaniment played back on speakers which the sound track would record, we would have a small speaker (the size of a hearing aid) that the performer would wear in his ear -- the ear away from the camera. The actor would hear the music to sing to, but the sound department would not be recording it. At dailies and in all of the assemblages up until the final orchestrated sound tract was created, the singers would appear to be singing with no accompaniment. And that’s how we did it.

We completed our ten days of filming in Los Angeles on the second Friday. Saturday morning I flew out to Aspen, Colorado, and spent the weekend scouting the other mountain locations I would be needing for the following ten days. One of the areas I found was an enchanting lake surrounded by high peaks. I thought it would be an ideal location to open the film.

But naturally there was a problem. Guided tours went through there starting at 9:00am. We would have to be finished and cleared out of the area by that time. My opening sequence at the lake was a musical number, almost a minute of which occurred at this location. I had planned six camera setups for the sequence at this site plus two more setups for the ending montage. Again my normal average was three setups an hour. With a 5:15am crew call to start filming at 7:00am, that was cutting it very close, but I decided to go for it. So let’s start the show.

There was a fairly recent new ingenious camera tool available -- the Steadicam. But those early Steadicams were not the light, easily maneuverable ones they have today. The one we used was a very heavy contraption. I know, I tried it on to get the feel of it. And I mean -- it was heavy -- but effective.

No, the opening shot in the village was not in Colorado. It was filmed at the Columbia Ranch in Burbank. The matted in mountains were added in postproduction.

After using the Steadicam at the Columbia Ranch, I also planned a more complicated shot in the mountains. As the two children ran away from the Wild Man, the camera was to chase them down the slope. Part way down our camera operator stepped into a hole, tripped and down he went. The gate on the camera upon hitting the ground flew open. Fortunately one of the crew saw it and immediately slammed the camera gate shut, thereby saving most of the take we had shot. The camera operator ended up with a badly sprained ankle that had him hobbling around for the rest of the production.

That sequence looked like it had two steadicam shots running down the hill. That was the genius of Gene Fowler, our great editor. The take started aiming up the hill as the several kids, two-legged and four-legged, came over the crest; the camera then chased them down the hill until the accident. The end of that take as the camera fell to the ground was of course unusable. And there was nothing to cut to. So Gene started with the second part of the shot (running down the hill), and just before the camera veered to the ground, he cut to the first part of the shot with them coming over the crest of the hill. Thus he used every frame of film that survived to maximum advantage.

When I was preparing to film my first wide establishing shot of Grandfather’s alm hut, I went with the camera crew down the slope to where I felt the camera would be set up. As I turned back to the alm hut, I was stunned. There was no roof. I was told the production designer had said I wouldn't be needing one. We didn’t get the wide establishing shot that day. A roof was soon built, installed and then I got my shot.

The interiors of the alm hut were the last sequences to be filmed. To repeat, the first two weeks were local Los Angeles locations; then two weeks in Aspen and a final week at the old Selznick Studio in Culver City, the very studio where GONE WITH THE WIND had been filmed.

Katy Kurtzman was an amazing youngster. If tears didn’t flow from her eyes quite as copiously as they once had from Margaret O’Brien’s eyes, the flow was more than adequate; by the fifth week of filming I had buckets in the can. With two hours of tears ahead, I didn’t want this early sequence to become too tearful. So my suggestion to Katy when she heard Grandfather’s new plans for her was, “You must not cry. You must not let him see you cry!” What a pro!

On our second day at the Selznick studio when we went to the projection room at noon to view the rushes for our first day’s work, we we handed a big surprise. The film projectors wouldn’t work. No matter what the projectionist tried, he couldn’t get them to function. I wasn’t too disturbed by this. In fact I thought it was kind of exciting. Just think -- those projectors were obviously so old they had probably been used to screen the GONE WITH THE WIND dailies. Talk about ghosts of the past. By the following day new projectors had been installed and from then on we were able to view our dailies.

I’m going to let you view the next musical sequence before I discuss it.

To remind you, both Burl and Katy were singing to the piano accompaniment they were hearing in a small receiver in their ear. Their individual solos had respective individual tracks; but for their duet they were singing to the same track. Again if this had been a feature with the singing prerecorded, they would have sung together on the recording stage and everything would have been in sync. But each part of the duet was filmed separately and later put together in the editing. I was concerned when I first saw it by the fact that they were not in sync and asked our editor, Gene Fowler, if there was any way to pull up the film to put them in sync. Gene, whom I trusted implicitly, assured me there was no reason to make any adjustments. And he was so right. Heidi and her Grandfather at this point are not in sync; the fact that their singing is not in sync adds to this. Only when they sing “Amen” are they united in prayer.

In the next sequence the mountain slope where Elizabeth follows Heidi and Peter was the second sequence of my first day filming in Colorado. (An interesting sidebar: the day’s schedule had me filming five sequences on this slope; two of them did not make the final cut because of time.) There was someone from Switzerland visiting the set that day. When asked what he thought of our using the Rockies to fill in for the Alps, he commented, “It’s all very nice. But we don’t have red poppies in the Alps.” Our art department had decorated the slope with plastic red poppies to make it look more real.

It was a beautiful, warm (but not hot) comfortable day on the slope. But at the end of the day I suddenly became violently ill. I immediately crawled into bed, shaking with the chills. I had sunstroke. Our production manager hovered over me, helping when he could and worried about filming the next day. Somehow through the night I recovered so that the next morning I was able to return to the set. But before I did, I went shopping and found a wide-brimmed blue denim hat. Thirty-two years later I still have the hat and can be seen walking the beach of Carmel wearing it.

I had a paperback copy of the novel, HEIDI, which I pored through, using a multitude of paper clips to mark incidents I thought could be included in our script. The following sequence was one of them. But when it came time to trim our show in the editing room (we were very long) I was about to cut this. Charlie, very wisely, kept it in.

I once asked Katy how she approached doing a scene. Her remarkable concentration and emotional involvement truly fascinated me. Her answer was so simple. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I just believe.”

The sequences in the next two clips of Peter following the Wild Man to the area by the river and then Peter’s rescue from the river were filmed at Independence Pass on Independence Day (and the day after), 1978.

Sean Marshall’s mother, and rightfully so, was very concerned about her son being placed in that "raging river". We had one of the crew go down and stand in the water by the rock where Peter was going to be placed. She felt reassured when she realized the water came to just a couple inches above the man’s knees and the river was not as treacherous as it looked. The cliff was also not that steep. The challenge to make it look more dangerous was met by the use of wide angle lenses and a careful selection of camera angles to film it.

To be continued

THE GRANDCHILD - July 1977 (The Waltons)

2010-08-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

The beginning of the sixth season of THE WALTONS found me returning to Walton’s Mountain, where I found a major change had taken place. Richard Thomas, his five year contract at an end, had flown the coop; which also meant that John-Boy had left for New York City to pursue his writing career. Hereafter his character would remain a part of the series by an occasional reference to his New York advancement or when someone would say they had written to tell him of some event on Waltons Mountain. The format for the rest of the show stayed the same. It was still the adult John-Boy (voiced by THE WALTONS creator, Earl Hamner) who narrrated the opening and closing for each episode just as if he were present to note in detail the weekly happenings on Waltons Mountain.

As I wrote before, when the series first began, each episode opened with THE WALTONS billboard.

But the demands of television to hook the audience early to prevent them from dialing to another network was difficult for a show like THE WALTONS. Its stories started slowly and quietly, hardly competition for openings like Quinn Martin productions (THE FBI, CANNON, DAN AUGUST) that hooked their audiences by presenting violent and exciting crimes. So THE WALTONS soon emulated another of QM’s productions, THE FUGITIVE, by opening with a climactic moment from later in the story.

Hardly as exciting as a killing, but still tantalizing. And there were changes here too. Michael Learned and Ralph Waite were no longer co-starring; they were now starring. But they still alternated weekly with whose billing came first. And did you notice that Michael Learned no longer had to be billed as Miss Michael Learned. Obviously CBS’s fears that the audience might think the mother was being portrayed by some male in drag had been alleviated. Also did you note the absence of Ellen Corby from the credits. She had recently suffered a stroke and would not return to the series for another year.

THE GRANDCHILD was a two hour episode written by Rod Peterson and Claire Whitaker, Mr. and Mrs. Peterson in real life and the authors of THE FIRESTORM, an exceptional script I had directed the previous year. THE GRANDCHILD had a thirteen day shooting schedule, an improvement over the eleven and a half days that I had had to film the two hour THE CONFLICT three years earlier.

Ralph is not as common a name as Bob or Dick or John. So I very, very seldom had to contend with having other Ralph’s on the set. But that was not the case this time. Beside me there was Ralph Waite, our assistant director, Ralph Ferrin; and to add a little more confusion to the mix, the actor playing Mary Ellen’s husband, Tom Bower -- his middle name was Ralph.

This was the least typical Waltons script handed to me so far; another strange one written by the Petersons was still in my future. That is not a complaint; nor is it a criticism. Just a statement of fact. Walton stories didn’t veer too often from human drama into melodrama. Nor was I unhappy with the veering. Melodrama is fun to do. And challenging.

Wind machines, Lightning machines. Rain machines. All contributed to the work of John Nickolaus, a superb director of photography who had replaced Russell Metty on the series. We not only filmed several THE WALTONS together, but later in 1978 John was my cameraman on a film for television, THE NEW ADVENTURES OF HEIDI. This was another first for me on THE WALTONS; in fact it was an only. The exteriors of Ab’s shack and the country road were shot night for night. They had to be filmed that way; we could not have created the lightning effect shooting day for night. And the rain storm would not have been as effective.

Ab, the grandfather, was played by David Hooks. Fourteen years earlier when he was a New York based actor, I had directed David in episodes on NAKED CITY (COLOR SCHEMES LIKE NEVER BEFORE) and EAST SIDE WEST SIDE (AGE OF CONSENT). You can view both of those shows by visiting the archives to the right of this column.

I was a big admirer of the musical, A CHORUS LINE when the national company played at the Shubert Theatre in Century City. I saw it six times. So when I saw we were going to need a dancer for this episode, I asked Pam Polifroni, our casting director, to get one of the dancers from that show for our production. She brought Trish Garland in to meet with me and she was hired. I gave her the script and explained what I was planning. It was agreed she would create her own choreography.

For our theatre we selected the Mayfair Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. Just a few blocks up from the ocean, it was a small theatre that bounced back and forth between being a movie house and a performing arts theatre for smaller productions. It was a charmer. Imagine my shock the morning we worked there when Trish arrived -- on crutches. She assured me there would be no problem; she would be able to perform. And she did. My admiration for her knew no bounds. It was a known fact that the dancers in A CHORUS LINE constantly experienced injuries. If you’ve ever seen a production of that musical, you know what a strenuous ordeal those performers were put through. But here was one performer who was not going to pass up a job (the IMDB notes this as being her first film assignment) because of some bad gams. A real trouper in the show must go on tradition!

When Grandpa finds out where Jason is performing, he arranges a trip to the theatre.

I have to take a moment here to talk about my reaction to A CHORUS LINE. The first time I saw it, I remember at the final curtain being totally wiped out by the message I got from the production. Cassie, in order to get a job that she was desperate to receive, had to perform at less than her capabilities in order to qualify. That message really resonated and disturbed me.

Remember the short teaser that began this episode? Here is the sequence that clip came from.

If you looked closely you may have noticed the opening clip was not EXACTLY the same as the later scene. This was a case where the opening teaser was planned and scripted. It needed its own opening and its own closing. Most times the scene would be selected AFTER the film had been assembled and the clip would be a duplication of the later scene.

This show gave me a chance to return to one of my favorite locations -- Franklin Canyon. Doctor Curt goes looking for Cassie. Her home at this time was a construction we found at the Canyon. But our art department did a fine job of embellishing it -- articles of furniture, the torn curtains at the window (wonderful to shoot through) and even cobwebs, spun not by spiders by by our artful technicians.

Finally! It had been a long wait from my interneship at Blair Hospital (DR. KILDARE), but I was finally going to get my chance to officiate at the birth of a baby.

If you remember, earlier I said that the script for this episode veeered toward melodrama. Now did you think I would make a statement like that and not deliver?

I’ve spoken before about MIchael’s concern about having to be just a presence in scenes without having any dialogue. And I’ve stated that I thought she didn’t realize the power of her presence. But then there were those times when she was more than just a presence.

THE ROAD TO YOU-KNOW-WHERE IS PAVED WITH YOU-KNOW-WHAT, THE PROMISE- November/December 1969 (The Courtship Of Eddie's Father)

2010-07-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

This outing has also been posted on my website at www.senensky.com

The next two episodes of the final foursome were a little darker in tone, a bit more serious than the previous two had been. The first one, THE ROAD TO YOU-KNOW-WHERE IS PAVED WITH YOU-KNOW-WHAT, was written by Blanche Hanalis, who would later create the much loved series, LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE. I didn’t meet Hanalis at the time I directed this episode, which was not unusual in television. I met very few of the authors whose works I directed. I didn’t meet her until 1981 when I directed a pilot she had written, BIG BEND COUNTRY. That was a short association; the pilot didn’t sell.

For the first seven COURTSHIP episodes I left the MGM lot for a location only once -- the few exterior shots at the Culver City police station for THE LIBRARY CARD. This episode called for extensive location filming. In fact there was so much (and most of it involved Brandon), it was listed on the schedule as EXTERIORS TO BE DONE AT A LATER DATE. When that later date arrived, there proved to be not enough work for a full day’s outing. So I ended up doing some Peanuts-style footage of Bill and Brandon to be used for the opening and closing vignettes. The following clip includes some of that film. As before the dialog was written later, recorded and laid in over the footage.

When I left the Pasadena Playhouse in 1948, there were two plays at the top of the agenda of plays I wanted to direct: Maxwell Anderson’s WINTERSET and Ibsen’s THE WILD DUCK. So far I haven’t directed either one of them. But THE ROAD... did touch on the same theme as the Ibsen play. Our Miss Bristol, like Ibsen’s Gregers Werle, disturbed the lives of friends by her meddling. For Miss Bristol I wanted Bette Davis. This was not the first time I had sought to cast her in a production. Three years before when I was directing Quinn Martin’s THE FBI, the script for THE COURIER had as its main protagonist a woman, something unusual for that series. I submitted the suggestion of her casting to John Conwell, casting director for the show. John told me what had occurred the previous year, the first season THE FBI was in production. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI at the beginning of production on the series had insisted on approving EVERYONE associated with the show. John explained to them that approval of the entire cast would be very difficult. There were those smaller roles cast late in the preparation period that, because of the time factor, would make getting that approval an impossibility. The agency relented and agreed to limit having approval pre-filming of just the stars. Once the show was produced, the rest of the cast would be checked out and anyone not acceptable would be banished from future appearances.

Bette Davis’ agent notified John that she liked the show and would like to appear on it. Midway through the first season a script came to John’s desk that had a role that he thought would be right for her. It was not the star part; it was a cameo role, but a good one. The excitement of getting Bette Davis for the series was overwhelming. John immediately sent the script to Miss Davis’ agent with a firm offer. Only then did he realize he had not gone through the formality of having her approved. There was an FBI agent assigned to the series as technical advisor and John asked him to get the necessary agency approval. Later that day the answer came back from Washington; Bette Davis did not have the agency’s approval. John Conwell at that point began to sweat. What would he do if his offer to Bette Davis was accepted. Fortunately he did not have to face that problem. The answer came back from her agent that Bette Davis was not available and John Conwell heaved a huge sigh of relief. After hearing this story I was not deterred. John and I conferred with Ed, our resident FBI agent; we pointed out that Bette Davis was the First Lady of the American Film, that it would be an honor for the series to have her appear on it. We urged him to relay this information back to Washington in the hope of getting their approval. Ed did as we requested. The answer was “No”. No explanation of why, just “No”. Now three years later I did not have that problem to cope with. With the producer’s approval an offer was submitted to Bette Davis’ agent. Unfortunately she was not available. Disappointed as I was, I must admit that our next choice, Ruth McDevitt, may have been a boon for the production. Many times the presence of a dynamic star like Miss Davis can distort a project.

When we viewed the rushes for the following clip the day after filming, JImmy Komack wanted to know how much added construction had been needed to create the set. It was explained to him that no construction was needed; we just took out the back wall of the closet in Tom’s bedroom. Voila! A new never-before-seen camera angle in the apartment.

In postproduction when they viewed the assembled footage, it was decided that the scenes of Miss Bristol suggesting to Eddie and Tom (separately) that they spend too much time together - - that those scenes came too abruptly. A little more preparation for those confrontations was needed. So a scene between Eddie and his father was written, recorded and laid in over Peanuts-style footage, some of which I had filmed in Century City.

And now well-intentioned Miss Bristol sets out to correct what she sees as a faulty situation.

We all know that stealing is considered a crime. Well watch a master at work. Watch Miyoshi Umecki -- master thief!

The thing that amazes me even more now than at the time I was filming is the incredible communication between Bill Bixby and young Brandon Cruz. That’s what true acting is all about.

Here is the script (starting with scene 33) for the Sunday activities of Tom and Eddie.

The scenes involving Tom were no problem. It was decided to eliminate scene 35 and confine Tom’s activities to his office. And I chose to confine his office activites to his inner office. The less activity he had, the more lonely he would be.

As for Eddie, I filmed scene 33 of Eddie at his fish tank. The scene was eliminated in editing, but Eddie’s recorded dialogue was used as part of the onscreen narration. The confining of Eddie’s activities to the Century City location was made for reasons artistic even more than budgetary. It was not likely Eddie would be able to travel to the various locations suggested: a wooded area, a park to fly a kite, railroad tracks. Beside which I liked the visual of the small figure surrounded by the large, cold, gray buildings. I truly don’t remember when we filmed the sequences with Eddie in Century City. Looking at them today I feel they must have been shot on a Sunday; how would it have been possible to get those empty vistas in Century City on a weekday pre-Christmas. However they were obtained, I am very proud of what I feel is the poignant heart of this episode. And Jimmy’s addition of dialogue from previous scenes as narration that was added in postproduction was inspired.

The following scenes of Eddie looking for a Larry are not in the script. They are not in the film schedule. I can see that they were filmed on the MGM lot, using various buildings as locations. They look like scenes I would film, but I can’t truthfully say I remember shooting them. If you look closely, you will see one of the children is Max, Eddie’s friend from GUESS WHO’S COMING TO LUNCH.

I do remember filming the shot of Tom on the overhead walk discovering Eddie alone.

Resolving a situation as serious as this one is very difficult. Miss Bristol has truly been a meddling old fool. And like Ibsen’s protagonist she has come close to causing some real harm. I think the team of Komack-Hanalis-Dick did a nice job of ending it logically and for this show, pleasantly.

Before we move on, let me confess that this is my favorite of the nine THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER shows I directed.

Again I had no prep period; I just stayed on the set and filmed the fourth and final show of this last batch. This one had another new billboard and credit opening.

This final show, THE PROMISE, was probably the darkest of my COURTSHIP films. And how do you begin a dark film? As lightly as possible.

LIke Mrs. Livingstone’s flunking her English test in AN F FOR MRS. L, her possible deportation in this episode, THE PROMISE, was a Hitchcock-like McGuffin.

As you can see, both James Komack and Peggy Chantler Dick shared writing credit with Bob Rodgers to create the roughest road the relationship between Eddie and his father took while I was at the helm.

Meg Wylie was, like me, out of the Pasadena Playhouse. We alumni, when possible, did stick stick together. And at this late date I have to commend the secretary in the next scene; she was an extra but performed her duties sans dialogue like a pro. She even got a laugh from the infamous laugh track!

There are times when a director has to realize there are some scenes that are immune to directorial embellishments. This was one of them. Fine words. Adult content. Two extremely talented actors. That’s when he needs to sit down in his director’s chair and keep out of the way.

And that’s what this episode is all about. It’s not about Mrs. Livingstone’s being deported. It’s about that critical time when a young boy’s faith in his father is assaulted, when he discovers that his father is not all-powerful, and in this instance it happens with that deadliest of sins -- a broken promise.

I always find the laugh track objectionable. In this instance, frankly I am outraged at its inclusion. Eddie’s packing was not a funny scene. It was a situation of a father very intelligently and sympathetically dealing with a critical moment in his seven year old son’s life. That was not a laughing matter.

I wasn’t usually in favor of young television star heroes being the ones who always saved the day, solved the difficult problems their elders couldn’t -- James Kildare on DR. KILDARE, John-Boy on THE WALTONS, Ben Casey, Danny Bonaduce on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY. But I think the trio of writers on this episode found the only feasible exit out of this difficult predicament.

And thus my COURTSHIP days came to an end. I was no longer persona non grata in the industry. I moved on but retained a special affection for THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER; for Jimmy, Bill, Miyoshi, Peggy -- all now deceased; for Brandon, himself now a father to a son whose middle name is Bixby. Wouldn’t it be nice if this small effort on a website could stir enough interest for this series to be pulled out of the vaults and released to the public on DVD; so that those who loved it in the past could reacquaint themselves with Eddie and his father, and those too young to have known it before could meet what I think is one of the forgotten gems of classic television.

THEY'RE EITHER TOO YOUNG OR TOO OLD, THE MOD COUPLE - August 1969 (The Courtship of Eddie's Father)

2010-07-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

This outing has also been posted on my website at www.senensky.com

Between August (when I completed filming GENTLEMAN FRIEND) and November, I was very busy. I directed three more episodes of THE BILL COSBY SHOW and made a return to the hour-long format, an episode of THEN CAME BRONSON which I filmed in Phoenix, Arizona for producer Robert Justman, formerly associated with STAR TREK. An amusing story at this time. Remember what I wrote about Tony Spinner’s formula for creating a new series -- do the same thing just a little differently. David Victor, former producer of DR. KILDARE (for whom I had directed four episodes) was now producing a NEW series which he had created for Universal Studio. It was a doctor series, a DR. KILDLARE lookalike, but the main character was the OLDER doctor. Dr. Gillespie was finally getting his chance to take center stage, only his name would be MARCUS WELBY. One of my agents tried to book me for the series; David said no; his reason: “But he’s directing comedy now.”

The romantic triangle had been a staple of fiction for eons. In film Joan Crawford made a career of deciding between Clark Gable or Robert Montgomery in FORSAKING ALL OTHERS; between Melvyn Douglas and Robert Young in THE SHINING HOUR; between Robert Young and Franchot Tone in THE BRIDE WORE RED. Claudette Colbert had a similar problem: Fred MacMurray or Ray Milland in THE GILDED LILY; Ray Milland or Brian Aherne in SKYLARK. And Ingrid Bergman in that classic of classics -- CASABLANCA -- had to choose between Humphrey Bogart and Paul Henreid. Of course there was the variation on that plot -- the one where Man A wants Woman who wants Man B. That of course was the formula in the greatest romance of them all -- GONE WITH THE WIND where Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler chased Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara who pined for Leslie Howard’s Ashley Wilkes. Why do I bring this up? Well believe it or not, that was the basic plot of my next COURTSHIP. On the way to getting to that, this episode had a new billboard with credits after the opening vignette.

Now that you’ve met two corners of the developing romantic triangle, it’s obvious Glori is our Scarlett O’Hara. But can it be? Is Eddie going to be our Rhett Butler?

There's the third corner of our triangle -- Tom is our Ashley Wilkes. I remember Peggy Chantler Dick being especially excited by this sequence after we viewed it in dailies. And in the original script the prologue did not end here; it continued withl Glori dashing into the living room and picking up the newspaper as Tom entered. I guess this was too good a moment not to end on. Although Peggy did not have any writer credit on this episode, I felt her fingerprints were all over this script.

According to the IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) this was (surprisingly) Sherry Lynn Diamant’s first film role. She made two more screen appearances and then disappeared from the profession for nineteen years, when she made one more film.

Scarlett had her Mammy to confide in. Guess who our Mammy is!

Now for the crucial Rhett Butler moment. Fortunately our Scarlett didn't require a green velvet gown made out of the draperies. Carol Burnett's television budget could include it; ours couldn't

It seems our Scarlett is just as devious as the original one was. Now let’s watch our Mammy enter the picture.

I particularly like this next sequence with the inscrutable Miyoshi. As I stated before, in her quiet unassuming way she was an amazing performer.

Again I had no proof, but I really felt Peggy had made a major contribution to the next sequence -- a beautifully written scene about helping a confused young girl.

For a later assignment on COURTSHIP I did a location day in Century City. Because the required scenes to be filmed did not make up a full day’s work, I shot some Peanuts-style Tom and Eddie sequences to be used in the opening and closing vignettes. The closing for this episode includes some of that footage.

I think its pretty obvious, that was an easy, pleasant shoot. I liked the script; I liked the cast; my only complaint was that I didn’t have anything to complain about.

Miyoshi Umeki began her career as a singer in Japan. She moved to the states in 1955, where she appeared for one season as a regular on the ARTHUR GODFREY AND HIS FRIENDS television show. This catapulted her into being cast in the Marlon Brando starrer, SAYONARA, where, playing opposite Red Buttons, she became the first Asian to win an Academy Award for her performance. She then conquered Broadway in her Tony nominated performance in the musical, FLOWER DRUM SONG, a performance she repeated in the film version which followed. The following sequence was the only time I was to put this musical talent on film.

Finally I got to direct a script written by the fabulous Peggy Chantler Dick, for which she received screen credit.

Now are you ready for a shocker? That was the opening for the funniest script for this series I was ever handed. The show was titled THE MOD COUPLE, COURTSHIP’s borrowing from the furiously funny Broadway play, THE ODD COUPLE. The easy way to have done this would have been to have Tom do the neurotically neat Felix with Eddie as the little slob version of Oscar. But that was not the road taken. Beautifully groomed Bill Bixby, with never a hair out of place, always clothed as if he had stepped out of the pages of the men’s fashion magazine GQ, Bill, as Eddie’s father, was to be the slob. The script (scene 6) of the following morning sets the scene with its description of the setting and the reason for the disarray. You can see by the note in parenthesis from P.C.D. that Bill Bixby was concerned with explaining this switch in his character.

But I was faced with what I thought was an even bigger problem. The opener had been a real tearjerker. I felt I needed something bold and startling to change course radically into a comedic mode. I used all of Peggy's words. I just changed the visuals that accompanied those words.

I have refrained from commenting on Brandon’s enormous growth as an actor in a mere year. Directors can create performances if they have to by filming everything in closeups. But comedy plays best in two-shots. For that the actors have to play the comedy timing at the time of filming. Watch this seven year old matching Bixby’s performance at every turn.

I always wondered how much Jimmy, who was a very fine comedy writer, contributed to those scenes he was scheduled to perform. And incidentally Peggy solved the problem of how to transform impeccably garbed Tom into an Oscar-like slob -- she made it a weekend when he could dress less formally.

Surprisingly many actors have trouble doing business with props -- making it seem real. Fortunately young Mr. Cruz was not one of them.

The following bachelor lesson that Norman delivers in the kitchen was one and three quarter pages. My usual average of a minute a page would have had this scene come in at a minute and forty-five seconds. In my preshooting preparation I had planned a master and three closeups. But once I started filming, I cut the closeups (my preference to play comedy in masters) and concentrated on getting a good master. I don’t remember exactly how many takes we filmed, but I know it was over twenty-five. But the final scene that I printed was one minute and thirteen seconds. There certainly aren’t any actors’ pauses slowing things down.

As we near the end, I’m sure the next clip will not come as a surprise.

These were the first two of a foursome that I directed in November. Again I filmed them back to back with no prep periods between. I just went on the sound stage and stayed for over three weeks. And again no problems, no complaints. If this kept up I was facing the possibility of having to give up the name David Victor had bestowed on me -- ‘boy storm cloud’.