METAMORPHOSIS - May 1967 (Star Trek)

This posting can also be viewed

(

revised 

and extended) on the

website RALPH'S TREK at

www.senensky.com

Thus began my second voyage on the Enterprise, my favorite voyage of the seven STAR TREKs I directed. It was written by the incomparable Gene Coon and was spooky and eerie and had a potent message. I was really anxious to make this voyage.

When you look at the lineup of my voyages, it seems as if I just went from one trek to another. Actually there was a three month lapse between THIS SIDE OF PARADISE and METAMORPHOSIS. Part of that time was television’s annual spring hiatus. I also managed to squeeze in the impossible mission of THE TRAIN. After that jarring trip I was ready for the sanity of outer space.

METAMORPHOSIS had no location work. The planet we would be visiting would be created on the studio soundstage. This actually was the usual standard operating procedure for the show. Of my seven ventures, only two left the studio for location filming, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (my first) and upcoming BREAD AND CIRCUSES. But the planet created for this production, I think, was one of the finest of the whole series. And it was the director of photography, Jerry Finnerman, who was most responsible for its unique look. A cyclorama for the sky was the backing for the set pieces that would be placed in front of it. It was Jerry who decided that the sky would be purple. It was also Jerry who introduced me to the fish eye lens, the wide angle 9mm. The soundstage we would be shooting on was not very large; it was one of the smaller soundstages I had ever worked on. In fact neither of the two stages for STAR TREK (one for the Enterprise and one for the swing sets) was large.

For our opening sequence on this foreign planet, the use of the 9mm lens made the shuttlecraft on the ground seem a great distance away. But use of this lens posed a problem; we were shooting off the set. In fact we were seeing the ceiling of the soundstage. So Jerry brought in large rocks in the foreground to mask the overshoot. When Cochrane enters the foreground and then runs toward the group at the craft, we had to cut away to other angles of his approach. If we had stayed on the fish eye lens, it would appear that he had on seven league boots and was covering the football field distance in about five paces.

There was another problem connected with this set. The sky cyclorama was not a complete circle; it was 180 degrees max. So any reverse angle shots had to be done against the same cyclorama. That meant we shot everything toward the shuttlecraft before we created other backgrounds with rocks and trees against the same cyclorama for those reverse angles.

In the clips that you will be viewing, the sky is not always the deep purple I have described. These clips are from an old off the air transcription that time has not been kind to. There are a few shots where the purple has survived, so use your imagination. I do think even faded, Jerry Finnerman’s photography is exemplary.

Once all of the scenes involving the shuttlecraft were filmed, that set was struck. Cochrane’s home, exterior and interior, was erected and the grounds surrounding the house were relandscaped. Again all of the shots toward the house were done first; then the reverse angles were filmed as had been the case with the scenes involving the shuttlecraft.

I was and still am very impressed with Gene Coon’s script. Two years prior to this he was producing and writing THE WILD WILD WEST. I had directed two shows for Gene on that series, and at that time he told me that he didn’t have time to write all of the shows, but that show was so special as was STAR TREK that he needed to write them. So what he did was have writers come in with their ideas which he would buy, and he would have them write their script. That gave him a first draft which he would then rewrite. I don’t think that he took writing credit for this work. METAMORPHOSIS was not a rewrite, it was an original Gene Coon scriipt as was THE DEVIL IN THE DARK. Compare the wild comic lunacy of THE WILD WILD WEST with the subdued dramatic intensity of the following scenes -- I guess what I’m trying to say is the man was talented!

Jerry Finnerman also contributed another effect for the set. He thought our sky should have clouds, so when we were ready to film, the doors to the soundstage were closed, the fans were turned off, every person was instructed to stand perfectly still, there could be NO movement. The special effects people then came in with their bee smokers and wafted smoke up above the trees. Presto -- we had clouds. It’s a beautiful effect that added to the reality.

The Companion was going to be a matte added in post production to what I shot. The producers asked me to plan my shots to avoid the necessity of a traveling matte, which would be an added expense. For you civilians let me explain. If I shot a very wide shot that would have Cochrane standing at one end of the frame, the Companion would be added to the other end of the frame; and if then the Companion moved across the screen to envelop Cochrane, that would be a traveling matte. Instead I shot a full figure wide shot of Cochrane, panned the camera left across the set and stopped, held frame long enough for the matte to be superimposed in the center of the frame, then panned back to the original shot of Cochrane. The Companion, centered in the frame, now enveloped Cochrane.

But then came a sequence where there was no way to avoid the traveling matte.

I was not present in post production when an actress recorded the speeches of the Companion. But I was there to view the film after her speeches had been integrated into the assembled footage. And nobody disagreed with me when I declared the performance, which had been uttered in a robotic monotone, was unacceptable. Another actress was hired, and this time I was present to direct the performance. And the approach this time was to play the MEANING of the scene.

At the viewing of the dailies the day after we filmed the previous scene, Gene Coon spoke, “And that’s why we pay him the big money.”

When in the arts you copy someone, that’s plagiarism. Unless you copy a large amount, then it’s a tribute. What is it if you steal from yourself? Because that’s what I did for the final sequence in this episode. The genesis for the opening shot was an episode of THE FBI (THE ESCAPE) that I had filmed the previous year. In that lakeside scene, the girl, having made love to her fugitive lover, looks at him through a pink chiffon scarf. Maybe life from now would be rosier for her. I needed something to get into this scene between Cochrane and Nancy. I decided I would have this cloud, recently turned into a human, look and marvel at the scarf that Nancy had in her possession. I admit, not knowing at that time what the Companion was going to look like, that I had no further motivation in my choice of this action. That the vision of him through the scarf was as she was used to seeing him when she was a cloud at that point had no significance for me. As it turned out it was an added unforeseen bonus. You can read about THE FBI episode in my archives to the right of this column.

One day walking back to the office after a screening of the completed film, Gene Coon said to me he was just amazed; how did I know to have the scarf and the Companion look alike. And I had to admit it was just one of those freak wonderful accidents that can happen. Now from the vantage point of forty-three years later, I can wonder when did the lab start working on the effect for the Companion. We didn’t shoot the Cochrane-Nancy scene until the final day; in fact I think it was the last scene to be filmed. Did the lab start work on the Companion before or after that sequence was in the can? Did they see that scene before or after? We’ll probably never know. But who cares! It worked!

There was another question I will never know the answer to. Gene Coon told me one of the advantages of being on STAR TREK was that he was able to deal with issues that he couldn’t do on any other series. For instance he had written an episode that emananted from his own anti-Vietnam War feelings. The race issue was a major issue of the sixties. I never asked Gene, but I have since wondered if the cloud-man love story in METAMORPHOSIS was his way of dealing with that issue. I’ll never know.

There was something else I didn't know then but was to learn about when I returned for my next flight. Desilu Studios had been sold to Paramount Pictures, a new regime was about to take over and life in outer space was going to take a sharp turn for the worse.

You can hear my telephone interview on METAMORPHOSIS on the StarTrekHistory website at: http://www.startrekhistory.com/interviews.html

THE EASTER BREACH - Spring 1965 (Suspense Theatre)

Recently through the interest, kindness and generosity of David Lanza's Kraft Suspense Theatre blogsite at http://kraft1963.blogspot.com, I received a much better transciption of this show than the one I published in January, 2010.  So here are new film clips.

Late morning the second day of filming THE EASTER BREACH I received a telephone call from the producer. He had just viewed the first day’s rushes and was calling to tell me how pleased he was with what he had seen. He was especially impressed with Richard Beymer’s performance. As was my custom I immediately went over to where Richard was seated to relay this information. He looked up at me with the saddest eyes and said, “That’s what they told me on WEST SIDE STORY."

I was back at the factory to film my third and last SUSPENSE THEATRE. The script was an intelligently written love story by Leon Tokatyan about the difficult escape from East Berlin of an elderly couple. It was decided the story would be even more poignant if it were a young couple, and I had just the young couple in mind to play it. Earlier that season I had directed a FUGITIVE guest starring Diana Hyland and a 12 O’CLOCK HIGH guest starring Keir Dullea. I thought they would make an ideal pair to enact this story, and relayed my wishes to the casting director, Bill something-or-other. That was the last I heard until I was informed that Richard Beymer and Katherine Crawford (daughter of Universal producer Roy Huggins and wife of Universal executive Frank Price) had been signed to star in this Universal production. There is no other word for it -- I was pissed. I decided I was not going to break my back over this little venture. The script was okay. I scouted the necessary locations on Universal’s backlot. I visited the various sets assigned to the project. But not one pencil mark of staging or camera instruction was entered into my script. I was going to wing it, start to finish. Then came the first day, and Richard Beymer showed up impressively prepared. He had a fine German accent; he was totally committed in attitude and preparation, and the excellence of what he was doing lifted my spirits and pulled me in. I still was committed to not doing any homework, but because of my feelings of responsibility to the actors, I would still function to the best of my ability on the set.

The staging of the flight at the beginning of the story presented a bit of a problem. We were to film it on the Universal backlot, and the wooded area selected just wasn't long enough. So we filmed the same short distance several times -- first in a two shot, then a close-up of Richard, and a close-up of Katherine; thus I was able to prolong the sequence in the editing process. The director of photography for this show was John Russell. We had worked together once before on the ARREST AND TRIAL episode starring Mickey Rooney, FUNNY MAN WITH A MONKEY.  And oh yes, he was the director of photography on Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO!

Where MGM was letting their backlots deteriorate, Universal was improving theirs. Because of the Berlin location of our story, I was able to use their European streets to good advantage. Werner did not die; he was rescued and brought to a West Berlin hospital.

After a couple of days working with Richard, I was compelled to pose a question to him. I said, “Before meeting you, I did not understand how you could have been cast as Tony in WEST SIDE STORY. Now that I’ve worked with you, my question is ‘What happened?’”

He told me. He did not go to view the dailies, but he was praised each day by the director for his work. Near the end of the filming, when he had completed what he considered the main and difficult part of his role, he went to a viewing of the dailies. He was horrified by what he saw; he was even more disturbed that at that point there was nothing he could do to correct it.



  I’m afraid because of the possible nepotism involved in her casting, I underestimated Katherine Crawford’s talent. When Werner, while visiting an art museum sees a woman who looks remarkably like his wife (she should, she’s played by the same actress), I was going to need a certain reaction from Katherine as she looked at him on the ground. So at the end of her close-up, instead of saying “Cut, print,” I tore the page out of my script, dropped it to the floor and said, “Well, I guess we’ve got that one in the can.” Watch the reaction that ends the art gallery scene.

The producer for this episode was Norman MacDonnell.  A decade before this, when I first started working at CBS in the radio mimeo department (yes, I was a lowly typist, cutting stencils for CBS radio shows).  One of them was GUNSMOKE starring William Conrad in the role that James Arness later portrayed in the television series. The mimeo department was next to a viewing booth that looked down on the studio where GUNSMOKE was recorded.  I watched many of them in production.  I became acquainted with the script supervisor on the show and even sat in on some of the rehearsals.  I didn’t meet him at that time, but Norman was the producer.  

I really didn’t have any idea of what a checkpoint between East and West Berlin looked like. But even if I had had a detailed drawing, there was no chance the studio would build it, not on a television budget. So we found a tunnel-like structure on the European street on the backlot, put up some signs and we had our checkpoint. Actually it looks pretty effective.

An added plus was the restaurant set being located on the backlot adjoining the exterior street. So now for some nefarious business!

Werner finds Liese; they are in line at the checkpoint to go to West Berlin. In the scenes that followed both characters portrayed by Katherine were involved. However, since they did not have a scene together, I did not have to cope with the problem of the split screen, but I did need to use a photo double. First in the wide angle shot where Werner walks away from Liese and sees Victoria -- Victoria, with her back to the camera is a photo double. And then the final shot of the sequence when Werner and Liese on the West Berlin side of the wall exited the two shot and you see through to East Berlin as Victoria was taken away by the police, that Victoria was a photo double.

It would be a year shy of two decades before Richar Beymer and I would work together again (ignoring a test I directed of him for a role in the pilot for DYNASTY). And that later project, through no fault of Richard’s or other members of that cast, was a miserably grievous experience for me.  I think Richard was aware of the problems, because one day when we were lunching together, he looked at me very wisely across the table of the booth we shared, and with a twinkle in his eye he said, “You appear to be a gentle poodle, but I can see the pit bull ready to pounce.”

As I explained before, I did no pre-planning in my script for this show. In fact when I checked my files for a script for this production to help me with this posting, there was no script. I had thrown it away, page by page, as I completed filming each scene. It is the only script missing of the almost two hundred productions I directed. So did I then decide, “Boy this is the way to go. You can do this job without all that laborious homework.” I’m afraid not. Now that I knew I could wing it and get by, I made the decision and never wavered from it -- NEVER AGAIN!

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE - January 1967 (Star Trek)

This posting can also be viewed

(extended and revised) on the other RALPH'S TREK at www.senensky.com

STAR TREK was indeed a phenomenon. I directed six and a half episodes of the original series. I would guess (and I’m sure my guess is very close to being accurate) that I worked a total of ninety days on the series. I worked more days than that on just the pilot of DYNASTY. I directed twice as many episode of THE WALTONS and two and half times as many episodes of THE FBI; I directed more episodes of THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and more episodes of THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE’S FATHER than I did of STAR TREK. And yet today if you google-search my name on the internet, you will think I spent most of my career directing STAR TREK. As I said, STAR TREK was indeed a phenomenon.

How and when did this phenomenon involve me? It was early December, 1966 when one of my agents called to ask me if I would like to direct an episode of STAR TREK. I had not seen the show and I was not into science fiction, but I also was not one to turn down a challenge, so I said, “Yeah, go ahead and book me.” They did and the studio sent me a script, THE DEVIL IN THE DARK by Gene Coon, which was scheduled to be filmed in early January, 1967. I liked that script a lot. I then packed my bags and flew back to Iowa to spend the holidays with my family. A few days after my arrival, I received another script from the studio with a note telling me that they had switched scripts and I would be directing one called THIS SIDE OF PARADISE. I have to say I was disappointed. THE DEVIL IN THE DARK was a strange, eerie script, where THIS SIDE OF PARADISE seemed almost like a modern love story. But the die was cast, so I went to work on the new script.

After the holidays I returned to the west coast and reported to the Desilu studio to prep. Desilu was the old RKO Radio lot at Melrose and Vine, and I was happy to return there. That was where I had filmed BREAKING POINT, and that had been such a good experience. Our first order of business was casting. For Leila we got the exquisite JIll Ireland, and for Sandoval, the leader on planet Omicron Cetti III, we cast an old buddy from TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH, Frank Overton. The big problem facing us were the buildings of the colony. There was neither the time nor the money to build, so we were faced with the problem of finding something standing that could fit the bill. Our search of the area produced only one possibility, the Disney ranch, and to use that we had to do some creative rationalizing. The ranch certainly did not look like it belonged in the STAR TREK century. But what if the settlers on this planet went to the past for their inspiration -- back to early Americana. Good idea? It had to be; there was no other choice.

We were scheduled for three days at the Disney ranch. The first two days went swimmingly. We completed over eight pages each day, were right on schedule, and it all seemed as if I was filming a rustic love story, the only difference being that the guys were dressed in funny suits and one of them had funny ears. Then came day three. We reported to the ranch as usual in the dark, so that we would be ready to film with the first light of day. But before the first light got to us, the news did that Jill Ireland would NOT be reporting to the location; it was feared that she had measles. We then went to work, completing all the scenes at the ranch that did not include her; after which we packed up, moved back to the studio and finished the day filming on the Enterprise. The next day we learned Jill did not have measles and would be returning to finish the show. However we hit a new snag. The Disney ranch was no longer available; it had been booked by another film company. The fortunate thing for us was that all of the scenes that involved buildings at the ranch had been completed, so arrangements were made for us to complete our location filming in Bronson Canyon, an area in the hills close to the studio and an area with which I was very familiar.

I was amazed then, and now inching toward a half a century later, I am still in awe of those studio magicians who in answer to a request for a 'garden' in the middle of a pristine green landscape could fulfill my request.

This was my first film with cameraman Jerry Finnerman, and it was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted over forty years. Jerry later told me that it was the following scene that made him sit up, take notice and decide that I was a director he really wanted to work with. That feeling was reciprocated.

There was another first for me on this production (and I think probably a last). I had a scene blocked, lit and ready to shoot and I was not happy with what I was seeing. To forestall any possible other recollections of what occurred, let me produce some archival evidence. First the script for the scene. Read scene 53. You will note it is set in an Exterior Open Field. (To enlarge the illustration just double click twice on the image; the page of script should then fill your computer screen. To return to normal size, click on the arrow in the upper left corner that returns you to the last page.)

Now read my pre-planned directions for filming the scene. You will see that shot 53 was a five shot.

Fifty yards away I had spotted a very inviting limb. I asked Jerry if we could break the set-up and move the scene to another location. He readily agreed. So we moved everything the fifty yards and filmed the scene as you may remember it and will now see it.

Jerry Finnerman, director of photography, was a master at lighting. He had learned his craft from a giant in the film industry, Harry Stradling. Jerry was the assistant cameraman on Stradling’s crew, and then he became Stradling’s operator. His close-up of Jill Ireland in her first scene in this film I think is a master work. Jerry placed a small baby spot directly behind Jill’s head. Her movements had to be very restricted or the lamp would show.

In the following two clips of Kirk alone on the Enterprise, note not only the overall beauty of his photography, but also the light changes in the close-ups of Captain Kirk.

This was a very good outing for Leonard Nimoy. Mr. Spock had said, "Emotions are alien to me. I am a scientist." But here he was in love, playful and in a climactic confrontation with Kirk he showed great anger. I personally liked the comic touch of Kirk’s last line, on his back with Spock towering over him, “Had enough?”

The crew is back on board, the love affair is over, and all that Spock has to do is participate in my favorite final scene of the STAR TREK episodes I directed.

And a very nice note from Mr. Spock.

I was no longer disappointed that THIS SIDE OF PARADISE had been substituted for THE DEVIL IN THE DARK. What I didn’t know at that time was than an even stranger and better script than DEVIL (and also written by Gene Coon) would be my next STAR TREK assignment.

You can hear my telephone interview on this episode by going to the Star Trek History website at:

http://www.startrekhistory.com/interviews.html

THE ESCAPE - May 1966 (The FBI)

June is a notoriously bad month to film exteriors in Southern California. Fog. Overcast days. A sun in absentia. I learned that with a vengeance in 1965 when I was booked (it seemed more like I was condemned) to direct the first episode of a new series, LONG HOT SUMMER. It was a production of 20th Century Fox, attempting to turn their blockbuster Paul Newman starrer into another PEYTON PLACE. But it was being filmed at the MGM studio, just down the road in Culver City. This was my first real association with 20th Century Fox. True the year before I had directed TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH, which was their co-production with Quinn Martin Productions, but that show had been totally under the command of QM. LONG HOT SUMMER had a lot of exteriors, to be filmed on the MGM backlots, which I suspected may have been the main reason to choose that studio as the base for production in the first place. The edict from the Fox production office was, sun or no sun, keep shooting. Which we did. The following day when the rushes were screened, the eternal complaint was, “But it doesn’t look sunny.” Added to that were the constant phone calls to the set every twenty or thirty minutes from the Fox production office to check on the status of the shooting schedule. I was not used to that. I put enough pressure on myself to complete the day's work without Big Daddy standing over me. In addition to the present production, I was committed to direct three more episodes. I decided I really didn't want to face another nine weeks of the current situation. I called my agent and asked that he get me out of the balance of the contract. He did and mercifully my LONG HOT SUMMER was shortened.

My first assignment in May of the following season under my new The FBI contract was THE ESCAPE, a hard-boiled love story. Our first day’s location was the Santa Monica Airport. Although this was the last week of May, June weather had already settled over the area, and it was a dismal dark airport that greeted our early morning arrival at the location. We didn’t have the problem I had had the previous year on LONG HOT SUMMER. This sequence didn’t have to look sunny. But it was too exciting a sequence to end up looking drab and dreary. Billy Spencer amazed all of us the following day when we viewed the dailies. I don't know what magic he applied, but the rushes he delivered had a surprising and welcome amount of light and color that had not been evident when we shot it.

The original script for THE ESCAPE was a very disjointed one with scenes that pulled in all directions. Charles Larson did some remarkable work to pull it together, shape it and flesh out the people and the relationships. But I was amused and amazed at his reaction to Roy Thinnes’ acceptance of the role of Larry. (Roy, I think, was already under contract to QM Productions to star in THE INVADERS, which went into production the following year.) Charles said Roy had turned down two other FBI scripts; he didn’t understand what there was about this script that was better than the other two. Without seeing the other two scripts, I still felt I knew what there was about our script that appealed to him.

I first became aware of Marlyn Mason when she was fourteen years old and was playing Heidi in a children’s musical based on that classic story at the Player’s Ring Theatre in Hollywood. I was able to cast her in two of my early television directing ventures, and then we lost track of each other for awhile, which is not unusual in Hollywood. In 1964 I bought a house on Sunset Plaza Drive in the hills overlooking the Sunset Strip. Some time within the next year I received a forwarded letter with writing on the envelope. The letter had been delivered to the same house number as mine, but on Queen’s Road. The occupant at Queen’s Road had very kindly forwarded it on to me. It was Marlyn. We’ve never really lost contact since. More about her later.

Roy Thinnes had been the star the previous year of LONG HOT SUMMER. Neither he, Edmond O’Brien, nor Ruth Roman contributed to my reasons for departing that show. I was very happy with his decision to accept our offer to guest star in this production.

Now are you thinking, “Boy, they really had a big budget on this episode to be able send a car over a cliff!” Wrong! A film clip was found in stock footage of a FORD going over a cliff. Then Tom, our agency rep for Ford conveniently found a duplicate of that car for us to use in our filming.

Coming up is Bill ‘You wanna ride on my bulldozer, honey’ Bramley. And if you have been trying to figure out why he looks familiar, where you might have seen him on the big screen in theatres, Bill played Officer Krupke in the 1961 Oscar-winning WEST SIDE STORY.

The third brother was Steve Ihnat. I didn’t know Steve’s work, and I don’t remember if it was Bert Remsen or John Conwell who recommended casting him. An excellent actor, and I was especially pleased with his pairing as a brother to Roy Thinnes. I thought the two looked like they really could be brothers. I have just checked Steve out on the IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base). He was born in Czechoslovakia, arrived in Hollywood when he was twenty-four. He died in France six years after filming this episode of a heart attack at the age of thirty-eight.

And in both the clips you’ve just viewed and the ones coming up, I hope you appreciate Charles Larson’s scripting. His writing gave the actors room to fill in the crevices BETWEEN THE LINES!

This was the show that introduced me to Franklin Canyon, a beautiful wooded area with a large reservoir in the hills above Beverly Hills. I scouted it on a lovely sunny day. The sun was filtering through the trees, reflecting off the water of the reservoir, it was truly enchanting. The morning we arrived to film was a different story. The June blues had settled into the weather, and there wasn’t a ray of sunshine within miles of the Canyon. Billy Spencer saw my disappointment and concern. He told me not to worry, the soft, diffused light was very good for filming. Oh, how right he was. (I told you he was my film school.) I think the sequence gains by not having the sunlight, by having the soft light which Billy utilized to the nth degree, especially in the long close-up of Marlyn when she talks about her past.

One other thing I must mention about filming for Quinn. He insisted on process photography for his traveling car shots. No towing or using car camera mounts. He wanted the REEL thing.

There were no problems filming the scenes between the other two brothers back at the studio. So just sit back and enjoy the sight of two fine actors providing a good lesson in film acting.

To open the scene at the lakeside after the couple have made love, I decided to have Pat look at the world around her through the pink sheer kerchief she had worn on her head; for the moment life did seem to take on a warmer, rosier glow. Two years later I stole from myself and opened a scene the same way in METAMOROPHOSIS on STAR TREK. You can hear a discussion of this in my oral interview on the STAR TREK HISTORY website at: http://www.startrekhistory.com/interviews.html

The day of location work at the reservoir started with a sequence in a nearby heavily wooded area. It was very early morning, and it was very very dark. Because of the overcast skies and the large trees it seemed more night than day. And it was too large an area to light, even with our huge arcs. Again it was Billy Spencer who said “Not to worry.” He gave instructions to the lab to force the film when developing it, and I don’t know what else he did, but we got the results we needed.

It was also Billy who gave me the ‘trick’ telephone dial for the shot of Larry calling the FBI. I thought then and I think now it is an interesting shot, but I tend to stay away from gimmickry that calls attention to itself.

It is so inviting when acting a melodramatic scene to play it to the hilt. How much more effective and dangerous to avoid the ranting and raving and keep it simple.

The big location problem on this show was finding where we could film the ending. The original script had Larry and Pat going to Cliff Side, where agent Rhodes of the FBI finally tracks them down. Then Steve arrives on the scene, armed with his rifle, and a gun battle ensues. Rhodes climbs down the side of the cliff and works his way around to a position behind Steve to end the battle. Howard Alston, production manager for the series, and I drove the coast of Southern California, seeking a spot where I would be able to stage this action. We found nothing that would work. It was Howard who remembered a deserted recreation area in the San Fernando Valley, and he took me there. With the addition of a big CLIFF SIDE LODGE sign, we converted the Valley into the Coast. And I really liked the opportunities for staging that this unusual setting gave me.

Unlike the heroine she portrayed, Marlyn Mason has not found herself in any traps. Last year she wrote a very short story that she turned into a screenplay for a ten minute film. Entitled MODEL RULES it was entered in seven or eight of the top film festivals in the country and won three major awards.

Not satisfied with this success, the Madame from Medford, which is what I dubbed her once she became an Oregonian, went to work and wrote another screenplay. This too has been filmed and at the present time is being edited. Entitled THE BAG, plans are to submit it for entry into the country’s independent film festivals later this year. Since I’ve thrown a party for her each time she won an award, I am already saving my money for this coming season.

Some things DO IMPROVE with age!

ORDEAL - August 1966 (The FBI)

I have raved about art director Richard Haman before; the problem with Richard is that he is so talented, there is no such thing as over praising him. Richard and William Spencer, director of photography, after completing the first season of TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH were switched by Quinn Martin to his new series being launched on ABC, THE FBI. ORDEAL was my fourth assignment in that series’ second season (I had directed three episodes its first season.) This was the eleventh show in which Richard and I were partnered.

Richard came to me with a plan for the opening sequence you just viewed. He had worked out the mechanics of the shooting of the guard -- the placement of the camera and the gun so that the hole created by the shattering pellet would be in line with the guard’s body. But the pellet would have gone off to the side, avoiding any injury to the actor portraying the guard. This was a true case of what would be done by an art director when his credit on the screen would read: Production designed by ... . I directed a movie for television once where the producer came to me with a request from the art director’s agent asking for the ‘Production designed by’ credit. Now on that production I had prepared to shoot the exterior of a mountain cabin for an establishing shot. As we went to the spot where the camera would be and looked at the cabin, I discovered there was no roof. I was told the art director felt it wouldn’t be needed. We didn’t do the shot that day. The roof was added, and then we filmed the establishing shot. And my reply to the request for the special credit was, “No, actually I think that credit should read ‘Production designed IN SPITE of blank blank’.”

I’m quite certain if this barn sequence were being filmed today, it would all be done on location. Quinn Martin still adhered to the old studio principles. The exterior of the barn and the entrances and exits into the barn were done on location, but the long scene in the barn itself was filmed on a sound stage where Billy Spencer could take full advantage of the opportunities afforded to work his photographic magic.

Are you as fed up and turned off as I am by the excessive violence on our screens today? Well even forty-three years ago I wanted to find other ways to deal with the many killings I had to film. Especially because there was a double standard. Network programming loved the violence, but network program practices had many restrictions. You couldn’t make death ugly by showing the massive bloody wound a bullet would create. That would offend the public. A bullet hole would rarely be a blood spot as large as a quarter, more likely closer to the size of a dime. In this case I preferred to show it by focusing on the reaction of a participant in the incident.

Which had the added advantage of adding dimension to the character of the person reacting. In this case Paul Bryar, birth name Gabriel Paul Barrere, and known and beloved by all who knew him as Gaby. I had met Gaby and his wife, Claudia (real name, Hortense, but known to many as Hort) when they auditioned for a production of the play, MY THREE ANGELS I was to direct. They both ended up appearing in that play, and the following year we joined forces to do DEATH OF A SALESMAN. They were the beginning of my west coast family beyond the extensive blood family I already had. When I came to QM Productions two years prior, I requested Paul Bryar for a role in the second FUGITIVE I was directing. John Conwell, casting director for the show, told me we would not be able to get Paul approved by Quinn. It seems several years before when Quinn was producing THE UNTOUCHABLES, Paul had been cast in an episode. Between takes on a set, there is usually casual banter between cast and crew. Quinn, visiting the set one day, saw Paul joking around and thought his behavior was frivolous, not serious enough. Paul made Quinn’s black list. So he did not appear in that episode of THE FUGITIVE. Somehow Johnny Conwell, during the first season of THE FBI, changed Quinn’s mind enough to give Gaby another chance, and he was cast in one of my episodes that season. He was now in good enough standing with Quinn to take on this even more important role in the current production. I tell this story not as a comment on Gaby’s behavior; more as a reflection on Quinn’s and as a reflection of what actors (and writers and directors) sometimes faced in their search for employment. Around this same time I learned Lou Antonio was on ‘that’ list. Lou had appeared in an episode of TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH. He had been called back some time after completing photography for some additional scenes and he arrived at the studio with his hair definitely in need of cutting. That was enough to get him on the list. I contacted Lou and told him what I had learned. He immediately wrote a letter to Quinn explaining his long hair. He was in the cast at that time of the Elia Kazan feature film, AMERICA, AMERICA and was still on call to complete principal photography. Voila! Lou Antonio was off the list!

The FBI rounded up enough clues to send them on a search for Kingsley, a missing driver. Erskine and Rhodes go to his rooming house and interview his landlady. I thought the scene needed a little perking up, so I had the actress cast in the part play it in a more distraught manner. She was upset at the mess in the room and kept moving around, picking up articles of clothing, as she was being interviewed by Erskine and Rhodes. Quinn didn’t like it when he saw the dailies the following day. Too frivolous. I ended up reshooting with a recast landlady and everybody just stood around and talked. That’s what you’re about to see.

THE FBI episodes were touted as being based on FBI files. I’m sure a lot of them were. But I doubted then and I doubt now that ALL of them were. I felt when I was doing this episode that we owed a greater debt to the French movie, WAGES OF FEAR, than we did to any FBI file. I could have been wrong; but I also could have been right

I know that in filming a sequence like the one you’re about to see to whom my debt was owed -- to the remarkable Billy Spencer and his magic camera.

Carl made the fatal phone call and agreed to meet with Mr. Lockwood.

This was another instance where the plot got an FBI representative directly involved in the criminal part of the story, in this case young Rhodes. Stephen Brooks, who played Rhodes, only stayed with the series for two years. I had worked with Steve earlier when he had a recurring role on THE NURSES, a Herb Brodkin produced series that was filmed in New York, and he later guest starred in an episode of STAR TREK, which I will soon be writing about.

Ford Motor Co. was one of the sponsors of THE FBI on ABC. This was a major advantage for a program of this type. We used a lot of automobiles in the show. A very nice man, Tom, a representative from the agency that represented Ford, came to all of our production meetings. He would then supply whatever we needed. Rich car, poor car, beggar car, thief. Well, almost always. There was a situation the first season on a show called THE PLUNDERERS. Look at the opening sequence, and then I’ll tell you what the problem was.

The problem was that Ford did not produce an armored car, and they were not eager to use a vehicle from another automobile manufacturer. Tom’s suggestion was that we use a panel truck in lieu of the armored car. Our side very vehemently vetoed this idea, so that Tom finally relented and we got to use a legitimate armored car for our filming.

You win some, you lose some. On THE PLUNDERERS we won. We were not so lucky on the current show, ORDEAL. The final leg of the journey in our script included a fierce storm in mountainous terrain. And in our script this Ford truck carrying nitro picked this unfortunate time to have brake problems. Unfortunately the Ford truck had not conferred with Ford agency rep Tom. It seems that Fords don’t develop brake problems. To add to the problem it was also an irrefutable fact that Quinn Martin productions had exciting, when possible hair-raising Act IV’s. What’s a director to do? Just close his eyes and step on the gas!

I can hardly leave you hanging without showing you the end of the journey, not that I don’t think you haven’t already figured it out for yourself.

This was the end of more than one journey. This was Billy Spencer’s last show for the series for a time. He left to be the director of photography for Quinn Martin’s theatrical feature, THE MEPHISTO WALTZ. I directed four more episodes for the series with three different directors of photography, only one of whom I liked. Unfortunately he was not the one the producers decided to retain. As I said before, I left the series after eight episodes because of physical exhaustion. I wonder if I would have been so spent if Billy Spencer hadn’t left. I don’t think so!

A HERO FOR OUR TIME - August 1963 (Suspense Theatre)

(Thanks to blog follower, Les Kirikpatrick, who has sent me a much better copy of this production, I have replaced all of the film clips with this new material.  In the process I have made some revisions and additions to the text, as well as expanding the film clips.)

A HERO FOR OUR TIMES was my first SUSPENSE THEATRE assignment and my first adventure in color. And very definitely it was a return to studio sound stage filming. Except for a car chase sequence later in the script, this was a very talky script that was reminiscent of the live television dramas from the decade before. And it certainly owed a debt to REAR WINDOW..

My last day of prep, I still didn't have the complete script. The final scene was still to be written. I had lunch that day with Roy Huggins, the executive producer for the project. He was the one who was going to write the final scene. But he was neurotically nervous because he had a class to teach that afternoon (I think at UCLA) and was trying to figure out when he would have time to do the writing. What was the big problem? That scene was scheduled to be the first thing filmed the next morning. And Roy Huggins was nervous? How about me and the two actors, Lloyd Bridges and Geraldine Brooks. Somehow the schedule was changed so that final scene was filmed several days later.

Eleven years before this, the summer of 1952, I was the assistant director at a summer stock theatre north of Chicago. Our opening production was to be CHARLIE’S AUNT starring Robert Q. Lewis and featuring Tom Bosley and Tom Poston, imported from New York and Joanne Dru and John Ireland, imported from Hollywood. The day Joanne and John (who were married at that time) arrived, I was delegated to greet them. I remember they were waiting in the club’s dining room, and my knees were actually shaking as I entered the room. They were the first BIG movie stars I had ever met. John didn’t seem quite as awesome in 1963.

To help keep you apprized of our plot, the janitor in the building where the murder occurred has been accused of the killing; Mace (Lloyd Bridges) has prepared a deposition for the district attorney stating that he witnessed the crime and the janitor is not the murderer.  But to complicate his life further, Mace has just been given a major promotion in his company.

The paper that he burns, that's the deposition.

The following scene was my induction into the world of Technicolor. What I’m going to tell you won’t make a lot of sense unless you realize that the color clip here is somewhat faded and not what the set really looked like. There was a color consultant assigned to each production to coordinate the involvement of the different departments, but that involvement just didn’t take place. Either that or he was color blind, for the walls of the set were a subdued golden yellow, and when Geraldine Brooks made her entrance down the stairway, it looked like a floating head descending. Her dressing gown was the same color as the walls. Richard Rawlings, the director of photography, asked that the shot be stopped, and we now had the choice of repainting the set or replacing the dressing gown. The dressing gown won and was immediately replaced by the lavender garment you see.

I have some interesting stories about one of the actors in this production -- Dabbs Greer. His reall name was William Greer, and he hailed from Missouri. And I knew him as Bill Greer. He had been the Dean of Men when I was a student at the Pasadena Playhouse School of the Theatre in 1947-48. Bill told me he had kept the family home in Missouri and would return each year during the spring hiatus. One day he was sitting in the requisite rocking chair on the large mid-west porch when a young neighborhood boy, eight or nine years old, came by, stopped and stared intently at Bill. Finally the boy said, “How old are you?”

“Fifty-one,” answered Bill

“Are you married?”

“No.”

The boy continued to stare at Bill. Finally he said, “I never saw a fifty-one year old virgin before.”

Moving right along it is now 1957, and I was working as secretary to Russell Stoneham in my first year on PLAYHOUSE 90. Gilmor Brown, the founder of the Pasadena Playhouse, called me one day with a request. I had by that time directed five productions in his personal PLAYBOX, a theatre adjacent to his residence. Mr. Brown (and I always called him Mr. Brown; I never could lower him or raise myself to the level of calling him ‘Gilmor’ as most people did) asked me if I would direct another production for him in the Playbox.

“What play is it, Mr. Brown?” I asked

“I don’t want to tell you until you tell me you’ll do it. Will you?”

“But what is the play, Mr. Brown?”

“I’ll tell you after you agree to do it.”

But being a Taurus, I naturally outlasted him. He finally told me the play was Eugene O’Neill’s THE ICEMAN COMETH. I immediately said of course I would direct it. I would be honored to direct it. Mr. Brown then told me he had cast one actor in the production, but he had not ascertained what role he would play. The actor was Onslow Stevens. You may not recognize the name, but Onslow Stevens was a wonderful actor in both the movies and on Broadway in the thirties and the forties. I remembered him from several appearances on the main stage of the Pasadena Playhouse when I was a student. I especially remembered his RICHARD II, which he both starred in and directed. After studying the play, I decided Onslow would play Larry, the one person in Harry’s Bar who, at the play’s end, was affected by HIckey’s visit to the bar.

Dabbs Greer agreed to take on the role of Hickey, one of the longest, most difficult roles in American theatre. Hickey in the last act had a monologue that ran over fifty minutes. I set a rehearsal schedule of six weeks, weekday evenings and weekend afternoons. One evening midway through that schedule I was rehearsing a scene between Hickey and Larry. After a runthrough of the scene I was offering a critique to Bill, and he attacked me -- ferociously and in a manner I had never seen him use. He said there was no use discussing the role, it was unplayable, he was sorry he had gotten involved, but since he was involved he was going to learn the lines and that was it. There was no reasoning with him. Onslow interjected himself into the fracas, and Bill turned his wrath on Onslow. There came a time when I was able to start talking to Bill again, and we were having a quiet, reasonable discussion, when I noticed Onslow had disappeared from the rehearsal room. It wasn’t until later that I realized that Onslow, the older theatre veteran had deliberately stepped into the line of fire. He had seen a young director in trouble and had come to his rescue. The next evening when Bill came to rehearsal, he brought me the following.

Double click on the illustration above to enlarge it.  To return to normal size click on the black triangle in the upper left corner of the menu.

Well it wasn’t lousy. Bill Greer gave a brilliant, mesmerizing performance. The tragedy was that Mr. Brown’s Playbox Theatre seated fifty people, all subscription, so it was a performance that went virtually unseen. It was a performance though that did gain a reputation. Three years later when I had moved to MGM, the trade papers announced that John Houseman was going to direct a production of THE ICEMAN COMETH for the Theatre Group based at UCLA. I had worked as a production supervisor for John when he was one of the three rotating producers on PLAYHOUSE 90 who replaced Martin Manulis. I bumped into him on the MGM lot where he was producing ALL FALL DOWN. I congratulated him on his upcoming production. I told him I was sure he would enjoy directing it as much as I had enjoyed doing the production for Mr. Brown. John then said, “Oh, you did that production!” So even if the production was not seen by many, it was talked about.  And I ended up as Houseman's co-director on his production of THE ICEMAN COMETH.

Getting back to our courtroom, Dabbs Greer, the accused janitor, is on the stand.

Being a courtroom drama there were some legal shenanigans as Mace attempts to save the life of the innocent janitor. He has his friend, the John Ireland character, come forward to testify that he saw the murder and made the phone call to the DA’s office. That fails. And then the sequence that seemed to be the staple of crime shows at that time.

I don’t remember shooting the car chase or the car over the cliff, although I remember filming several sequences for other films that were very similar. The only scenes in this episode that appear in the production schedule in my archives are the interiors of the two vehicles (Mace’s and the murderer’s) and the sequence on the cliff with the two police officers. I guess the car chase itself was stock footage lifted from some past Universal feature. This was often done. I know, because this too I did.

I think this episode too was an extension of New York’s Golden Age of Live Televison Drama.  It wasn’t afraid of talk; it wasn’t reluctant to speak of personal values.  It wasn't averse to having the climax of the drama play out in words rather than action, which certainly gave actors a chance to do what they're paid to do -- ACT! Wouldn’t it be nice if we had more of that today!

Mace returned home so we could finally do the infamous sequence that had caused so much anguish at the start of filming.  But the results were certainly far superior to what they would have been if we had had to film it that first day.

The set for this final scene, for me, was also infamous. Universal was the busiest studio in town, mostly television productions. When a feature film would complete photography, Universal would not strike all of the sets. The better ones were left standing, to be used by the television companies. This staircase set with the black and white checkerboard floor was one of them. And it was so identifiable because of that floor.  I remember the night A HERO aired, at the end of the show when the trailer for the next weeks production came on, there was that floor again.