OBSESSION - October 1967 (Star Trek)

Some time near the end of filming BREAD AND CIRCUSES, Herb Solow, executive in charge of production for Desilu Studios, and John Meredyth Lucas, the new producer of STAR TREK (replacing Gene Coon), came to me to check my availability to stay on and direct another STAR TREK. My preparation period would begin the day following completion of the current show. I regrettably had to decline. I never worked on the Jewish High Holy Days (Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur), and they were going to fall right in the middle of the next show’s schedule. Not to be deterred, Herb got out a calendar to see whether the conflict could be resolved. Rosh Hashannah would fall on the last two days of preparation. No problem, he said. I could have my preparation completed by then, so that it would not be necessary for me to come to the studio on those two days. The fifth day of filming would be on Friday, October 13. Yom Kippur began at sundown on that day. Again no problem he said. I could leave the studio late afternoon, and John, a director in his own right, would finish directing the day’s work. And that’s the way it worked out. And John from then on always referred to himself as my Yom Kippur director.

So let’s beam up to another of Jerry Finnerman’s colorful planets.

I was asked by one of the followers of this blog, how could the character Jerry Ayres played in an episode of the first year (ARENA) who was killeld, show up in this episode. I have since read an interview Jerry gave in which he said there was a scene filmed that explained that, but that scene ended up on the cutting room floor. I don’t think so; at least I didn’t direct that deleted scene, and I know it wasn’t one of the Yom Kippur scenes directed by John Meredyth Lucas. Another thing, the characters played by Jerry in the two productions have different names. I find all of this an unusual happening, since I know how careful the production was NOT TO BRING BACK ACTORS unless they were playing recurring characters. I’ll have an interesting story to tell on this same topic in a later posting.

This was the fourteenth time I directed Stephen Brooks. Our first two encounters were when he had a recurring role on the New York based THE NURSES. Two years later he was Jim Rhodes, Efrem Zimbalist’s sidekick on QM’s THE FBI. Stephen left that series after only two seasons. I never questioned why. Was it his choice to walk away because of the limited opportunities his role gave him, or did Quinn or the network want someone older? (Stephen when he started THE FBI was only twenty-three years old. The original story plan had been that Jim Rhodes was the fiance of Efrem's daughter, a character who soon disappeared from the series.) Or could it have been a request from Mr. Hoover’s FBI office in Washington? They were very careful to protect the image of their agents. Did Stephen’s youth make him too immature to fit that image? His replacement on that series was William Reynolds, an older version of Stephen, eleven years older.

I didn’t know Stephen away from the movie set. And on the set I knew Jim Rhodes (THE FBI), Ensign Garrovick (STAR TREK) or the twenty-one year old interne on THE NURSES. Why did his career end so early? There was a barber shop in Toluca Lake that many of the men on THE FBI went to. It was a barber shop, not a ladies hair salon. Its owner was Eleanor, and the barbers were all women. Beverly at the second chair cut Pat Sajak’s hair. Eleanor told me some time in the mid-seventies that Stephen was an unhappy, disturbed young man. He left Hollywood in his early forties and died of a heart attack in Seattle, Washington at the age of fifty-seven. Why do I bring this up? Because we are inundated ad nauseum with news about those in Hollywood who ‘make it’, many with a minuscule talent. There are so many more, talented like Stephen, whose star doesn’t shine, it only flickers. He was a sensitive and attractive young actor. WHY? To do a variation of the closing line of NAKED CITY, “There are eight million stories in Hollywood; the Stephen Brooks story is one of them.”

This was my first STAR TREK without Gene Coon as producer (and of course as writer). He stated he was leaving because he was burned out. I’ve wondered if Paramount’s purchase of Desilu Studio, with the subsequent shortening of the shooting schedule (and whatever other restrictions the new regime brought) could have contributed to Gene’s burnout. I for one certainly missed him.

The following scene I think is an example of how the shorter shooting schedule affected the creation of the screenplay. Remember my telling you that the usual length for a scene in a television script was about three minutes. The following scene runs almost seven minutes. The scene starts with a strong confrontation between Dr. McCoy and Kirk, but after Spock enters, we get two and a half minutes of pure exposition. And those two and a half minutes covered the same material that had just been presented in a two minute scene between Spock and McCoy that I have not included. There is a big difference between having your characters EXPLAIN a situation or DRAMATIZING IT. With exposition just set up a closeup and let the actor talk. The advantage of talk to the money men is that it required less movement and fewer camera setups and thus could be filmed faster.

I cannot speak for the other directors and the other productions, but I can definitely say that there was a drop in quality from THIS SIDE OF PARADISE, METAMORPHOSIS and BREAD AND CIRCUSES to the other two episodes I directed the second season. And I ascribe the reason for this drop to be partly caused by the lack of Gene Coon’s stewardship of the scripts and the rest to the impossible expectation that the episodes in this series could be filmed in five and a half days.

Now, have you finally realized you are watching Captain Ahab and Moby Dick battling it out in space?

As I bemoan the loss of Gene Coon, I don’t mean to dismiss John Meredyth Lucas. His was a formidable task. In one of my early postings I described what it felt like as a director coming to direct a long running series for the first time. It was like a Captain taking new command of a ship in battle. For John, taking over as producer of STAR TREK, I felt, it was like an Admiral being reassigned to command of an entire fleet. And to do it midseason -- a monstrous assignment. Filling Gene Coon’s shoes ... use your imagination.

John came from Hollywood royalty. His mother was Bess Meredyth, noted screenplay writer dating back to the silents. She wrote the screenplays for many of Garbo’s films and was twice nominated for an Academy Award. When John was ten, his mother married Michael Curtiz, who I think is one of the great underrated directors in filmdom. A total studio director who has never achieved an auteur status, but what a resume! What a range! CASABLANCA, CAPTAIN BLOOD, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, MILDRED PIERCE, ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, THE SEA WOLF, WHITE CHRISTMAS and on and on. He directed his first film (in Europe) in 1912, his last in 1961.

Now back to our story; and finally we’re past most of the exposition and into some drama.

And into the final battle between Captain Kirk and his white whale. Will he become lashed to the whale as Ahab was? That could promote Spock to Captain of the Enterprise and Leonard Nimoy to top star of the series. Wanna bet?

NO NAKED LADIES IN FRONT OF GIOVANNI'S HOUSE - March 1963 (Naked City)

After wrapping ALIVE AND STILL A SECOND LIEUTENANT, I flew back to the west coast, packed some fresh laundry, picked up my next script (a COMPLETE one again) and flew back to New York to start work on my third production for Herbert Leonard, another NAKED CITY titled NO NAKED LADIES IN FRONT OF GIOVANNI’S HOUSE. I arrived the morning of Saint Patrick’s Day. I checked into my hotel, and the production people picked me up to scout locations. There was only one major location to find, but we needed to do it before the day’s big Parade took place. That location was Benvenuto’s house, but why don’t I let the author’s script tell you what we needed.

After the turmoil of the search for the isolated house in Corpus Christi for ROUTE 66, it was a relief to find what we needed fairly quickly. As I was being driven back to my hotel, I asked where the company was shooting that day. I was told they were in midtown Manhattan. I decided I would be dropped off at the location, say hello to the crew and then walk back to the hotel. Little did I realize what I was letting myself in for. The company was shooting at a construction site, a new building going up. And when I say up, I mean UP!. Sixty-two stories up. And they were filming on the sixty-second floor. But having committed myself, there was no backing out. They dropped me off at the site, and I was escorted over to the outside elevator that was going to take me up to where the company was filming. I am being generous when I call what I got into an elevator. I swear it seemed like a piece of flooring attached to four tall vertical poles at the corners with horizontal bars about waist high to discourage (but not prevent) anyone thinking of jumping off on the ascent. As we went up, it did not seem as if we were rising; rather that the surrounding skyscrapers were dropping so that we were looking down on them. That ride stopped at around the fifty-second floor. The final ten flights had to be walked. The stairs for those last ten flights hadn’t been completed yet. The structural framing for the risers was in place, but the treads had not yet been built, so loose planks of wood were laid across the openings. I finally reached the top where the company was shooting. Totally open, with a nice cold breeze, no a not-so-nice cold wind blowing. I greeted everyone -- Paul Burke, the crew, stunt man Max Klevin and then found a box dead center where I could sit and watch. Paul Burke was at one end of the building, leaning over to see what was going on down on the street below. I feared at any moment the wind blowing would give him the chance to see it close up. They were doing a fight scene; Max and another stunt man had safety ropes attached to their waists as they struggled at the very edge of the building. I was already wondering if there might be the possibility of my sitting there until they finished the building so I wouldn’t have to get back into that elevator. And then they called lunch, and everyone started leaving. Well I wasn’t about to stay up there alone. Besides I was tired (I had traveled all night) and hungry. So I started down those improvised stairs to the fifty-second floor, where I had a decision to make. It was not a difficult decision. I WALKED down the remaining fifty-two flights, staggered back to my hotel, giving thanks all the way that I had not been assigned the script I had just visited.

The strange things that can happen. On ROUTE 66 when we didn’t have a completed script and had difficult locations, we started filming anyway. This time I had a completed script, a show that was going to film mostly in the studio, and my few locations already selected. I was ready to go, but I sat around for several days waiting, because the current show starring Piper Laurie was behind in its schedule. But even difficult shows finally wrap, and the one waiting in the wings goes into action.

No, you haven’t made a mistake and logged onto a COMEDY CENTRAL blog. That is the opening of NO NAKED LADIES IN FRONT OF GIOVANNI'S HOUSE, my ninth film and my first comedy (on film that is). My stage work had been close to fifty percent in comedy.

The interiors were filmed at NAKED CITY’s New York studio, which was unlike any studio I had ever shot in on the west coast. As I remember, I think it was located on 3rd Street in lower Manhattan. As I further remember, it was not really a film studio. I thought it was an old three story house that had been gutted to provide a couple of large pseudo sound stages; one stage housed the permanent police headquarters set, the other sound stage was for the swing sets, in this case the hallway and the apartment interiors. There was nowhere near the height of the west coast sound stages, so all overhead lighting was from lamps attached to the top of the set walls.

That is Al Lewis as tenant Carrari. The following season I wanted to cast him in the DR. KILDARE episode, MAYBE LOVE WILL SAVE MY APARTMENT HOUSE, but could not get him approved by NBC. So now sit back and enjoy a very funny actor at work, backed up by some fine talent provided by casting director Marion Daugherty.

This was a reunion for me with Harry Guardino. The previous September we had worked together on DR. KILDARE where Harry played an aphasiac. He had one WORD of dialog to memorize for that role -- “Wife.” He had considerably more lines this time around.

I think the influence of live television from the Golden Age of Television of the fifties was still being felt. This script by Abram S. Ginnes could have been produced on any of the New York hour-long live television programs of that era. I appreciated the quality of the writing when I filmed it; I appreciate it even more today when I compare it to the dearth of literate dialog being heaved at us from our screens -- large and small.

And as before, filming exteriors in New York city was an exciting experience. There is a visual energy that not only provides an exciting background to the action, there is another energy that seems to permeate the actors and add an extra coating of reality to their efforts.

The challenge of this script was to reconcile the very broad farcical events with the realism of the series. But then, isn’t that the secret of good comedy? When I was on staff of PLAYHOUSE 90, they did a production of James Thurber’s THE MALE ANIMAL. PLAYHOUSE 90 aired on Thursday night. Friday morning across the country newspapers would carry reviews, people at water coolers would discuss and critique the previous evening’s airing as if it had been a Broadway opening. The response to THE MALE ANIMAL was not good. The reviews were almost totally negative. It was the alternating show, so I had not worked on it. Lenny Horn, the assistant director on the production, was in the office the next morning, totally surprised and confused by the response to the show. He told me he had thought they had a fine production, a very funny show. He asked me what I thought of it. I said I didn’t think it was very good. He wanted to know why I thought that. I said, “Because it wasn’t real.” His response: “But it’s a comedy.” Get my point?

I don’t remember whether we shot the following sequence at a street market or whether we had to create our own market in the street. Strangely of all the sequences in the film, I remember this one most strongly during the editing session. Before I continue I think I should describe the usual procedure for editing a film. When the yards and yards (sometimes it seems like miles and miles) of film arrive, the editor puts together his first assemblage. This then is screened in a screening room for the producer, who will give the editor his requests for changes and cuts. (I am skipping over at this point the matter of the director’s cut. In the early days of television, as I described for you in my dealing with Quinn Martin, this did not exist.) The editor makes the requested changes, and the film is again screened for the producer. Any further changes the producer may ask for, plus the matter of editing the film to the specified length required by the network are made. Then the film is shipped off to the other departments -- sound effects, music, possible special effects -- before it is sent to negative editing. But Bert Leonard didn’t do it that way. During the few days I was back in Hollywood before leaving for Texas for another ROUTE 66, I went to the studio one afternoon. That afternoon at the studio turned into a late night event for me. Bert took me with him to the editing room where he had not one but three (maybe four) editors at work. Each editor had a reel of the picture that he was cutting. The room buzzed with the sound of the several moviolas. When an editor had completed assembling his reel (about ten minutes of filml) Bert looked at it, not in a screening room but right there in the editing room on the moviola. He had his hand on the moviola’s brake so that if he saw a place where he wanted a change made, he stopped the film and gave the editor his instructions, which the editor made note of. When he had viewed the entire reel, the editor went to work on the requested changes while Bert moved to another editor, another moviola. When Bert was satisfied with a reel, he said, “Ship it.” That’s the way he worked his way through the six reels. Never did he look at the film from beginning to end. Never was the matter of the length of time discussed. And for a director it was encouraging to see the care he took to make each moment in the scene work, his fearless intercutting of closeups for reactions with never a thought or care to “speed it up.”

Remember what I wrote earlier about Harry having more lines this time than the last time we had worked together. Now we get to the big climactic scene -- the confrontation between Benvenuto and his father. And Benvenuto has ALL THE LINES. (And I am giving you an abbreviated version.)

The final scene in Benvenuto’s house was in his basement. Somebody got the bright idea that if you needed the basement of a New York house for a set, why not use the real basement of a real New York house. So I was shown the basement of the building which housed the studios for NAKED CITY. It was great. Atmospheric. Sinister. But then some wiser heads prevailed. In the sequence we were to film, Benvenuto starts a fire in the basement. Even with the greatest precautions this posed a dire risk. There was one narrow stairway out of the basement. If a stray spark were to cause a major fire, there would have been 7 cast members, a minimum of 3 camera folk, me and the first assistant director, the sound boom man (the mixer could have been upstairs), at least 2 special effects men to tend to the fire in the scene, at least 2 grips and 2 gaffers and the script supervisor all rushing for that lone stairway. That’s a grand total of 20 people. As I said, some wiser heads prevailed, and it was decided to create a basement set in the upstairs studio.

There were two sequences in our script that took place at the docks; the first when Francesca arrived on the ship (which you’ve already seen) and the final one with the ship sailing away. Well obviously we couldn’t schedule two trips to the docks; that would have been too expensive. So I filmed the second sequence the same day as the first. But all film angles had to exclude the ship. We found out what date the ship would be leaving, and on that day a second unit (just an arriflex camera, no sound) was sent with Harry and Marisa to film two shots involving the departing ship. By the time the film editors put it all together, you would never have known it was not all filmed on the same day if I hadn’t told you.

At the time the three month period with Herbert Leonard Productions seemed to be my entry finally into a film directing career. Within a month after I completed my final NAKED CITY I was booked for ten more assignments, a full season's work. But looking back I realize that three month period was much more than that. The five scripts I had just directed were as varied as could be hurled at any director and placed challenges the likes of which I would never have demanded of me again. I don’t think it was that as I became more experienced, I was better equipped to deal with what was asked of me. NAKED CITY was finished; ROUTE 66 would return, but for its final season. I truly believe that this was the beginning of the homogenization of television. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen. Oh, there would be surprise pockets of creativity that crept onto schedules. Four years later STAR TREK beamed into space, and we all know what Paramount and NBC did to it; that it survived and became a classic in spite of, not because of them. A decade later THE WALTONS bloomed. But these were the exceptions, not the norm. Oh television made more money, but creative decisions were no longer being made by visionaries like Bert Leonard; now they were being made by General Electric and Rupert Murdoch.

ALIVE AND STILL A SECOND LIEUTENANT - February 1963 (Naked City)

I have to confess - I am not a New York type person. My first brush with the big city was a very brief stay in 1952, so my return to New York in 1963 to direct my first NAKED CITY was really my introduction to it. During 1963 I spent a great deal of time in New York, where I directed five more productions.

NAKED CITY was the first police story I directed. It was my follow-up production for Bert Leonard to IN THE CLOSING OF A TRUNK on ROUTE 66, and it was the first time in my career that I knew what and when my next job would be before I completed the current assignment. That was a nice heady feeling. There were just a few days at home between shows, and this time I had the complete script when I flew from Los Angeles to the east coast. Robert Sterling, who had guest starred in PRINTER’S DEVIL on TWILIGHT ZONE was set to guest star in the production.

My New York adventure started on West End Avenue, turning onto either 94th or 95th Street (I can’t remember everything) on a very, very cold winter day (that I remember). It’s the first scene in the film, and it was the first scene I shot.

It is said that the way to teach a person to swim is to toss him into the water and then it’s ‘sink or swim.” My five-picture stay at Herbert Leonard’s Productions was like that. I considered myself very proficient at staging and directing interior scenes on sound stages. But going outdoors for exteriors -- well I was getting a crash course in location filming; it was ‘sink or swim’ time. The wondrous thing was that I was given the opportunity by Leonard. Earlier I had been escorted by my agent to a meeting with Norman Lloyd, producer of television’s ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. Mr Lloyd said to me, “Our next production is a mystery with an advertising agency background. What have you directed like that that you can show me?” I at that point only had a couple DR. KILDARE episodes that were neither mystery nor advertising agency. I didn’t get the assignment. As to how I ended up on the streets of New York after a stint in Texas, you can read about my first interview with Herbert Leonard in the archives to the right of this column. (Just go to September 2009 - IN THE CLOSING OF A TRUNK.) It was now up to me to swim, not sink.

I had already succeeded in Texas, but I was more familiar with that kind of drama. It was theatrical and focused almost totally on actors' performances. It also had a very fine script (even though I received the script in an unconventional manner). New York was a whole new ballgame. There was a gritty reality to the material and to filming on the street that was a new directing experience for me.

Yes, that was twenty-four year old Jon Voight as the son of the slain man. I have to say I didn’t think he was very good. According to the Internet Movie Database this was his first film appearance. The following summer I went down to the Globe Theatre where he was appearing in two Shakespeare plays. Again he was not very good. When I say that, I am not demeaning the actor. I am complimenting him. I give him credit for going out and learning his craft. I also give credit to casting director Marion Dougherty. She was remarkable. Three of the five shows I directed did not have completed scripts when we started filming. I’m not sure what communication there was between her and Leonard, and what was the basis for her casting choices. But she knew actors, she recognized talent. She cast actors who were right for the parts they were assigned, and they turned in fine performances. If this seems to contradict what I wrote about Jon Voight, I disagree. Marion had obviously seen Jon in some off-Broadway production and recognized a blooming talent that deserved a chance. It was only six years later that he exploded on the screen with a magnificent performance in MIDNIGHT COWBOY. He indeed had gone out and learned his craft. And he is still a working actor.

Why do I bring this up? Because I think the rush to stardom for young people barely out of their teens does them harm. Acting is a craft, an art, to be learned and developed. Great stars are not born. They need a place to work and be bad in order to learn their craft. Gable, Cagney, Tracy -- all of them debuted in movies after they had passed the age of thirty. Bogie didn’t become a big star until he had reached his forties. And they are still with us as true screen legends. Where are those big stars of the Brat Pack: Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall et al. They had talent, but I think the early stardom without the major studios' supervision of the earlier years harmed them.

In Texas I had my first experience when filming a moving car sequence of using the tow car method. Here I was having my first time use of the camera IN THE CAR. I did prefer both methods to filming sequences with rear screen process. (Strangely the following season when I started working for Quinn Martin Productions, Quinn insisted on rear screen process for such scenes.)

During that crazy ride the camera operator and the camera were in the back seat. So was I.

I think NAKED CITY was one of the great television series of all times. And for me the reason was that Bert Leonard, when it came to editing (and I will be going into a detailed description of my experience with that in the next posting) had the courage to take his time telling the story; he didn’t edit to speed up the action that had been filmed; if anything he enhanced and embellished with the use of the coverage that had been shot.

Jack Priestley was the director of photography for NAKED CITY, and his style of lighting was different from the cameramen on the west coast. But it was a style that certainly worked for the series. Jason’s office set, if done on the west coast, would probably have been built at the studio. The New York studio for NAKED CITY was not nearly large enough to accommodate such construction, so we filmed on a live location. The result was a larger set than a television budget could have allowed for, and it was lit with very naturalistic lighting. I think there is almost a documentary feel to the filmiing which adds to the reality of the series.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the writing of the police in this series was far more realistic than I was going to encounter in my future cop-infested career. This incidentally was the only time I worked with Nancy Malone. But it was not the last time I was in contact with her. Two years later I was booked to direct the first episode of LONG HOT SUMMER, a series at 20th Century Fox based on the classic Paul Newman movie. A pilot had been filmed in which Nancy played the Joanne Woodward role. The pilot was scrapped, and a whole new cast was assembled. Since I was directing the first episode, I also was assigned the task of directing the tests of the replacement actors being considered for the series. All of the roles were cast except the Joanne Woodward role. The tests for that role did not produce an actress that the powers at the studio and the network found acceptable. They then decided they wanted Nancy after all and made the offer to her through her agent. Nancy was properly offended that she had been overlooked all of this time and turned them down. Frank Glicksman, who was producing the series and for whom I had directed TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH the previos season, knew of my association with Nancy on NAKED CITY. He had me contact her to try to influence her to accept the offer of the series. I telephoned her; we had a nice conversation, and I guess I convinced her that she should accept the series, which she did. The series turned out to be a big bomb. I’ve never seen or had contact with Nancy since that time. I wonder if she has ever forgiven me.

NAKED CITY was the first time I filmed a sequence in a cemetery. It wasn’t the last. A decade later I directed five episodes of DAN AUGUST starring Burt Reynolds. All five episodes had a sequence in a cemetery.

This was the second show in less than six months that I worked with Robert Sterling. I think he is a perfect example of Hollywood’s way of developing talent and then wasting it. His work in films reveals a very attractive young man hired for his looks, but the studios never utilized his developing talent. He and hes second wife, Anne Jeffreys, moved over to television in 1953 as the stars of the series, TOPPER. I can’t resist -- Robert Sterling had developed into a sterling performer.

In the follolwing scene Bert Leonard was not happy that I had Jason kiss Paula (which was not in the script stage directions). He interpreted it as a romantic moment, a love scene. I felt it was part of Jason’s desperate attempt to keep Paula under his control, to protect himself because of his crime. I still think I was right.

I started this piece by saying I was not a New York type person. That applied only to living in New York. Once I reported to the set to function as director, New York ceased to be a place to live. It became a movie set. And no art director ever provided me with a better place to film. I think there is no direction you can point a camera in New York and not get a wonderful picture (unless you’re aiming your camera directly into the wall of a building).

For me the power of this script was that it was an ordinary man, a common Joe, involved in a crime -- not a criminal. That was Hitchcock’s formula -- to involve some common man in his nefarious undertakings. Unfortunately there would not be many of these guys in my future adventures in crime.

I never saw Robert Sterling again. There are eight million stories in Hollywood; this was one of them.

BREAD AND CIRCUSES - September 1967 (Star Trek)

This posting can also be viewed

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

When I was interviewed by Dave Rohlf for the Star Trek History website, he and I surprised each other. I surprised him when I told him that I did not remember BREAD AND CIRCUSES with any great affection; that it was not on my list of shows of which I was proud. He surprised me when he told me that BREAD AND CIRCUSES ranked as a very popular episode of STAR TREK.

I was surprised later by a follow-up question. They wanted to know where I had filmed the sequences of the arrests being made. The locations were right on the studio lot, utilizing entrances to offices and sound stages.

And I was beaming back to STAR TREK after a busy four months during the summer directing a western, a court room drama, an episode of I SPY and my first INSIGHT which was live on tape. I discovered it had been a busy summer at Desilu Studios as well. Gulf Western, owner of Paramount right next door, had purchased Desilu. The wall separating the two studios had been torn down and it was now just one big unhappy family.

When I first came to STAR TREK, Gene Coon told me that although the shows were supposed to be scheduled for a six day shoot, actually it was averaging out to six and a half days per episode. The edict from the new owners was that ALL SHOWS MUST BE COMPLETED IN SIX DAYS. But there was more. A normal shooting day had a crew call of 7:30am for an 8:00am shoot. Actors’ calls were based on the amount of time needed for makeup and hair to have them ready for the 8:00am shoot. The day ended at 7:00pm. Another order from the new management was that filming must end at 6:12pm. That was 48 minutes less per day; 48 minutes times 6 is 288 minutes; 288 minutes divided by 60 is 4.8 hours, just 12 minutes less than 5 hours which is a half a day’s shooting time. In other words it was now being demanded that STAR TREK be filmed in five and a half days. As you saw in the clip, I was now challenged with putting a SPARTACUS-like saga on film on a schedule that would have satisfied the executives at Ziv Studios in the fifties.

To start this impossible venture we returned to Bronson Canyon where I had filmed the idyllic THIS SIDE OF PARADISE. But it was a part of Bronson Canyon new to me. I had previously filmed in the forest section of the canyon. I did not know about the cave.

Septimus was portrayed by the highly respected character actor, Ian Wolfe. Ian at this time was seventy-one years old. He had come to Hollywood in 1934 after a successful career on Broadway. I collect old movies (my library at the present time includes around 2400 titles), and there are times when I wonder if any movie back in the thirties and forties was made without Ian in the cast. His final screen appearance (and there were over three hundred of them) was in Warren Beatty’s DICK TRACY in 1990.

I had one major concern with the script. The early version I felt telegraphed the ending of the story. But I had TWO Genes working this time. Both Roddenberry and Coon divided up the scenes to be revised so as to establish the slaves’ religious belief in the Planet Sun..

And again Jerry Finnerman has to be commended. The interior of the cave was shot at the location in Bronson Canyon. When filming an interior away from the studio, everything had to be lit from the floor. There wasn't the advantage of lighting from above. Filming within the confines of the cave just added to the difficulty. But Jerry still managed to do more than just get it photographed. In the cave as in his work back at the studio, there was an artist at work.

And once again Bill ‘Honey, you wanna ride on my bulldozer’ Bramley (from THE BULL ROARER) ended up in front of my camera. He’s the leader of the police group making the arrest.

STAR TREK was Jerry Finnerman’s first assignment as a director of photography. He had been Harry Stradling’s operator for several years and Stradling was one of the giants of the profession. He was the one who urged Jerry to take the STAR TREK assignment. Jerry, like so many gifted artists, was not the most confident human being on the planet. In fact at the beginning of the first season of STAR TREK he wanted to be let out of his contract. Fortunately wiser heads at the studio prevailed and he was persuaded it was better for his career if he stayed on. He did and I believe he is due a great deal of credit for the look of the show. Again as in the cave he didn’t settle for the drab gray of the jail cell walls and bars. Jerry, although he had a fine crew of gaffers, set all of the lights. He painted with light. And the amazing thing was how fast he was.

Television scenes at this time rarely ran longer than three minutes. The following scene was more than twice that. The actual page count for the sequence was eight and an eighth pages. And it was not a scene that allowed for any movement once the five people entered and were seated. Plus which any movement would have required additional camera setups and time to light them. The scene was a lot of talk. It was on days like this that I was grateful and appreciative of the five talented actors who comprised the cast. I must put in a word here about leading actors in episodic television. Bill Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley after a long twelve hour day such as the one to complete this sequence (and I think there would have been an additional scene; I do not have my call sheets for this episode, but with a sixty-five page script, each day averaged out at at least ten pages), they would then go home with the requirement to work on the scenes for the following day’s work. To do it at all was an accomplishment. To do it with such skill --I bow my head in admiration.

The sequence in the arena is that part of our story most harmed by the time restrictions imposed by the new management. It was literally put together on the run. The second gladiator in the arena with Flavius was a very fine stunt man, Max Klevin, whom I had worked with in New York on NAKED CITY. I knew what he was capable of. The satiric look at live television was there; the spectacle of the Roman arena was less than it should have been. There was so much more that could have been done that would have been exciting and entertaining, but it needed time to stage and rehearse, with care taken to avoid injury to the actors involved. It should have been the breathtaking set piece of the production. But those wolfhounds in the black suits were nipping at our heels.

The role of Spock was both a starmaker and a cage for Leonard Nimoy. The unemotional character was an unusual creation and added substance and even comedy to the series. But for an actor of Leonard’s capabilities, most of the time it was limiting. Whenever there were ways to release him from these strictures (as in THIS SIDE OF PARADISE) it was edifying and entertaining. I’m not sure which Gene was responsible for the following scene between Spock and Doc (although I have my suspcions) but I think the scene is a winner.

Gene Roddenberry was doing a rewrite on the final climactic scene before the trio beam back up to the Enterprise. It was so last minute that I left the studio the evening before without the script in hand. Gene promised it would be waiting for me at the studio early the next morning. I arrived at the studio at 6:00am and, as he had promised, the script was there. While I was in the jail cell set planning my day’s work Ted Cassidy (Lurch on THE ADDAMS FAMILY television series) came into the set. He was guest starring on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE on an adjoining sound stage. I didn’t know him but either Leonard or DeForest was on the set and did. We planned a little prank to get the day off to a happy start. We filmed it; everyone knew what was going to happen except Bill Shatner. You may have seen it on one of the blooper reels that has been around for a long time. But here it is!

And here’s the sequence including the scene Bill thought we were doing before he was abducted.

As I wrote before, my early concern about the script was my fear the ending was being telegraphed. Both Genes worked on various scenes to establish the Roman slaves’ religious belief centered on the planet Sun. Now here’s our farewell to that week’s planet.

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 CASHIER AND THE BELLY DANCER - November 1982 (Casablanca)

What a difference a few weeks can make!

When I completed photography on WHO AM I KILLING?, the feeling in the company was very positive and hopeful. It was the second show in the can of a five episode limited series, and the feeling was very optimistic that CASABLANCA would be on NBC’s schedule for the following season. (The fact that it was being produced by David Wolper’s production company was an enormous plus.) I stayed on at the studio, finishing my director’s cut, at which time Charles FitzSimons asked me to direct the fifth and final episode of the series. I don’t know what created this vacancy; one director had been booked to direct episodes 1, 3 and 5; I had been booked to direct episode 2; and a third director had been booked to direct episode 4. As I said, I didn't know why the vacancy but there was no hesitation on my part to saying yes. Directing WHO AM I KILLING? had been a very positive, pleasant experience.

I noticed immediately a change in the atmosphere. WHO AM I KILLING? had gone over the eight day shooting schedule by one day. I don’t know if there were overages on the other episodes (I'm positive there were) and if so what they were, but Charles told me the studio was no longer as confident of having the series picked up by the network, and they wanted the last episode to be completed in the allotted eight days. They didn’t want to add to the deficit spending they had so far experienced. Since the new show did not have a difficult location action sequence like the Indian Dunes sequence in WHO AM I KILLING?, I didn’t foresee any problem.

The chances of casting a trained belly dancer with the necessary acting chops for the role of Queenie were several levels below probable. We met Melinda Fee who could dance, hired an accomplished belly dancer to choreograph the routines, and filmed the closer angles from the neck down on the photo-doubling belly dancer herself. (The set wasn’t large enough for me to photograph the real belly dancer in wide angle shots.) So before we get to the Blue Parrott where the belly dancer is performing, let’s drop in again at what has become one of my favorite night spots, Rick’s Cafe Americain.

During one of our casting sessions for this production, the name of Isabella Rossellini was suggested to play Queenie. David Wolper rejected the idea. He felt it would be tasteless; it woud seem that we were using her to capitalize on the fact she was Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, and we all know Bergman’s connection to CASABLANCA.

We only had one song to prerecord for this episode, but it was a good one; especiallly with the great Scatman dishing out the vocals!

Does anyone remember Astrid Allwyn? She was a movie star (mostly in B movies but some small roles in A features) from the early thirties till the early forties. Melinda Fee, our gambling-losing belly dancer was her daughter.

Now we’ve arrived at the major problem in this script. This movie (and I thought of them as short movies) was a caper film. What does a director do when the plan for the caper is more than unrealistic? I was faced with that same question many years earlier when filming THE TRAIN on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. (You can read or reread about it in detail in the archives to the right of this column.) Well my method of dealing with the dilemma is to cast aside all doubts, BELIEVE that IT IS POSSIBLE, and then put that belief on film as realistically as possible.

Claude’s ‘pacing’ the Banque de Maroc (the exterior) was a return to the Disney studio. As is the next sequence. But I still didn’t get to eat in the Disney dining room.

One producer I worked for wanted everything covered in closeups. Now in the early days of television with the smaller screen sets, there may have been some justification for this overuse of the closeup. I certainly liked to use them, but with discretion. There was a trick I learned during my many years at Quinn Martin Productions. Quinn had been a sound editor before becoming a producer, and he was an absolute fanatic about sound overlaps. When filming a closeup, the people in the scene not being photographed are also not being recorded on mike. So if the actors in the scene talk as people normally do, overlapping each other, there can be a problem editing the dialog. In scenes played at a faster pace and in emotional scenes, people don’t wait until the other person is done speaking before they talk. So the pacing in scenes filmed in closeup is left to the discretion of the film editor. I wanted to set the pacing of the scene. So I realized that when I did an ‘over shoulder’ shot, since both people were on camera and on mike, the overlapping of dialogue was allowed. If I tightened that shot so that I was photographing as little as the ear of the person in the foreground, the overlapping of dialogue was allowed and I was getting a closeup; actually many times a more interesting shot than a closeup.

In the case of the following scene, where I wanted to play it in an uninterrupted shot without any coverage closeups, I was fortunate to have in Charles FitzSimons a producer who understood the language of film. In addition to the dialogue revealing Claude’s explanation for his involvement with Senorita Inez, we visually see him as if trapped in a cage with Rick ominously encircling him.

The change in atmosphere I referred to earlier in the production offices, did not affect the attitude on the set. There the enthusiasm and dedication to quality were as high as ever. Rick had a table in the cafe where he played chess and which he used almost as an in-house office. The following is a scene from WHO AM I KILLING?

Joe Biroc came to me and excitedly told me there was an angle in the set that had not yet been filmed. He showed me where a wall could be taken out, giving us a much more interesting view of Rick and his table. You just can’t beat that kind of enthusiasm.

You would have thought that after directing film for twenty-one years, there wouldn’t be any more ‘firsts’ for me. Well, you would have been wrong. Midway through production my friend Charlie threw me an inside curve. Our script was running long, and in order to finish on schedule some possible cuts needed to be made. Since the scenes that could be cut were scenes in which Rick appeared, Charles and Harold Gast were fearful this might become an issue of contention with David. The potential cuts were pointed out to me. They would remain in the published script, but I needed to plan my filming as if they weren’t there. But if time allowed, they would be filmed, so I also needed to plan for their inclusion. I always planned my ‘bridges’ from scene endings to scene beginnings very carefully. So now in those places where a scene might be cut, I had to plan an ending of the preceding scene that could match either of two beginnings. Fortunately the following scene was not one of the potential cuts.

Rick’s place is wrecked by the Nazis searching for clues to his involvement because of the bricks of gold. Before the scene when Queenie comes to see him, Melinda came to me, concerned about her make-up. It was very bold, and if worn on the street would look like the make-up of a streetwalker. I said, “Let’s go show Joe.” We did, and Joe gave it his approval. The make-up man on the show was “Shotgun” Britton, one of the real old-timers in the profession. He was loaded with great expressions, one of which I have stolen and have used for years. When describing a person of lesser mental capabillity, “Shotgun” would say of him, “He’s two bricks short of a full load.” “Shotgun” certainly wasn’t missing any bricks, as you’ll see from the closeups of Queenie in the following scene.

And you can bet on it too. Rick shows up at the Blue Parrott. Incidentally, so does the belly dancer -- both of them!

Oh that Joe Biroc. His enthusiasm, his ingenuity, his knowledge of his craft never ceased to amaze me. We had a short thirty-five second scene at the main entrance to the Banque de Maroc, when the bank manager is unlocking the door for the Nazis. To film the door in its normal position was too restricting, so Joe took the door and its frame out of the wall and angled it to provide a more interesting composition that included three of the Nazi officers.

There were two safe doors to the room where the gold was stored. Two time Academy Award winner Preston Ames had designed the set according to specifications of research. The first safe door was a smaller door and the safe door into the final chamber was a very large door. Harold Gast, Supervising Producer for the series, came to inspect the sets. He thought the larger door should be the first door. Preston explained to him what his research had revealed. Harold was not to be convinced. He didn’t think it looked real. I remember that moment as being very painful. Preston Ames, a seventy-six year old man who had been a giant in the movie profession, a man whom I considered it a privelege and an honor to work with, a man whose knowledge and taste should have been revered, he was being forced to redesign the set to please Harold. If this seems as if I’m picking on Harold Gast, I’m not. Harold was my friend and I really liked him. But he like so many of the television writers who were elevated to producer status, did not have the background in production to prepare them for their new duties. And he, like so many of his contemporaries, didn’t adjust and adapt to his new role as producer.

Abby Singer was an assistant director, then a production manager, then a producer, but always one of the nicest people in the profession. As the filming approaches the end of a day’s shooting, it is the assistant director who calls out, “This is the last shot.” When Abby was an assistant director he constantly, after his last shot had been completed, would say, “Oh, there’s one more.” So what had been intended to be the last shot turned out to be the next to the last shot. As a result the next to the last shot of the day came to be known as the “Abby”. He is known internationally. Film students from around the world would come to Universal Studio to meet the famous Abby. So in honor of Mr. Singer, may I now present the “Abby” for this production.

And now the last shot.

CASABLANCA did not become a weekly series. Why not? From the advantage point of twenty-seven years later I now wonder if the very thing that launched the project may have ended up being the thing that sank the ship -- the name CASABLANCA. This was not the first attempt to make a series out of the screen classic. Warner Bros. had tried and failed in 1955. And it was not the last. Twenty-two episodes of a series called CASABLANCA were filmed in 1998 in Argentina.

There are some screen classics that defy being remade. When will Hollywood learn to let them rest in peace. And if you have to remake something, how about remaking some of those that weren’t successful. Maybe this time they’ll get it right.

WHO AM I KILLING? - October 1982 (Casablanca)

CASABLANCA was a limited series produced in 1982 by David Wolper in lieu of a pilot to secure a booking as a weekly series on NBC. I have been reading what scant material there is on the internet about this series. I have learned that 4 episodes were filmed, that 6 episodes were filmed, that 7 episodes were filmed. So let me set the record straight right off the bat; 5 episodes were filmed. I know. I was there. I directed the second episode and the fifth and final episode. The limited series aired in April, 1983. After only three weeks, it was cancelled. The other two episodes finally aired in August, 1983, during the dead summer season. The series was a total bust, a complete flop, a clunker. Then why do I remember it so fondly? Let me count the ways.

It was the final time I would work with my close friend, Charles FitzSimons, whom I had known since our early days in the late fifties at CBS. Charles and I were very much alike. We were both Taureans with birthdays just a week apart, but birth dates a full year apart. I was a year and a week older than Charles. Charles hailed from Dublin, Ireland, where he was a practicing attorney. He told me the story of why he left the practice of law. He was prosecuting a case against a defendant, and he won the case that he felt he shouldn’t have. The defense attorney’s inadequacy was the determining factor. This so disturbed him he resolved he would never practice law again.

Charles was the younger brother (by four years) of actress, Maureen O’Hara. He told me the charming story of how Maureen got her stage name. She had been discovered by Charles Laughton and cast in his film, JAMAICA INN. Before this she had appeared in two films under her birth name, Maureen FitzSimons. One day Mr. Laughton came to Maureen’s dressing room and announced, “Maureen, you’re going to change your name.”

Maureen, her red haired Irish temper rising said, “I am not going to change my name. I am perfectly happy being Maureen FitzSimons.”

But Laughton persisted “Yes you are. You are going to be a great star, and you can’t be a great star with the name, Maureen FitzSimons.”

The Irish temper went up a notch. “There’s nothing the matter with that name. Barry Fitzgerald didn’t have to change his name. Geraldine Fitzgerald didn't change her name.”

“Well there is a difference between FitzSimons and Fitzgerald. And besides, you’re going to be a bigger star. So you have a choice. You will be either Maureen O’Mara or Maureen O’Hara.”

And that’s how Maureen FitzSimons became Maureen O’Hara.

When John Ford came to Ireland to film THE QUIET MAN with Maureen and John Wayne, Charles was cast as an actor in the film. Ford took a liking to him and convinced him he should come to Hollywood and pursue a career as an actor. Charles did, but (and this is just my interpretation of what happened) he was actually too smart to be an actor. Thus he became one of the smartest producers in the coming field of television. He was the line producer for CASABLANCA, and I know it was his requesting me that brought me into the project. You will hear more about Charles as we wend our way through CASABLANCA. He was a very hands-on producer, but not the kind of hands-on aimed at controlling and restricting the director; he was always there as a collaborator, a fixer, most of the time out in front of the problem, ready to erase it before it arrived.

It was the second time I would work with production designer, Preston Ames. He had designed a pilot I directed the previous year for Norman Rosemont Productions. But his resume reads like a history of Hollywood. He won Oscars for art direction on GIGI and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. He was nominated seven other times for AIRPORT, THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN, LUST FOR LIFE, BRIGADOON, and THE STORY OF THREE LOVES. Some of his shows that didn’t receive award nominations were BELLS ARE RINGING, THE BAND WAGON (it’s hard to believe this show was not recognized), KISMET and DESIGNING WOMAN. His sets for CASABLANCA were the talk of the studio, if not the talk of the town. Visitors stopped by daily to see Rick’s Cafe Americain. Many were the photos taken at the main entrance to the club under Rick's Cafe Americain sign.

And now we come to Joseph Biroc, Little Joe -- a true Hollywood story. Joe told me he had been a late starter. The route to being a director of photgraphy started with being a second assistant cameraman, then up to assistant cameraman, then camera operator and finally director of photography. His contemporary Russell Metty was a director of photography at thirty. Robert Planck made it in his late twenties. Charles Lang, Jr. was in his mid-twenties, Robert Surtees was thirty-six, Stanley Cortez was twenty-eight and James Wong Howe was twenty-four. Joe was forty-three years old and he was still a camera operator. Then in 1946 he was operating on a major feature film when one day the director set up a shot and the director of photogrphy declared he couldn’t do it. The director took exception to this statement, turned to Joe Biroc and said, “Can you make this shot, Joe?” Joe answered, “Yes, Mr. Capra, I think so.” So Joe became the director of photography not only for that shot, for the balance of the feature. And when it was released the Directors of Photography credited were Joseph Walker and Joseph Biroc. The film was IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, the James Stewart classic that has become an annual must-see every Christmas. And now, at the age of seventy-nine with an Oscar and several Emmy’s on his mantel, he was still going strong.

So how about joining me and let’s drop in at Rick’s Cafe Americain in CASABLANCA.

No, I didn’t go out to sea for the parachutist and the soldier washed up on the beach. That was stock footage from some movie, probably a Warner Bros. film.

Before every shot in the club, special effects would come in with their bee smokers to give the club that smoky look. By the end of the second day I was having doubts about my future as a director. This was a return to work for me after an extended hiatus. And I was beginning to think that as I approached the age of sixty, possibly the directing grind might be more than I could cope with. Then the third day we went to the Disney studio where we filmed exteriors all afternoon and into the night, and I realized it was not age creeping up on me; it was those damn bee smokers. Starting with day two, David Wolper would comment at the end of the screening of the dailies from the previous day, "More smoke!" So we added more smoke. The next day -- "More smoke!" Finally David Soul spoke up and told Wolper, "David, for God's sake, we can't breathe now."

Our only major casting chore was for the role of Celia Havard, an English woman attractive enough to be a leading lady, capable of playing some pretty heavy dramatic scenes, and oh yes, she had to be able to sing -- a lot. There was a long line of of auditioners. Lorna Luft, Judy Garland’s daughter and Liza Minnelli’s sister, was one of them. One of the stars of the original Broadway production of one of my favorite musicals, A CHORUS LINE, came in. She had won a Tony for that production. And then Trisha Noble showed up. She was Australian and appeared to meet all of the needed qualifications. She got the part. That was Trisha seducing the table of Nazi officers in the clip you just viewed.

One of the fun things I got to do for this production was select the songs we would use from the Warner Bros. catalog. I also was present on the recording stage the day the singing was prerecorded. I’ll tell you more about that later. And a really exciting day was when we filmed Scatman at the piano as he sang AS TIME GOES BY for his closeup in the introductory billboards.

And that hunk in the red jacket behind the bar, that was a very young, very handsome Ray Liotta, four years before his breakthrough performance in SOMETHING WILD.

So how about an encore from Trisha, Scatman and Ray, all set to music.

One of the things that always amazed me was that I never directed anything for the Disney studio. They had an exterior street that was perfect for some night sequences in our story. But that would hardly make a day’s work, and it would have been impractical to move to their lot for such a short time. So rather than creating the internment camp we needed with the Warner Bros. tan sound stage buildings in the background, Preston Ames erected his wire fences with the Disney Studio tan sound stages in the background. And I got to film something on the Disney lot. But I still didn’t get to eat in the legendary Disney commissary that I had heard so much about through the years.

One of the fallacies of television was calling a program like this a one hour show. True it filled an hour of time when it was aired. But deducting the time for the commercials, for the opening billboard credits, the closing credits and the station break at the half hour left just under forty-seven minutes for the drama to unfold. This story had a great deal of plot and a great many characters. It’s hard to grab an audience emotionally when you’re steamrolling in so many directions.

In order to get Rick to secure sulfa for the wounded English flyer, Sam feigns illness so that Rick thinks he is getting the drug for him. Rick goes to see Ferrari at the Blue Parrot. Both the exterior of the Blue Parrot and the interior were on a Warner Bros. sound stage.

More plot. When Rick brings the sulfa to Sam, Sam admits he was faking, that the drug is for the English flyer. Rick immediately suspects that it was Celia who instigated the plan to get him to obtain the drug. (See what I mean about TOO MUCH PLOT.)

And now some more plot (which also helps keep the very large resident cast involved and happy.) It also is an added chance to see the opportunities Preston Ames’ sets gave me for interesting coverage. I’m referring to Rick’s being able to overhear and see what the Major is planning.

The original script for the following sequence took place only in the sitting room of Celia’s hotel suite -- the scene between Celia, the Major and Sacha, who soon leaves. The danger of the English flyer in the bedroom was to be shown only by Celia’s nervousness. I thought the scene needed to be more dangerous. This was more than a matter of staging. Since it involved another set and two other actors, I coudn’t just do the additional staging on the set. It involved the scheduling of the other two actors. I presented my idea to Harold Gast, the Supervising Producer in charge of script and he approved of what I wanted to do.

I was impressed with the presentation of the musical numbers in the film, CABARET. I liked the strong spotlight directly behind Liza that silhouetted her with the flares projecting from her body. I needed a strong opening for the following song by Celia, and I asked Joe Biroc to do the first setup in a back lit profile. Little did I realize I was going to get something even more impressive than what I had envisioned.

The day we prerecorded the music for the show, Peter Matz, the music director for the film, declared after Trisha sang this song, “That is the best rendition of that song I have ever heard.”

When we screened the first cut, David Wolper (and I never really understood the reasoning behind his request) asked that we shorten this number. Harold Gast was concerned that we would have to do another recording session and possibly a refilming of the sequence. Fortunately enough of my previous music background enabled me to take out eight bars of song and footage without destroying a sequence I was very proud of. And Harold was relieved and appreciative of my effort.

I screened the original CASABLANCA today. The powerful romantic story I think is what has made that film an enduring classic. (And of course the presence and performances of Bogart and Bergman, which are several degrees above powerful.) With only forty-seven minutes we were limited. But we tried.

The following sequence was the main reason we utilized the Disney Studio. For the shot from the top of the stairs as the three people go down, after they exited and the camera panned back to see the arrival of the Germans, I asked Joe Biroc could we please have the shadows of the troops appear before they did. It took all of twenty seconds and I had my shadows.

The final five pages of the script presented a location problem. The truck with Rick, Celia and the flyer in it is parked behind a grove of trees in an isolated area. The plane arrives and the action continues. The only available site near enough to the studio to avoid an overnight location trip was Indian Dunes. (It was the site incidentally where the recent freak accident on the set of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE had resulted in the deaths of Vic Morrow and two children when a helicopter crashed on top of them.) But it had no grove of trees for our truck to hide behind. We reported this back to Harold Gast, and his reply was, “I guess you’ll just have to find another location.” But there was no other location. Remember what I said about Charles FitzSimons. I don’t know what magic formula he used on Harold, but in a day or so revised script changes came out that had the plane waiting when the truck arrived.

David Wolper had a request. He definitely wanted to see the plane fly off at the end of the sequence.

Those five pages ended up as the final three minutes (excluding the tag epilog) of the drama. It took the whole day to film and we just barely were able to comply with David’s request. The light was definitely fading as the craft took off and the Nazis stood over Celia’s dead body.

These episodes were not being filmed on the usual schedule for episodic television. Because the five shows were taking the place of a pilot, more time was being allotted for their production. WHO AM I KILLING had been scheduled to film in eight days; the reality was that it took nine days to complete. But there were no complaints. I had been booked to do just the one show. In my next posting I’ll tell you about my staying on to direct the fifth and final outing on CASABLANCA.