Despite Whitney’s nailing it in one take, the crew worked late anyway. Penn didn’t stop filming until 7:55 p.m.
And the reverse, with Shatner now sitting and Eitner on the bed (Courtesy of William Krewson)
Day 5, Monday. Work continued in sickbay with the two Kirks. Putting the two together on screen would pose a new set of challenges. Jerry Finnerman said, “Oh, I remember that show.... They came to me... and they said, ‘You have to shoot split-screen. You have to do it.’.... I said [to myself], ‘What am I going to do?’” (63-3)
It is easy today -it’s all done digitally -- but not in 1966. Jerry Finnerman, 35 years after the fact, relived the terror of that day, saying, “I called my dear friend Lynn Dunn [of Film Effects of Hollywood]. He was probably the best special effects man around and a good friend of my father. I told him the situation, and he told me exactly what to do.... You take the camera and you get a soft matte line in the middle of the scene [dividing the set], where the actor can’t go over that line or he’ll be in the [opposite] shot.... And you have to block the camera off with a solid [black opal]... so one side of the screen is black; you can’t see anything.... Then you had to send the film to the camera department and they had to notch it.... Then we got the film back... notched... we put it in the camera, and we shot the scene, and Bill played to the mirror off stage [or to a double].”
“‘Cut!... Okay, do the other side.’... Now, they have to rewind that film to where the notch is. Meantime, the camera’s all tied off -- locked off and braced -- and we have to take the black opal and bring it over on the other side of the lens so that what was black is now clear and the side that was clear is now black.... And Bill played to the mirror [or double], off screen, and he was good.... I was beside myself, because I figured it wouldn’t work.... And I went home and I thought about it all night. I really did.... And we ran it the next day. Oh, I was so proud. I mean, I was really proud. That stuff just came out perfect. I have to thank Lynn Dunn for that; for telling me how to do it, or I would have been in bad shape.” (63-3)
Don Eitner, holding hands with Shatner, hugging Shatner, sharing the long hours in creating all those split-screens with Shatner, said, “I never worked harder than I did on Star Trek. It was a very exciting schedule. I had to rehearse both ‘characters’…. Bill [Shatner] even challenged some of the logic of the scenes in ‘The Enemy Within.’ Things were worked out and it turned out to be a terrific show…. Bill was very pleased with the results. The cast was very dedicated.” (57b)
Day 6, Tuesday, June 21, was the planned final day of production. The company moved onto the new engineering set. This was when Leonard Nimoy made a move of his own to rectify what he perceived as a problem in the script. The stage direction said that Spock “lunges out from behind one of the generators and kayoes the double.”
Nimoy recalled, “The scene jarred me when I first read it. It seemed more appropriate for the Old West than the 23rd Century.” (128-3)
Near the time of this production, Nimoy told a newspaper writer, “Although we are essentially a humanistic show, the Enterprise is heavily armed and a lot of guns get shown. My way of avoiding participation in the violence was the Spock Pinch. I decided that Vulcans knew so much about the human anatomy that they could knock out an enemy just by pinching a nerve in the neck and the shoulders.” (128-17)
Nimoy approached Leo Penn with his idea. Shatner had been listening in, so when Penn asked for a demonstration, he quickly volunteered to be the guinea pig. Nimoy recalled, “I applied pressure to the juncture of Bill’s neck and shoulder, and he most convincingly fell into an ‘unconscious’ heap on the floor. Thus the famous neck pinch was born, in part because of Bill Shatner’s talent for fainting on cue.” (128-3)
The “pinch” stayed, but had not been cleared by the front office. Producers Roddenberry, Justman, and Black had no idea that Nimoy, Shatner and Penn had behind their backs made a substantial change to the character of Spock and the format of Star Trek. They found out the next day while viewing the dailies.
Roddenberry and his creative staff couldn’t help but embrace the idea and immediately began looking for ways to use the pinch in future episodes. The gimmick was even given a name -- “The Famous Spock Neck Pinch.” In time, the pinch became so commonplace that it was merely referred to by its initials, with a passage in the script often reading, “Spock applies the FSNP.” Regardless of the acceptance, Nimoy had broken protocol and, before this episode saw the light of day, Roddenberry would make an attempt to pull the reins in.
Next on the schedule for Day 6 were sequences in the corridor outside Yeoman Rand’s cabin and the attempted rape in her quarters. Grace Lee Whitney commented, “It’s a violent, scary scene. Bill is a very physical actor and extremely strong. Because I had been on diet pills for so long, I was very light-weight and Bill picked me up like a twig and threw me around the room. We did endless takes on that scene -- and some of the retakes were due to the fact that my beehive wig wouldn’t stay on through all that tossing and shaking. It took us the better part of the day.” (183-2)
Whitney later added, “I was black and blue for weeks. Bill held me so tight that I had bruise marks with the imprints of his fingers on my arms -- for days!” (183-6)
Publicity photo NBC was reluctant to issue, depicting the moment after Rand scratches Kirk’s face (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
The final set-up of production was scheduled for the briefing room, but it was 7 p.m. and Leo Penn was more than 30 minutes into overtime. These last sequences had to wait until the next day, a seventh day of filming, delaying the start of Star Trek’s next episode.
Day 7, Wednesday, June 22, 1966. The camera followed Shatner as the vicious Kirk walked down the corridor, swilling Saurian Brandy. Also filmed: the tortured, passive Kirk, alone in the briefing room. Penn finished filming at 3:30 p.m., finally allowing director Marc Daniels to begin “The Man Trap.”
“It was a challenging show to do,” Penn said. “We had to hire a photo double and it was particularly tough in the scenes where they [the two Kirks] had physical contact. You had to resort to shooting over the double’s shoulder, switching them around and so on. It took time, but the results were worth it.” (137)
The bean counters at Desilu disagreed. Robert Justman’s explanation for Penn not being given work on Star Trek was because of daily overtime, and going six-eighths of a day over-schedule. Three episodes were in the can, and three directors (Sargent, Hart, and Penn) would not return.
“Television [directing is like] being a really good hooker,” said Penn. “It’s a one-night stand; you give it your best shot and do as well as you can under the circumstances.” (137)
Post-Production
June 23 through September 26, 1966.
Music score recorded on September 14, 1966.
Fabien Tordjmann began as head of the third two-man editing team here. He later said, “I worked for Gene Roddenberry on The Lieutenant at MGM.... I did not yet have enough time in the union, so I couldn’t do the [Star Trek] pilot, but the minute it sold they said, ‘We want you,’ which was very nice of them. In the meantime, I was going to do The Monkees. It was very different but I had to turn it down as I was committed to Gene.” (176)
Dorothy Fontana said, “Fabien’s team member was John Hanley, a lovely guy from Boston. It was really funny to listen to their debates back and forth – French versus Boston Irish – on the cutting. They were a great team!” (64-4b)
With this episode, Tordjmann and Hanley entered a most difficult race. Their challenge was to match the quality of the other two teams -- headed by the more experienced Bob Swanson and Bruce Schoengarth -- and meet the three week deadline given for each episode. Robert Justman described Tordjmann as “an excitable Frenchman, a rabid film buff” who was “enthusiastic and always ready to experiment.” But for this first assignment, Justman felt Tordjmann was a bit too enthusiastic.
Inspired by Jerry Finnerman’s expressive camera work, Richard Matheson�
��s risqué story and William Shatner’s sexually-charged performance, Tordjmann saw an opportunity to add a new dimension to American TV. Justman explained, “Fabien decided to enhance the story, utilizing an esoteric approach. However, the story had Shatner playing both Kirk and Kirk’s evil alter-ego; it was already esoteric enough for the television screen. Using experimental editing techniques was, to put it mildly, counter-productive.” (94-8)
There are a few brief instances left in the finished episode displaying Tordjmann’s proposed “esoteric” approach. At one point, the good Kirk with Spock enters the turbolift. Just as the doors close, without the camera angle changing, there is an abrupt cut to the same shot with a bloody hand now in center screen. Then the evil Kirk steps into the shot and sucks the blood from his own hand. If left to Tordjmann’s discretion, much of the episode would have been presented in this jolting fashion. Justman vetoed the idea.
“Bob Justman was very involved in the series, and I liked him very much,” Tordjmann said. “He was wonderful. He was very tough in the beginning with me, but I was very resilient, and we developed a very good relationship.” (176)
Regarding a second production goof in this episode, a mistake in filming had to be corrected in editing. During the climactic showdown between Kirk and his alter ego on the bridge, the scratch on his face suddenly jumps to the wrong cheek. The blame for this rests on the shoulders of director Leo Penn and cinematographer Jerry Finnerman. They “crossed the line” -- that is, they angled the camera wrong when they took this shot. To make the shot lineup properly with its corresponding reverse angle, the film had to be “flipped.”
Roddenberry, of course, saw problems of this type first-hand while screening the rough cuts and would routinely send notes to the film editors asking for changes. He also sent notes to his actors.
On September 14, as “The Enemy Within” was being prepared for delivery to NBC and Roddenberry again watched the first instance of the Famous Spock Neck Pinch, he wrote Nimoy, explaining that while he appreciated a good idea, “obviously none of us want this to become a habit since it is precisely this type of thing which has destroyed the format and continuity of more than one television series.” His letter continued:
The time and pressure everyone on set is undergoing during actual photography does not permit the kind of in-depth analysis of scenes which is necessary when such changes are to be made. Most often, as you are well aware, they may seem to improve the specific scene being shot but create difficulties and surprises in the cutting room later when it is suddenly realized that key information -seemingly unimportant at the time -- had been lost.... I’m sure you realize that I have little fear about the kind of professional changes which you come up with. But when one person makes a change, others who may be less capable are encouraged to stick in their oar, too, and you know what generally happens. (GR4-5)
Roddenberry’s battles with Nimoy over control of the character of Spock were just beginning.
Sol Kaplan, hired to write the score, was next to join the post-production phase. The 46-year-old had been creating music in Hollywood since the 1940s, primarily for motion pictures, including the 1953 version of Titanic and the 1965 Richard Burton hit The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Robert Justman, after hearing samples of the composer’s work, said, “It appeared to me that Kaplan was not only very talented but he was cerebral; he wrote intelligent music.” (94-9)
The Howard Anderson Company was assigned the job of supplying the optical effects, but, overwhelmed with too much work on too many episodes, was helped out by a second post production house, Film Effects of Hollywood. The latter billed Star Trek $4,000 for opticals and an additional $1,292 for “stage work” (miniatures and photography). The total, in 2013, equates to $38,200, with that bill coming in from only the secondary post effects provider.
The reason a shuttlecraft was not available to retrieve the landing party is that Desilu decided to defer construction of the life-size prop and its corresponding miniature until it was known if the series would be picked up for the balance of the season. This was a necessary decision. Even without a shuttlecraft, at a cost of $193,646, “Enemy” nudged above its studio-mandated allowance. Today this would be in excess of $1.4 million.
Release / Reaction
Only NBC air date: 10/6/66.
Stan Robertson at the network had worried over how the “Evil Kirk” might bother viewers tuning in for the first time and asked Roddenberry to push “Enemy” back in the broadcast schedule. But because the other shows in production had more time-consuming optical effects, the furthest it could be pushed would make it the fifth episode aired. For the night of October 6, 1966, there were no other episodes of Star Trek ready.
RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, October 6, 1966:
At 8:30 p.m., Star Trek was a strong second, a mere three-tenths of a rating point below My Three Sons on CBS, and beating ABC’s The Dating Game. Thirty minutes later, following the attempted rape of the mini-skirted Yeoman Rand by the “Evil Kirk,” Star Trek fell to No. 3, behind the family-viewing safe harbors of Bewitched and The CBS Thursday Night Movie. The “Tiffany Network” had brought out the big guns on this night with television’s first offering of the 1961 favorite, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard.
Regardless of the competition, NBC’s belief that the startling sexual assault on a yeoman by her captain was the reason for the mass exodus of viewer-ship and contributed to the decision to not give “Enemy” a network repeat broadcast.
On October 7, 1966, the day after “The Enemy Within” had its only NBC showing, Gene Coon (Star Trek’s new producer by that time) wrote to Fenton Coe, Director of Film Productions at NBC, requesting that the network stop correcting the color to make Spock appear to have “conventional flesh tones.” He explained to Coe that people from Vulcan were supposed to be “yellow” and “the sallower, the better.”
Despite the problems in getting this episode made, the continuity goofs, and the lack of a shuttlecraft, Roddenberry named “Enemy Within” as one of his 10 favorite episodes.
During an appearance on The Mike Douglas Show in 1968, William Shatner said “Enemy” was his favorite episode ... so far.
James Doohan commented, “A remarkably daring episode when you think about it. How many series, in one of their first half-dozen episodes, have an entire plotline involving the heroic lead’s darkest rape fantasies? I thought Bill’s performance was pretty okay in that one.” (52-1)
Richard Matheson said, “I thought Bill Shatner was brilliant. I loved what he did. He carried the whole thing. I was a little sorry that Roddenberry put so much emphasis on the crew being stuck on the planet. It took so much time away from Bill. But I liked it, and I was very satisfied with the production value.” (116a)
Grace Lee Whitney said, “I love ‘The Enemy Within’ because it gave me a chance to really react and act with Bill Shatner. I love it! I loved the whole concept of him breaking into two characters because that really was what Kirk and Rand were about. There were two sides of Kirk and two sides of Rand. Rand was there to be of service to him but she was also in love with him. But she knew she mustn’t over-go the boundaries.” (183-7)
Leo Penn said, “In every human being there’s good and bad. Hopefully, the good is reachable.... That particular Star Trek… was personal. There was a personal tug-of-war that was -- is -- intriguing stuff.... I worked very intimately with them, hopefully in a stimulating way. It was give-and-take. William Shatner’s a very good actor and gave a very good performance.... I had a good time on that show.” (137)
“Leo Penn was fabulous,” Grace Lee Whitney said. “We loved him. And all our directors were so excited to do Star Trek. It was something different for them. Something special.” (183-6)
Despite the praise from Whitney, Penn was already out of the building and not to return. Nor was sci-fi master Richard Matheson.
Richard Matheson didn’t write for Star Trek again. Or, more
accurately, he didn’t have his material produced for Star Trek again.
Gene Roddenberry, in a January 12, 1967 letter to Damon Knight, editor of the newsletter for the Science Fiction Writers of America, said that Matheson had been given an offer to take another assignment but, at that time, was unavailable. Many who knew Matheson -- members of the science fiction writing community -- believed the famed writer did not return to Star Trek because he was displeased about being rewritten to such a degree by Roddenberry.
Matheson stayed silent on the issue for decades, but, in an interview with this author, said, “I would have liked to have done more. I had some good ideas. I remember one where Kirk wakes up and the whole ship is empty. There were reasons for it all, of course, and a mystery for him to solve. But Bill Shatner suddenly being alone on this big ship was the basic idea, which I thought was intriguing. I sent that and some others in right after writing that first one. He [Roddenberry] just said no. I don’t know what his reasons were. Maybe his reasons were he just didn’t like me. Roddenberry had his own concept of what the series should be. He would try to influence the writing, but I just kept on doing my own thing. And my own thing happened to grate on him the wrong way.” (116a)
From the Mailbag
A sample of the letters received (and placed into the Star Trek show files) the week following this episode’s airing:
Dear Mr. Roddenberry... I usually am not inspired enough to write “fan” letters, but felt compelled to do so in your case. Let me begin by saying that you and your associates are to be commended for having the courage to present a truly stimulating science fiction series -- undoubtedly the first of its type to deal adultly with the fantastic themes that have so long stimulated fans of this genre. There is nothing like it anywhere on television and you can rest assured that I will be watching every Thursday night I am available to do so…. Certainly Richard Matheson’s scenario for the October 6 presentation was far and above the rest of your stories. He is a master and it showed in this single episode. Its theme was so eternal and thought-provoking -- the idea of each man possessing two sides. However, there was one single glaring error which so irritated me that I was forced to compromise my enjoyment somewhat. I found it most singular that the U.S.S. Enterprise does not carry aboard it any secondary craft. A comparable example would be “The Flying Sub” carried aboard The Seaview [in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea]. I ask that you continue to bring us Star Trek and its intriguing concepts -- but that you do so in a manner that is acceptable. Good luck with future episodes. With sincerest regards, John Stanley, TV Editor, Sunday Datebook, San Francisco Chronicle.
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 31
