“Spock’s end is in how he will delay this. What can we invent to justify Mr. Spock, a loyal officer and a friend to the captain, being, for this one time, an adversary? But also redeeming himself at the end of the story? And that redemption comes in knowing he would do this for his current captain, too. He would risk his career and life for Kirk, as we see him do for Pike. So this is what I had. This and that idea of a shipboard trial where we see Captain Pike’s side of it -- ‘The Cage.’
“I discussed these ideas with John and handed it off to him. He gave it an honest try, but I didn’t care for the mechanics of his story. This takes us here; this takes us there. So I went back to what I had and rewrote it. Completely.” (145)
Black’s complaint in 1966, and for over four decades to follow, has to do with his belief that the broad story points -- what little the two scripts have in common -- were his invention, not Roddenberry’s. He said, “I never again trusted blindly in the process. I never again trusted that the truth would win out by itself.” (17-1)
Pre-Production
(no director prep days)
To use the footage from “The Cage” a new deal had to be struck with the director and performers from that original pilot. The footage was, after all, being exploited in a context other than originally intended.
Robert Butler, who directed the pilot, was offered the job of expanding it into a two-part episode. He said, “Gene shelved the first pilot and wrote it as Enterprise history -- what had happened with the craft with the previous commander and all that stuff.... He called me and asked me if I wanted to direct the material around it so it would be a full two-hours by me, and I said, ‘No thanks, I’ve been there, good luck.’” (26-3)
Even four decades later, with the legendary status Star Trek had achieved, Butler could not see any value in his work on “The Cage” or the series it helped to launch. He said, “I don’t get it.... To me, it’s too preposterous, too clean, and it’s too wordy. Now, Twilight Zone was preposterous and wordy, but it was in black and white, it was a half-an-hour... They’re about the same size, aren’t they -- in our television history -- Twilight Zone and Star Trek? And I can get Twilight Zone because they’re just good yarns, but I don’t honestly get Star Trek.... People love it -- I’m not going to argue that -- but, for my tastes, it seems too square-jawed, too heroic. I don’t know; I’m mystified.” (26-3)
A deal was worked out where Butler took sole credit for “The Menagerie, Part 2,” since the footage from “The Cage” dominated that segment. Marc Daniels, hired to shoot the new footage, received sole credit for directing “The Menagerie, Part 1,” which leaned more toward the new scenes.
On October 18, Ed Perlstein wrote to Shirley Stahnke at Desilu Business Affairs that he had closed a deal to pay Jeffrey Hunter $5,000, Majel Barrett $750, Peter Duryea $750, John Hoyt $750, and Adam Roarke (who played the minor role of Chief Garrison) $600, in consideration for granting permission to allow their scenes from “The Cage” to be used in the two-part episode. But it wasn’t until November 14, after the end of production and just days before the broadcast of “The Menagerie” that Perlstein wrote to Stahnke, saying he had finally secured permission from the few holdouts -- Meg Wylie, Clegg Hoyt, Ed Maddan, Georgie Schmidt, and Serena Sand for an undisclosed amount. And he was fighting Leonard Nimoy, who wanted $1,250 for use of his footage from the original pilot.
The way Nimoy and his agent looked at it, the actor was getting cheated out of an episode, getting paid for only one new Star Trek instead of two. The way Desilu saw it, Nimoy had already been paid for “The Cage,” therefore already been paid for the first of the two parts. Desilu was the winner in this round of what was becoming a growing Star-Trek-versus-Leonard Nimoy saga.
Malachi Throne, who had provided the voice of the Keeper in “The Cage,” would now appear on screen as Starfleet Commodore José Mendez.
Malachi Throne with Robert Wagner on It Takes a Thief (Universal TV, 1967)
Throne had continued to gain status in Hollywood and, at 37, was a guest star in great demand. Besides having previously worked with William Shatner in The Outer Limits episode “Cold Hands, Warm Heart,” Throne had a recurring role in several episodes of Ben Casey, and recent multiple appearances on Rawhide, Mr. Novak, The Fugitive, and The Big Valley. Within a few months of this, he appeared as a murderous double-agent on I Spy, a madman obsessed with ruling the Earth on The Wild, Wild West, the ghost of Blackbeard the pirate on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the evil Falseface on Batman, and the Thief in “The Thief from Outer Space” on Lost In Space.
“Oh God, I loved that part,” Throne said of the Thief. “Oh was I ever chewing up the scenery! Irwin Allen just let me do any piece of shtick that I wanted, and I had them all. It was fun landing those jobs and going from one show to another. As a performer, you felt worthwhile that you were capable of shifting gears whenever it was called for. And there was little time for rehearsal, so you were working on your toes all the time. It’s not the same thing as in the theater where you’ve had three or four weeks to come up with something. In TV, you had to come up with something right away. You just had to move right in.” (173-2)
One year after his appearance here, Throne moved right in for a co-starring role with Robert Wagner in It Takes a Thief, a series produced by Gene Coon.
Julie Parrish was Miss Piper. She was 26 and had found a career in acting after winning a national modeling contest for which Jerry Lewis was the judge. Lewis subsequently cast Parrish in two of his early 1960s films. Frequent work on television followed, including a part opposite Jeffrey Hunter in his series Temple Houston.
Majel Barrett had dual roles here -- as Number One in the flashback segments and as the Voice of the Enterprise computer for the trial sequences.
Hagan Beggs made his second and final appearance as helmsman Lt. Hansen (last seen in “Court Martial”). He is in operational command of the ship when Spock hijacks the Enterprise to Talos IV. Beggs said, “When talking to Roddenberry, he was a very easy guy to talk to. And he had a very nice eloquence about expressing this idea of his that things can be so different -- different from what was on television at the time, and different from how many saw the future as possibly being.” (12-1)
John D.F. Black was almost called back to active duty on Star Trek -- not as associate producer or story consultant but as an actor. Mary Black said, ‘Dorothy [Fontana] called and said that they had this really fun idea. Because John’s eyes matched the eyes of Jeffrey Hunter -- and they couldn’t find another actor who had the right eyes, and they were so sure John’s did -- they wanted him to come in and sit in the wheelchair and be Captain Pike, with lots of makeup on.” (17a)
John Black said, “Both of us immediately had the attitude that that wouldn’t be very much fun. I didn’t hesitate at all in turning it down.” (17)
The search for the right set of blue eyes continued.
Sean Kenney gets a touch-up (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Sean Kenney was 24 and new to TV when offered the chance to “sit in” for the former Enterprise captain. Kenney had auditioned for Casting Director Joseph D’Agosta and then, one week later, was called back to Desilu to meet with Roddenberry. For his memoir, Captain Pike Found Alive!, Kenney wrote, “I sat facing his desk and noticed my casting photo was lying there…. At first [Gene] talked about the show’s concept and the fact that he had been looking for a lead actor to play the role of a former Starship Captain…. As I sat down, Gene got up and walked around me holding my casting photo in his hand. Continuing, he said that the lead character, Pike, had been severely injured in a training accident and was unable to speak or move any body parts.”
Roddenberry explained to Kenney that he would only be able to communicate to the other actors and the camera by beeping. Kenney remembered thinking, “I’m the lead actor but no lines and all I do is beep, beep, for yes or no, hmm…”
Roddenberry continued, “You have a strong resemblance to an actor named Jeff Hunter, who
is unfortunately filming a movie in Spain and is not available for the role. You’re sure you don’t have any allergies to latex makeup which will be used extensively on your face? It’ll be the same makeup reconstructed every day for at least a week.”
Kenney added, “Even if Gene had said, ‘And we’re going to starve you for those eight days,’ I would have said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ Later, on the set, I actually felt like I was being starved. I had to eat all of my meals through a straw due to the heavy makeup restrictions.” (100-3)
Kenney, rewarded for his suffering, would return for a pair of Star Trek episodes with no latex makeup needed -- to play Lt. DePaul in “Arena” and “A Taste of Armageddon.”
Production Diary
Filmed October 11 (two-thirds of a day), 12, 13, 14, 17 & 18, 1966
(Planned as 6 day production, only took 5 & 2/3 days; total cost: $220,953).
Filming began mid-morning on Tuesday, October 11, after Marc Daniels took his last shots on “Court Martial.” Those final sequences were from Stage 10, the Starbase courtroom set. The company quickly made the move to Stage 9 and the bridge for the start of production on “The Menagerie.” Daniels covered all the bridge sequences needed for both Parts 1 and 2, then moved to the transporter room, then even made it into the Starbase Commander’s Office to begin shooting with guest star Malachi Throne.
Of his first day on the set, Throne said, “I had a terrible time initially in the makeup; I didn’t want them to cut my sideburns. In those days you had long sideburns, and they wanted to cut them in a peculiar angle. Oh, I objected to them so much, but to no avail. It was a funny thing. It was hilarious. But that started me off. And then when I got on the set, it was interesting because it was another world. You didn’t quite have the familiarity with the furniture, with the ambiance. It was very interesting trying to adapt. You had to present a sense of seeming comfortable, as if you were in familiar surroundings, as if you were in your own living room. And you had to do this while wearing those costumes with no pockets to put your hands in, and you couldn’t smoke a cigarette if you wanted to -- all the usual kind of tricks that actors use were not available to you. But you didn’t want to just casually walk through this thing; you wanted to relate to it in a specific way. That was what Leonard was willing to do, and all of them. It was quite extraordinary of them to be able to do that, because it was a bit of a conflict to seem normal within that environment.” (173-2)
Day 3: The beam down site - this wall on Stage 10 (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Day 2, Wednesday, continued with the scenes in the Base Commander’s office, then on to Spock’s quarters, where Sean Kenney joined the cast as the horribly disfigured Captain Pike. He said, “They had to dye my hair white, which I wasn’t too happy about. I had never worked with extensive makeup before and it was a scary time when Fred Phillips wanted to perfect the makeup by making a life mask. They applied Plaster of Paris to my face with only two little rubber hoses in my nostrils for breathing.... My face hardened up like a rock and suddenly I wondered whether I was going to breathe or not.... The appliances were very tight around the face. Eating was very difficult, so my lunches were taken through a straw, consisting of soups and mush... It was quite an experience.” (100-1)
The end results: a composite shot now including Albert Whitlock’s matte painting of the Starbase (Unaired film trim courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
For Captain Pike Found Alive!, Kenney elaborated: “Being a guest star on a show with no lines and unable to speak to any of the actors and crew [due to the makeup] had an interesting twist to it. After a few hours and not adding to anyone’s conversation, you become a very keen listener and you also become like part of the set -invisible. You start to hear interesting anecdotes coming out of certain people and you develop a keen insight into their personalities. I got an ear full!
“I soon realized that, yes, Bill Shatner was not well liked and in fact he was disliked. But then again, his role was the Captain of the ship and he took his role seriously, on and off the set. I didn’t have any personal confrontations with him but he was known to thoroughly chafe the various directors on the show during filming. Shatner was from Montreal, Canada and a trained stage actor who used his voice effectively to bark out orders.” (100-3)”
Next, a move back to Stage 10 for Shatner and Throne in the shuttlecraft. All this and Daniels managed to wrap at 6:42 -- less than a half hour into overtime.
“Tie-down” composite shot using footage from “The Cage” (Unaired film trim courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
On Day 3, the company remained on Stage 10, beginning with the “Int. Base Mall Hospital Corridor,” and on to “Pike’s Hospital Room.” Also shot this day, the beam down area against a small portion of a white brick wall with empty stage beyond, to be used for the matte shot showing the entire Starbase complex looming over them in the distance. A move back to Stage 9 took the company to the “Starbase Computer Center,” not hard to spot as a redress of Engineering, and then into the “Hearing Room.” It was 6:45 p.m. when Daniels took his last shot of the day.
Later, the 8:30 p.m. premiere of “Mudd’s Women” on NBC -- Star Trek’s sixth broadcast episode. And everyone was watching. The Star Trek cast and crew were quickly becoming a family, much more so than on nearly any other series. This was due, in part, to the extra hard work and long hours put into the making of every episode, but also because of the excitement generated over being part of such a unique series. America was watching, too. Star Trek, with “Mudd’s Women,” won its time slot for NBC at 8:30 p.m., with a 31.4 audience share.
Malachi Throne reacting to Shatner’s onset antics, and trying to get a smile out of Nimoy (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Days 4, 5 and 6 were all spent in the Hearing Room. It was a long three days for Sean Kenney under all that makeup and taking his meals through a straw. He said, “Most of the feeling had to come through my eyes, especially due to the fact that they would tie the corners of my eyes down with scotch mending tape and give me an aged look.” (100-1)
Malachi Throne, taking it all in, said, “It was hard to get a smile out of Leonard when he was in character. Of course, with Leonard, it’s hard to get a smile out of him anyway. He does have a sense of humor, and a good one at that, but when he works he is very serious. Leonard was Spock. Now Shatner was the opposite. And I’m sure that was a relief from the severity of his character. Bill was fun, but he was also forthright and adamant about everything, because that was his character. And poor Sean -- Sean was stuck in the box.” (173)
On these days, Daniels wrapped at 7:15, 6:55 and 7:06 p.m., respectively, anywhere from 35 to 60 minutes into overtime.
Sean Kenney recalled, “On the last day of the shoot Gene Roddenberry came up to me and congratulated me for my terrific ‘emoting job.’ Then he surprised me by offering a reoccurring role as Lt. De Paul, the ship’s first helmsman. That’s when De Paul was born. He said that I had put up with a lot and he wanted to reward my tenacity and good spirit.” (100-3)
With the very organized and frugal -- and, according to Jerry Finnerman, “pushy” -Marc Daniels directing, the new scenes for both Parts 1 and 2 of “The Menagerie” were completed in only five and two-thirds days. And this was accomplished with Daniels having no prep time. The front office was singing his praises.
Post-Production
October 19 through November 9, 1966. Music score: tracked.
The race was not yet over. Part 1 would have to be ready to air on NBC in less than a month if Star Trek was going to honor its air dates. The series had fallen that far behind. Less than four weeks were available to edit, to create all the needed photographic effects, and to dub the episode. Up to now, the shortest amount of time it had taken to push an episode through all these phases of post-production was six weeks for “Charlie X.” The second-fastest delivery was “The Man Trap.” As a result, these were the first two episodes to air. The longest time it had taken, so far -- and these two hadn’t even made it all the way
through the process yet -- was for “The Corbomite Maneuver,” which would end up spanning nearly five months, and “Balance of Terror,” requiring over four months. NBC was being kept in the dark as to how dismal the situation was at Star Trek, but the studio knew -- and there wasn’t a single person at Desilu who believed “The Menagerie, Part 1” would make its air date.
Robert Justman was a nonbeliever, as well, but on October 21, 1966, in a memo to Roddenberry, he expressed a degree of hopefulness. He wrote:
Believe it or not, what I am about to outline may sound improbable, but it is certainly not impossible. I do believe that the very clever and energetic, but highly overworked, Mr. Swanson may have a rough cut on Part 1 of “The Menagerie” ready sometime tomorrow. You will remember that we received the last of the dailies on this show yesterday. (RJ15-1)
Robert Swanson was pushing Editing Team #1 to make a rough cut in only two days. It needed to happen that quickly for Eddie Milkis and his post-production people to have time to do their end of the work. Justman was hoping against hope that this might happen.
To help the cause, Justman made his case to Roddenberry to stay clear. He wrote:
This [will] get us “dupes” back sometime on Tuesday, October 25th, and thereupon our sound effects and music editors [can] start building up the reels for dubbing the following Monday. To meet this schedule, it is, of course, necessary that we condition ourselves to making only the editorial changes that are really inherently necessary in this film. I think we should discuss the broad, important areas with Bob Swanson and then give him the picture back and let him run with it. (RJ15-1)
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 64
