“I’ll never forget it,” said Bill Blackburn. “One of the grips was carrying a reflector and he tripped and, all of a sudden, that tiger just went berserk. The tiger had a chain around its neck, but the chain came off from whatever base it was attached to.” (17a)
Eddie Paskey, Shatner’s stand-in for the lighting set-ups, wasn’t about to stand in against a tiger. He remembered, “Bill was like six feet from this thing when the chain came off and, of course, everybody went nuts.” (135-2)
“In my mind’s eye, I see Shatner jumping on top of the big prop box,” Blackburn added. “Everybody else was, like, transfixed; they didn’t know whether to run or not. And then the trainer came running in and got hold of the chain. It was one of those things that could have been really bad.” (17a)
Shatner recalled, “Instantly my testicles rose up into my Adam’s apple and the ignorant machismo that had been pulsing so heartily through my veins was replaced by sheer abject terror. I stood there trying not to look too horrified as I gracefully backed down [from the idea of wrestling the tiger], ‘for the good of the show.’” (156-8)
At mid-day, the company made a move to the “Upper Lake” for the scene featuring Sulu finding the handgun and target practicing, and multiple camera dolly shots of Kirk and others running along the path. These later sequences required the laying of track so the large heavy camera and the men who operated it could be mounted on a rail platform and glide along, “tracking” Kirk and those who trailed behind as he ran toward the source of the gun shots. It is an elaborate type of shot and takes hours to set up and execute.
Emily Banks said, “I didn’t realize that I was going to be running around with legs hanging out [from the uniform] and shoulders hanging out [from the torn tunic]. But I do remember I did a lot of running. There was a lot of running. And I remember thinking on the first couple days, ‘They don’t want an actress, they want an athlete!’ I was exhausted, and we kept running and running.” (9a)
Bruce Mars said, “We did do a lot of running and jumping. And Emily Banks did too. She was running back and forth with Shatner for the camera. And I saw her a few times just huffing and puffing afterwards. But so cooperative. She never complained.” (113a)
Of her running partner, Banks said, “Bill’s a lovely man; very talented; very calm. In fact, everybody was very calm, despite the pace of the work. It was just very easy to work with them. Everybody couldn’t have been more helpful. We had a good time.” (9a)
It was 7 p.m. and already dark for over an hour when the company turned off their daylight-simulating lights and wrapped for the night.
Day 4, Monday, October 24. Work continued around and near the Upper Lake, as Kirk chasing Finnegan (with Bruce Mars’ ankle having sufficiently healed) toward the rock area, and McCoy and Yeoman Barrows finding the storybook gown. After this, the company packed up and drove to Vasquez Rocks for the first of many visits. Work began late in the day for the scene where Kirk meets the image of his former flame, Ruth. The big “HMI” arc lights were again brought in to simulate daylight as the company continued shooting an hour into darkness, stopping at 7 p.m.
Day 5, Tuesday. Spock’s beam down at Vasquez Rocks was filmed, as well as more with the Tiger (now kept on a chain -- a chain even the camera could see), and Finnegan baiting Kirk to follow him further into the area of the giant jagged rocks. Bruce Mars recalled, “Bob Sparr said to me, ‘Hey, Bruce, are you afraid of heights?’ And I don’t like heights! So I said, ‘Well … why? What’s up?’ And he said, ‘Do you see this big rock up there -- it’s about five stories high and I’d love you on top of that baiting on our captain.’ And I said, ‘Holy mackerel, that’s way up there! What’s the shot?’ He says, ‘We’re going to shoot at you from below, you up there jumping up and down and waving your hands and everything.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ even though it wasn’t anywhere near being okay, and I went up the back of the rocks and stepped out on there. It was made all the more difficult because they had those high-heeled boots which weren’t really grabbing on the rock surface. So I’m out there and Bob Sparr is yelling up at me, ‘Alright, move forward! Forward!’ And, man, I was freaking out! And he was yelling up, “Forward! Forward! Come on Bruce, move forward! Now jump up and down and wave your arms!’ Man, that was wild.” (113a)
Also filmed, the start of the epic Kirk/Finnegan fight.
Day 6: With sun setting and temperatures dropping, Nimoy and Shatner rehearse dialogue for post Kirk/Finnegan fight scene (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
Day 6, Wednesday. The company had expected to be back at the studio for Day 6, but Robert Sparr, suffering through all the last minute rewriting, laying track for numerous dolly shots, and chasing daylight, had by this point fallen a full day behind. Nearly all of this day was spent shooting the balance of the fight between Kirk and Finnegan.
Bruce Mars recalled, “Bob told me that Gene Roddenberry wanted the fight expanded, that he felt it would be good for the show and make a great visual of me and the captain fighting. So he said, ‘Bruce, make it rough and tumble.’ I really enjoyed Shatner in that. We talked about the fight, and with Bob Sparr about working out some ballet moves -- ‘This will happen here and this will happen there, and the stuntman will do this, and you will do that.’ Shatner was very nice to me, asking me what I was doing and what I wanted to do. You never really know what to expect -- incredible arrogance or whatever -- but I remember thinking, ‘This guy’s a really good guy.’ And he made sure I had a couple good scenes during the fight. He’d say, ‘Let’s do this and let’s do that’ and, ‘Ah no, the camera should be here not there,’ and he would go talk to Bob Sparr about it. So he got me some good moments and I have nothing to say but good things about him.” (113a)
Shatner, barely covered by his torn tunic, braves the cold (Courtesy of Gerald Gurian)
It may very well have been the best-staged fight shot for TV. Paul Baxley and Vince Deadrick subbed for Shatner and Mars, respectively, for the more brutal punches and flips.
Bruce Mars said, “I thought it was great. And something that spoke well of Bob Sparr is he was always taking the time to talk to Jerry Finnerman. He’d tell Jerry his ideas, but if Jerry had an idea that sounded right, he’d do it. He’d sign off on it and let Jerry do it the way he wanted. And I thought that was terrific to see a director and a cinematographer in such good sync.” (113a)
So much time was put into the fight, in fact, that there was precious little time to shoot the other scene that had to be completed this final day on location -- Sulu’s encounter with the Samurai Warrior.
George Takei said, “I remember us losing the sun. That scene where the Samurai soldier leaps out -- that was supposed to be daylight. The beginning part we shot in daylight, and we had to match it. We were shooting that at nine o’clock at night. They brought in all of the lights they could to try and simulate daylight. It was really tense.” (171-1)
The location phase of the filming finally wrapped a bit earlier than Takei recalled, but still well into darkness at 8 p.m.
Day 7, Thursday, October 27, was spent in safe harbor, on Desilu Stage 9, for scenes on the bridge and in Kirk’s quarters. Emily Banks continued to be featured prominently with the series regulars in a role that many believed might become a recurring one. The last shot for “Shore Leave” was taken by 5:52 p.m. And, finally, that was a wrap, allowing cast and crew to make it home in time for NBC’s first airing of “Miri” -- broadcast episode #8.
Post-Production
October 28 to December 6, 1966. Music score recorded on December 2, 1966.
There was magic in the editing room, too. Fabien Tordjmann and Editing Team #3 excelled at piecing this episode together.
“I was fascinated with ‘Shore Leave’ because they talked of being in a place where all your wishes are fulfilled,” Tordjmann said. “They shot with two cameras, and the director was Robert Sparr, a wonderful man.” (176)
That five-minute fight between Kirk and Finnegan, alone, is a masterwork. And it
was Tordjmann’s idea to let Finnegan pop in and out of the scenery at Vasquez Rocks, helping compensate for inconsistencies in the filming and, at the same time, present the dreamlike structure of the story.
Bruce Mars said, “We went back into the studio and did some wild lines for audio – with the laughing and yelling, that maybe didn’t catch so good out at Vasquez Rocks.” (113a)
“[They] didn’t have time to finish the sequence where the man [Finnegan] is taunting Kirk,” Tordjmann said. “I didn’t know how to put that thing together. It was really a problem, and 20 minutes before the first screening I decided how to do it -- to literally have him popping in everywhere, taunting Kirk and talking to him over Kirk’s shoulder.... The guy runs, Kirk turns around, and he goes somewhere else. I had to put them all in, but it was really wild.... And they loved it. They kept it that way.” (176)
It was also Tordjmann’s idea to do something different with the Enterprise, and this is the only episode where the ship is shown orbiting a planet from right to left. The reason the large model could only be filmed from the left was that the right side had access points for the electrical wiring. To achieve the effect seen here, the film had to be flipped. On screen for an instant and unapparent unless closely scrutinized, the numbers on the nacelles are reversed.
The Westheimer Company handled the Photographic Effects, including coloring the shore leave planet in a strikingly rich green.
Gerald Fried, 38, was hired to score the unusual episode. The composer had been writing music for television and films since the early 1950s, including a pair of movies directed by Stanley Kubrick -- The Killing and Paths of Glory. On TV, he was a frequent contributor to series as diverse as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, and Gilligan’s Island.
Fried said, “It was Bob Justman with whom I dealt. I met Gene Roddenberry maybe twice. Now, this was before they handed us DVDs of the work, so we had only one or two shots at watching the edited episode. In a day or two, the music editor would send us timing notes down to a tenth or even a hundredth of a second. And that’s in front of us. There’s every start and stop of dialogue; every pause over a second is indicated by the music editor. So it’s pretty much all there in front of us. We know it’s going to be a crunch of a schedule, and we’re used to it, and it’s kind of exciting. And, yeah, the fact that it was so varied was a lot of fun. That episode was right up my alley.” (69-5)
Fried recalled his inspiration for the fight between Kirk and Finnegan, saying, “Here’s this Irish tough kid who tormented Captain Kirk in college. I thought, what could be more exciting and stimulating than an Irish jig? But you can’t make it too danceable, that would be ludicrous. So I thought, let me take the feeling of an Irish jig and put it in some kind of symphonic setting. And so, instead of playing your ordinary battle music, make it an Irish jig battle music. So that was the feeling and thinking behind that one. I just followed them with all the starts and stops. That’s why we had timing notes. A minute and seventeen and two-thirds seconds, they rest; Kirk slips on the rock here at a minute and twenty-three and nine-tenths seconds.” (63-5)
Justman, in a letter to Coon, said:
The music was delightful. Gerald Fried truly found the right notes and tempo for the moments between Kirk and Ruth, and also for the epic Kirk-Finnegan fight.... In its own way, the action sequence between Kirk and Finnegan rivals the very famous fist fight in The Quiet Man. (RJ17-6)
Fried later said, “Bob Justman actually told me that the fight music rivaled the music in The Quiet Man after the scoring session, which pleased me no end.” (63-5)
The music accompanying Kirk’s reunion with Ruth, as Justman pointed out, was also immensely effective. The hauntingly beautiful love theme would later be used to great effect in “This Side of Paradise” and “The Apple.”
In 2011, Gerald Fried said, “I get letters from all over the world, including references to that theme (Ruth’s love theme).” (63-5)
After only two viewings of the episode, and less than a week to compose the music using only timing notes, Fried’s score was recorded and laid onto the completed episode. There could be no further manipulating.
Fried said, “They were under such pressure to go on to the next episode that once it was scored they didn’t touch the print.” (63-5)
Justman liked all the post audio in “Shore Leave,” and made a point of telling this to Coon as well in his lengthy letter, saying:
The use of the tinklybell sound as a planet background noise was a very good thought for this show. It was different and additionally gives a touch of magic to the proceedings. (RJ17-6)
Justman told Coon that he was “particularly impressed” with the work of Bruce Mars and Emily Banks, as Finnegan and Yeoman Barrows. He felt that Barrows, in particular, came off as a person that people would like to see again, and the rapport between her and McCoy should be explored in future episodes. Coon was not in agreement. He felt the flirtation between her character and McCoy, as directed by Sparr, had gone a bit far. If Yeoman Barrows returned, the implied relationship would have to be dealt with. The easy solution: Emily Banks was not offered further work. Bruce Mars would be – for Season Two’s “Assignment: Earth.”
Justman’s letter to Coon ended:
I think that “Shore Leave” was probably the most entertaining Star Trek show we have produced to date. I am probably alone in my opinion, but I am telling the truth as I see it. (RJ17-6)
It needed to be the most entertaining Star Trek show produced to date. It cost enough. With the reduced budget from Desilu, down to $185,000 per episode from $193,500, episodes such as “Shore Leave” would be few and far between. This one came in at $199,654 ($1.5 million today). The series’ cash surplus -- thanks to the savings that came from transforming “The Cage” into “The Menagerie” -- had now dwindled to $7,772.
On the very day Sparr was wrapping, Roddenberry was rightfully covering his and Coon’s asses with NBC. Along with the Revised Final Draft of the script, the one written after the start of filming, he sent a cover letter to Stan Robertson. It said:
Perhaps there is some “I never break my word” ego behind this, but I would appreciate your reading over carefully this final version of “Shore Leave.” You may recall I promised you this would not be an “illusion” show. It isn’t now. No one was at fault, certainly not Gene Coon. In his gradual switch-over to taking the reins of more and more of the producing, this was one item about [this] particular show we never did get around to discussing. And, as you know, I was on vacation.... The final rewrite I did was accomplished while the show was actually being shot, at considerable risk and hazard to our budget and schedule. I felt I owed it to NBC and to you. (GR17-6)
It was a valiant attempt, but the talking white rabbit opener was going to have jaws dropping at NBC Burbank.
Roddenberry would survive. Others, sadly, did not.
Despite the excellent direction, Robert Sparr had fallen out of favor with some. Bruce Mars shared, “I know there were some grumbles. Some of the actors weren’t thrilled with Bob Sparr and how he handled things, but, boy, I loved him. I thought he did a great job. He knew what he wanted to shoot. But he must have rubbed a few of them the wrong way with some of his shots. I remember they laid two sets of track for different dolly shots to have Shatner running after me. I wouldn’t say there was friction, but I could feel an undercurrent there that perhaps [taking the time to shoot with the dolly and making Shatner do all that running] was just over the top.” (113a)
In his post-production letter to Gene Coon, Bob Justman argued:
Although I realize that a great deal of effort went into the cutting of this film, I am of the opinion that Robert Sparr did a superlative job. I realize that I am probably alone in my opinion, but I think that the conception of his shots and the motion and energy he created in his depiction of the exterior scenes was a truly creative achievement. Notwithstanding the fact that Bill Shatner and some of the other actors found much fault with Bob Sp
arr’s abilities as a director of actors, his overall filmic judgment has definitely come through in this show. Perhaps he did not give lip service to the egos of our series’ regulars, but Bob Sparr really cared about what he was doing and I, for one, am sorry that circumstances [are making] it impossible for us to bring him back. (RJ17-6)
Justman was right. Sparr would not return. Sadly, the director was killed in a small plane crash three years later when scouting locations with Star Trek cinematographer Jerry Finnerman. The pilot was also killed. Only Finnerman, severely injured, survived.
Release / Reaction:
Premiere air date: 12/29/66. NBC repeat broadcast: 6/8/67.
RATINGS / Nielsen 30-Market report for Thursday, Dec. 29, 1966:
During the first half-hour of “Shore Leave,” Star Trek placed a strong second to The Dating Game. With the second half, Trek was No. 1, snagging nearly 33% of the total television viewing audience. The CBS Thursday Night Movie, in third place, was 1962's Five Finger Exercise, starring Rosalind Russell and Maximilian Schell.
For its repeat airing on NBC, on June 8, 1967, “Shore Leave” was the second Star Trek episode to be given the spotlight of a TV Guide half-page “CLOSE-UP” listing, and thereby enjoying the ratings boost that always accompanied such a distinction.
RATINGS / Nielsen National report for Thursday, June 8, 1967:
According to A.C. Nielsen, the repeat of “Shore Leave” won its time slot. The CBS movie was 1962’s Damn the Defiant!, starring Alec Guinness. Despite the tendency in America for families to hit the road for their summer vacations, thereby reducing the number of households tuning in, Nielsen’s estimate of 10,980,000 families watching (factoring an average of two people watching in each household) gave this rerun of Star Trek an audience of nearly 22 million. And this did not count those viewing it over NBC’s affiliate stations in Canada, where Star Trek had achieved “hit” status.
These Are The Voyages, TOS, Season One Page 71
