Jul 25
STAR TREK The Conscience of the King | S01 E13
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STAR TREK The Conscience of the King | S01 E13
I've had plenty of criticisms of prominent figures in the production of TOS like John Meredyth Lucas and Gene Roddenberry. But for the opposite of the Mirror Universe version, I'm also kind of fascinated by the person who seems to have been among the most universally liked and artistically admired figures involved in the whole damn show: Jerry Finnerman, the brilliant director of photography for two and a half seasons (aka the vast majority of the show), and at the time one of the youngest in the business.
When director Ralph Senensky was first brought onboard to film "The Devil in the Dark" only (to his disappointment) to get reassigned to "This Side of Paradise," he also first met Finnerman, to his eternal delight—
Jerry Finnerman because of STAR TREK became one of my closest friends.
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From the beginning our working relationship was a friendly cooperation that very quickly evolved into an exciting collaboration. Half of PARADISE had been filmed outdoors in daylight. Filming ["Metamorphosis"] on a soundstage where the director of photography has to provide ALL of the lighting is a different matter. I was about to see at work an incredible artist — Jerry Finnerman.
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He was an incredible director of photography, a true artist who painted with light. I feel that Jerry has not been given his full due on his enormous contribution to the series and that also applies to producer Gene Coon, who left the show a third of the way through the second season.
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In spite of Paramount studio’s cutting almost a half-day from the shooting schedule, Jerry Finnerman’s photography remained exemplary. His lighting as always continued not only to light the bodies, but it illuminated the inner drama.
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One day during filming ["Is There In Truth No Beauty"], after Jerry had lit a scene, I said to him, “Has anybody been talking to you?” He reluctantly told me the production manager had requested that he speed it up. Jerry was leaving [his budget and wages were under the Paramount axe and he noped out]. He would not have been affected if filming ran an extra day.. I knew what he had done was to protect me. I told Jerry I thought he should continue lighting as he had always done.
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The biggest change facing me [in directing "The Tholian Web"] was the loss of Jerry Finnerman. He had departed the series, and his camera operator, Al Francis, had been promoted to director of photography ... I don’t feel it is disparaging to point out that Jerry Finnerman was sorely missed. His were very large shoes to fill, both as to his artistic ability and his speed. Al Francis, very new to the post of director of photography and faced with a very difficult show with unexpected complications—well let me put it kindly and just say—his feet were smaller.
This is not exhaustive, just a few of the many times Senensky was still lavishing his friend with praise in the later years of his life (Senensky lived to be 102, Finnerman 79).
But others remembered Finnerman fondly as well, very much including the actors.
I'll have to track down the source again, but I read that Barbara Anderson, who played Lenore Karidian in "The Conscience of the King" (I already babbled about how, in addition to the fantastic qualities of the episode as written and performed, it's also got some of the most superb scenes visually) developed a blemish on her face shortly before the episode. She was deeply anxious about it being seen onscreen and Finnerman readily promised to light her scenes to conceal the blemish:
In 2011, the (then) five surviving main actors from the show were asked (by email or phone) by the official Star Trek site to say who they felt was the most "unsung hero" of Star Trek, the person who did the most as an individual but didn't get credited properly in the mythmaking around it. Nichelle Nichols responded,
Jerry Finnerman - Cinematographer who with his meticulous and sensitive lighting created the Uhura "Look.”
Today as well as then, photographers and cinematographers are often notorious for being careless and insensitive about lighting darker skin, especially when it comes to Black actors. Not that you all don't know, but this is the "Uhura look" in question:
In Grace Lee Whitney's memoir, The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, she said of Finnerman:
His contribution to the show has been greatly underestimated. His skillful use of color, backlighting and focus effects greatly enhanced the visual impact of the series[...] Color drenched Jerry's images, and gave the show a visual feel that has never been duplicated by any other show, or even by the Star Trek shows and movies that came afterwards. Jerry Finnerman's vivid and skillful use of color in the show may well have been one of the deciding factors that kept NBC from cancelling the show after the first and second season.
Meanwhile, Finnerman's artistry and personal kindness were always important to the show, but probably never more so than on one of its greatest episodes, "The Devil in the Dark"—the reason that the actor who has probably most emphasized Finnerman's decency as a human being is William Shatner, for entirely personal reasons.
So, for context: Whitney also noted in her memoir that, despite his later reputation, she didn't find Shatner difficult to work with or particularly self-absorbed, beyond what might be expected of a 35-year-old without much of a social net who was evidently worried about his daughters and sick father before the show even began. But it was early in 1967 that Joseph Shatner suddenly died in Florida, and Ann Shatner unexpectedly called her son on the set of "The Devil in the Dark" to tell him. According to Eddie Paskey (the stage double for Kirk, who did double duty on dozens of episodes as the omnipresent Mr. Leslie), it wasn't clear to most of them that anything serious was going on. Everyone "in the know," including Finnerman, put on such a good front that Paskey didn't even know why he was asked to do more work for that specific episode until long afterwards.
Behind the scenes, the story was different. Apparently Shatner kept his shit together well enough to appear like normal before people like Paskey, and retreated to go have his crying meltdown out of sight. It was Jerry Finnerman—a young man the same age as Nimoy and Shatner, who like Shatner had been close to his own father—who took him aside and talked to him about how his father died a few years earlier on set and how he got through it.
There's an unusual degree of consensus about what happened afterwards. The crew offered Shatner the rest of the day off, despite the studio's tight deadlines; it would be hours before he could catch a flight home to Montreal. He didn't want to be alone, however, and insisted on working through his usual hours, though he acted entirely on autopilot in a barely comprehending haze, guided through his scenes by Nimoy and Finnerman to such a degree that he seemed entirely normal to people like Paskey.
Shatner later said that, as much as it was an absolute nightmare at the time, in retrospect it was his favorite TOS experience because while he didn't remember the details of much of anything that day, the kindness of Finnerman and Nimoy on that day left such a strong impression. Even in much-later interviews where he's straining to remember Finnerman's name, he'll chatter about how incredibly compassionate and thoughtful he was as a person.
So, back to January of 1967: Shatner left for Montreal, and the crew were left with a challenging episode (the reason it was taken from new director Ralph Senensky and reassigned in the first place) without the lead actor, and trying to operate within the incredibly tight schedule that all episodes were made on at the time (slightly more generous before Paramount acquired Desilu and Star Trek with it, but still, what we'd consider labor violations). They decided to handle the problem by filming as much material as possible for "The Devil in the Dark" that could technically be done without Shatner there—basically, moments where Kirk isn't present, or where you don't see his face or hear his voice. It's actually a pretty Kirk-centric episode, so this took some doing, but they had Eddie Paskey come in and, explaining nothing to him, stand in for as many of Kirk's scenes as possible.
So, Finnerman managed to:
help console and guide the devastated lead actor, and film the scenes he was even there for in such a way as to obscure the fact that Shatner was blankly going through the motions of his scenes and steered around by Nimoy
film Paskey as Kirk as much as possible, without giving away the fact that the Kirk in these scenes was a completely different person to the audience or the reasons for the extra hours to Paskey himself
go back to full-throttle normal work as soon as Shatner returned from the funeral (still not at his best), at which point he and Nimoy quickly had one of their many spats and weren't even talking to each other beyond scripted lines
light and film the Horta (who looks roughly like a papier-mâché pizza monster) as a creature evoking real fear and then real pathos
also, the episode lacks the usual TOS eye candy to buy time, except Nimoy and (when available) Shatner themselves, since the Horta is the only female character in it with any significant screen time.
It's one of the greatest, most visually haunting, and well-characterized Star Trek episodes of all time.
When it came to make a DS9/TOS crossover episode for the anniversary, Finnerman's work remained so brilliantly inimitable that the DS9 team literally couldn't imitate it on their own, and had to personally contact Finnerman himself to figure out how to create the "look" of TOS for their own episode.
He finally won an Emmy for his work in cinematography in 1978, and in 1996, he was (very deservingly) inducted into the Producers' Guild Hall of Fame for Star Trek. He retired in 2002 (aged 70), and died in 2011, buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, the cemeteries and mortuary where especially prominent Jewish people in US arts and entertainments are often interred. It's not hard to see why it seemed an appropriate resting place.
Don't you see? All the ghosts are dead. I've buried them. There's no more blood on your hands.
TOS | The Conscience of the King
i feel like 60s TV fandom Tumblr is sleeping on Ironside. Like... no judgement or anything!! I mean, I've been obsessed with 60s TV for over 30 years and I only discovered it this week! I already feel as though my whole life has been wasted because I haven't always been obsessed with it, though, so I'm here for my fellow 60s TV aficionados with some reasons why you too ought to discover it if you haven't already.
Consider:
Openly gay lead actor in the 1960s
Black main cast member whose role was not being The Black Guy™ (in a similar vein to Greg Morris who was cast as Barney Collier in Mission: Impossible a year earlier)
Disabled lead character with no chance of 'miraculous recovery'
Portrayal of disability accommodations up the wazoo for said character, and/or how being disabled affects his daily life.
So much grumpiness.
Disabled character retains Police Chief title in an honorary capacity as a consultant - despite being unable to do all the running about that policemen tend to do in these shows, because he's THAT good of a detective the police force can't cope without him, wheelchair or no wheelchair.
Seriously the show was entirely written to raise disability awareness. Handled a bit clumsily sometimes, but with total sincerity. A lot of "he a little confused but he got the spirit".
Canonically lives alone with male black bodyguard who is possibly secretly married to him, often seen lounging about in boxers and flimsy dressing gown only just about tied (Hooooooooo boy.....!!!)
Only times lead character actually shows genuine fear or emotion is when his bodyguard is put in any danger. Will do anything to stop said bodyguard from putting himself in real danger during cases, despite it being his actual job. Conclusion: it's love, folks
No seriously you do not understand, I swear the UST between Robert Ironside and Mark Sanger is off the charts you can't even tell me it isn't
THE GRUMPINESS
Total himbo lead detective with heart of gold and brain of custard. Det Sgt Ed Brown, we don't know what you do, but you sure do it and we're grateful.
Badass lady detective constantly out-sassing and more often than not outthinking every single man, especially the lead character, while consistently having the best hair and wardrobe of any actress in a 60s detective series filmed outside of the UK.
Did i mention everyone is really, HILARIOUSLY grumpy??
Oh yeah, great writing, strong plots, all that stuff.
Barbara Anderson deserves her own post istfg she is everything to me. I adored her as Mimi in the last season of Mission: Impossible and it's so wonderful to get to see her every single episode in this!!
Eight whole-ass 60s-length seasons of this stuff - that's 195 episodes of 60s/70s over-the-top awesomeness to wallow in for MONTHS before you've watched all of it!!!!
Good LORD there is so much grumpiness....!!!!!!
I hope that's helped sell it for you all a little bit. Please feel free to let me know if you already watch Ironside though!! I've literally only started watching it in the last couple of days, I think I'm only about halfway through Season 1 so I am totally here for any fangirling!!!
Look at these absolutely furiously grumpy goofballs, they're so pissed off they can't even find the camera!!!!
Season Premiere
Mannix - The Name is Mannix - CBS - September 16, 1967
Detective
Running Time: 60 minutes
Written by Bruce Geller
Produced by Bruce Geller
Directed by Leonard J. Horn
Stars:
Mike Connors as Joe Mannix
Joseph Campanella as Lew Wickersham
Lloyd Nolan as Sam Dubrio
Kim Hunter as Louise Dubrio
John Colicos as Eddie Lee Prentiss
Barbara Anderson as Angela Dubrio
Bob Garrett as Chauffeur
Buzz Henry as Helicopter Pilot
K. L. Smith as Sheriff Bevan
Morgan Jones as Howard Pender
Henry Wills as Man With Sunglasses
this is the great karidian. you cannot deny him his last performance!
barbara anderson as lenore karidian in star trek: the original series (1966–1969) s01 e13 “the conscience of the king”
[ID: nine screencaps of lenore karidian confronting captain kirk. in costume as ophelia, she wears a dress of lavender and pale green, the bodice adorned with white flowers. she points a phaser gun at kirk, a wild look in her eyes. standing beside kodos on the stage, kirk says, “you’ll never get off the ship.” lenore replies, “it will become a floating tomb, drifting through space, with the soul of the great karidian giving performances at every star he touches.” as she speaks, there is a close-up shot of her eyes sparkling with white light. brandishing the phaser gun, she continues, “i know how to use this, captain.” off-screen, somebody shouts, “no!” and lenore declares, “caesar, beware the idea of march.” end ID.]
Happy Sunday! Ironside-1971 -Millie runs to the window sill- dramatic scene! #pattyemattick #patriciamattick #ironside #1971tv #adorable #williamshatner #raymondburr #barbaraanderson #GoneButWillNeverBeForgotten