Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

The meaning of a "G" rating back then is very different from what it is now. In 1968, "G" meant for general audiences, not necessarily suitable for children. Today, a film like the original Planet of the Apes would likely be rated PG, at the most PG-13.

 

Not really surprising. There's no real nudity (aside from a few astronaut buttocks), bloodletting or other extreme violence, and "God damn you all the Hell!" is about as extreme as the dialog gets.

 

I just meant that if they'd used Angelique Pettyjohn's audition costume for Nova in the actual film, it would have run afoul of the last vestiges of the Hays code, or gotten a much more restrictive rating from the MPAA code.

The Hays office took one look at Maureen Sullivan's costume in Tarzan and His Mate and demanded that Jane be covered from neck to thighs for the next forty years. Her sleeves even had to cover her armpits, so that when she raised her arms there was no way to see anything up her sleeves, while the main bodice was tight, yet padded enough to hide her curves. Nova got put in the same kind of costume in the actual film as this latter costume of Jane's(which every Jane from Maureen Sullivan to whoever was right before Bo Derek had to wear).

 

Were we the audience supposed to be scared of a woman's body or something?
JB

 

Or were we supposed to pretend that women weren't attractive and not allowed to show off a bit of flesh? Why then was Johnny Weissmuller and Charlton Heston showing their bodies and buttocks? It seems weird! But Nova did get to show some ample bosoms and legs in the sequel two years later!
JB

 

And the '68 film then got a 'G' rating! Imagine that today.
Not really surprising. There's no real nudity (aside from a few astronaut buttocks), bloodletting or other extreme violence, and "God damn you all the Hell!" is about as extreme as the dialog gets.

All of which would almost definitely have meant a PG rating just a short time later.

 

Not until the 80s.

 

I don't know. Taylor gets shot in throat, blood gushing through his fingers. The other two astronauts get stuffed or lobotomized. After the hunt, we see dead human carcasses strung up on display. There's talk of "gelding" Taylor, who is beaten up and abused and even burned with a torch at one point.

Not remotely G-rated by modern standards, and even then back in 1968 . . . well, I was nine years old when the movie and my parents judged it too intense and violent for me at the time. I didn't get to see the movie until it was reissued on a triple bill with BENEATH and ESCAPE a few years later.

 

Yes, the G rating was more grown up at that time. "The Andromeda Strain" was also rated G in 1971, with plague and lots of dead bodies, powdered blood pouring out of cut veins, rear nudity and (dead) toplessness, a character going into a seizure, and an animal suffocating and dying.

PG was for movies like "Jaws" that had scary, bloody shark attacks, or "All the President's Men" which dropped the F-Bomb in almost every other line of dialog.

Later, the G rating evolved to automatically mean something was aimed at children rather than actually for "general audiences" including adults, and things that previously would have been OK with a G rating now garnered a PG instead.

Or maybe we all just turned into a bunch of pansies.

Kor

 

Or maybe things just change.

 

I saw it in '68 as well, also at nine. But my parents weren't quite as "strict". I recall seeing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and several Matt Helm films with them. Cheaper than a babysitter I guess.

 

A friend of mine attended an Apes marathon at a theater in Hackensack, NJ once, back in the single-screen days. All 5 films in a row. 12 hours including breaks between films. All he had to eat all day was popcorn, licorice and soda. Ah, to be young again!

 

I did something similar when the first Avengers film came out. A theater near me had a marathon of all five Phase I Marvel Cinematic Universe films starting at 11am, followed the premiere of The Avengers at midnight. Good times.

 

Mark Lenard as a lawyer in a 1977 Bob Newhart Show...

...representing Loni Anderson in a paternity case against Mr. Carlin.

 

Is Bob Newhart really Hulk Hogan before he took the formula? They do have the same exact facial features! Or in plain English, they look alike!
JB

 

Not really surprising considering the mass cross pollination between the two shows, but my slow 60's Batman rewatch has reached the final King Tut story of season 2, and it was nice to see Grace Lee Whitney as the moll of the week in what must have been one of her few post Trek roles.

Lee Meriwether was the lead female guest star and... well blimey. No wonder Bruce suddenly decided man could not live on crime fighting alone when he went into her apartment at the end (just for milk and cookies of course).

She didn't appear, but for a show with lax continuity it was odd how they try to do some foreshadowing for Batgirl in a really weird scene where Gordon suddenly decides to become a deeply concerned father and ask Batman for advice on how Barbara can avoid becoming entangled with teachers like Tut whilst at collage. None of the actors seem quite sure how to play it.

 

Last night Me-TV aired a 4th season episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. called "The Maze Affair," that featured William Marshall as a scientist and Laurence Montague as a Thrush agent.

 

You mean Lawrence Montaigne?

 

If that's the correct spelling, yes.