The back forty, old Earth set for Star Trek

[Gary7]

"The City on the Edge of Forever" made significant use of the RKO Forty Acres, or "the back forty".

According to the Wikipedia entry, it was also used for "Miri" and "Return of the Archons". I thought perhaps "A Piece of the Action" was used for it also (which is why I opened this thread), but I discovered that Memory Alpha states that it used one of the Paramount lots. I guess if they took a chance with using the back forty again, it would look too familiar. The streets in "A Piece of the Action" do seem a bit smaller than they should be.

Anyway... curious bit of trivia.

 

[Redfern]

Was Trek still a Desilu production when "...Action" was filmed? If it had already been sold to Paramount by that time, making use of a P-mount owned backlot would be less expensive than "renting" another studio's property, wouldn't it?

I'm probably just "blowin' smoke".

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Merky]

Well, Desilu bought RKO's assets. RKO ceased to exist as a movie studio around 1958 (it was in the late 50s). So, technically, when Gulf and Western bought Desilu they also absorbed all their RKO assets. It wouldn't have made a difference where they filmed, it probably was a matter of lot booking and when they could actually use the location.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

If I remember correctly, the set used for "Miri" was originally part of the set built as Atlanta for "Gone With the Wind", and was
also used for part of Andy Griffith's Mayberry, including Floyd's Barbershop!

 

[jayrath]

And exteriors for "Patterns of Force" were actually shot between and in front of the administration buildings at Desilu. Lucy could have been watching out her window!

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

This site is a MUST VISIT for Trek fans interested in this thread:

http://www.imayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/startrek/index.htm

Plenty of pics and explanation.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

^ Thank you for posting this site, Potemkin_Prod! Did you actually refer to that site in a thread back a few months ago? I know that I visited the site when I first saw it on one of these boards and thought it had some very cool bits of visual information. Thanks!

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Not sure. I link to it on the Orion Press website, and send people that way whenever they bring up the Mayberry connection.

 

[Christopher]

You can also see the 40 Acres backlot in plenty of Mission: Impossible episodes from its first couple of seasons, at least. The "Arab village" section used for Rigel VII and Organia was often used for Mediterranean locations, for instance. And the prison camp from Hogan's Heroes, part of the same backlot, shows up in a late second-season M:I episode too. Plus there are one or two M:I episodes that use the "Arena" fortress that used to stand at Vasquez Rocks near the famous cliffs.

 

[Botany Bay]

Wow - that fortress was sitting out there near the famous rocks?

Mission Impossible is a great source for spotting TOS locations and actors. God, even Leonard Nimoy's stand in went over to Mission Impossible with him! Regular TOS viewers will find something familiar in nearly every episode

One thing I never understood - if you go to Hollywood, literally every backlot features a 'Western' town. Why couldn't they use one of these for Spectre of the Gun. I guess the third season budget was that tight they couldn't afford to even get out of the studio.

 

[Christopher]

Wow - that fortress was sitting out there near the famous rocks?

Yes. As I recall, there's a Wild, Wild West episode shot at Vasquez Rocks that includes both the fortres and the cliffs in the same shots so you can see how they relate to each other. So both the planets in "Arena" were shot on the same location -- "Cestus III" and the Metron asteroid were just a few hundred feet apart.

But the fortress was torn down sometime in, I think, the '70s. It's not there anymore.

One thing I never understood - if you go to Hollywood, literally every backlot features a 'Western' town. Why couldn't they use one of these for Spectre of the Gun. I guess the third season budget was that tight they couldn't afford to even get out of the studio.

That would've been a shame, though, since it's the surreal, unfinished look of the "Spectre" Tombstone that gives the episode such a striking visual quality. Shooting on a backlot would've made it more ordinary.

But yeah, the only location shooting in the entire third season was in "The Paradise Syndrome." Everything else was in the studio.

 

[Gepard]

Shooting on a backlot would've made it more ordinary.

And more boring. Having the western "town" confined to a soundstage gave the episode a claustrophobic atmosphere that helped sell the sense of danger. I can't imagine it being as interesting without that.

 

[Christopher]

Right. The whole time, it felt like they were in an alien, unnatural, unfriendly environment. Imagine how expensive it would've been to create the same sense of unearthliness on a backlot.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I believe some of the Land of the Giants episode "Ghost Town" was shot on the "Mayberry" or whatever lot, which stuck me as odd being that was a Fox show. But one of the characters is clearly in front of the 21st Street Mission building talking to a manniquin holding a newspaper.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Right. The whole time, it felt like they were in an alien, unnatural, unfriendly environment. Imagine how expensive it would've been to create the same sense of unearthliness on a backlot.

Judging by Matt Jefferies' preproduction sketches, it was always intended to be shot on the soundstage, for precisely that reason.

And, of course, building it cheaper was always a plus in his book.

 

[M'Sharak]

Wow - that fortress was sitting out there near the famous rocks?

Yes. As I recall, there's a Wild, Wild West episode shot at Vasquez Rocks that includes both the fortres and the cliffs in the same shots so you can see how they relate to each other. So both the planets in "Arena" were shot on the same location -- "Cestus III" and the Metron asteroid were just a few hundred feet apart.

Here's a screencap:

In the aerial view found on this page, it's possible to see how close together they were. The square parking area occupies the spot where the Western fort set used to stand.

But the fortress was torn down sometime in, I think, the '70s. It's not there anymore.

I don't have the information right in front of me, but 1973 is sounding about right - it certainly wasn't much later than that.

 

[Maurice]

Here's a screencap:

That's terrific!

 

[Botany Bay]

That's very cool, thanks M'Sharak

Does anyone know why someone decided to build that fort out there? As I understand it, Vasquez rocks are a long way from civilization. Must have been a big, expensive effort to build all the way out there.

 

[Christopher]

Does anyone know why someone decided to build that fort out there?

Because it was a cool filming location. It wasn't a real fort.

http://www.moviesites.org/vasquez.htm

Besides being a popular location for TV Westerns, Vasquez Rocks also doubled as Colonial India in the 1950s television series Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers. This 26-episode series was produced by Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, and aired during the 1956-1957 television season. For the series, the studio erected a large fort on the level field between the major rock formation and the current Antelope Valley Freeway (Highway 14) at a cost of $117,843.17. After the series was cancelled, the fort apparently was left on site for several years until the Park Department finally torn it down for safety reasons.

 

[Gary7]

Thanks for that screenshot, M'Sharak. Very cool "reframing" of those familiar Vasquez angled cliffs captured in TOS.