Posted on 03/03/2012 12:28:47 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Rare Star Trek Photos Show Green Orion Slavegirls Like You’ve Never Seen Them
The original Star Trek pilot, "The Cage," included a lot more of the scenes where Vina is turned into a green Orion slavegirl who dances for Captain Pike — but they were cut because they were too saucy for prime time television. Now, some rare Trek behind-the-scenes pictures include a brand new look at the unshown parts of Vina's dance sequence.
Including a part where the poor slavegirl gets whipped. Turns out being an Orion slavegirl isn't all dancing and quoting poetry.
Tom Redlaw, aka Bird of the Galaxy, has collected tons and tons of behind-the-scenes Star Trek images and rare frames from the show. These were sold as 35 mm film cells at conventions and via mail order through Lincoln Enterprises, a company run by Gene Roddenberry and his wife, Majel Barrett. And now, Redlaw has been scanning and restoring these rare images and posting them on his Flickr page.
Talking to What Culture, Redlaw explains:
In the early 1970s the first Star Trek conventions happened in New York. Those, plus the original Lincoln Enterprises catalogs (you received them when you wrote to Gene Rodenberry or NBC executives) were what started me buying these. Recall, there were no VCRs, DVDs, internet. So being able to project these little slides was as close to on demand Trek images as you could get in those days. And, it was a glorious exercise trying to find your favorites. By 1975 I think I had around 2000 of these things, I guess that was the collection and really what I stopped at for 30 years. Then, one day I bought a slide and negative scanner to restore some of my own 35mm photography and just to test it out I put a scratched and red faded film clip of the Doomsday Machine into it, and I was astounded at the result. A little bit of photoshop work later and I was hooked.
Below are some of our favorite images from Redlaw's collection — dozens more are available on his Flickr page.
An unused shot from the various sensuous dance moves executed by Susan Oliver as Vina for the illusion sequence from the original filming of the first pilot, The Cage.
A clapper from the filming of the first piloit setting up Vina's dance. Susan Oliver's expression, nails, and one of the band members make this an interesting and historical shot from one of the iconic early TOS moments. From The Cage.
An unshown part of the Orion slave dance illusion from The Cage pilot. This pose and sequence was neither shown in the pilot reel nor the subsequent portions shown in The Menagerie. They involved a series of sensual, almost animal like crouching moves emphasizing the wilder side of the character. Note the long nails! Some have drawn parallels between the dance sequence and the movements of a cat (indeed in the original Rodenberry scrip Vina snarls at the servants and has to be controlled by a whip). Here we have Susan Oliver in green, this is how it all started! Filmed in December 1964.
In the Orion slave dance illusion, the script calls for an introduction that shows servants attending Pike, Vina as the slave dancer coming out and acting cat like and snarling at them to chase them away, Pike's personal servant brandishing a whip to settle her down and focus on her dance, and ultimately her doing the dance we see in the pilot. This shot shows the unshown servant whip in hand, attempting to keep Vina in check. Other unused and unshown clips from this sequence are the servants attending Pike before Vina comes out:
A servant feeds Christopher Pike fruit in the Vina as Orion slave dancer illusion from the first pilot, The Cage. This scene and the servants were not shown, even in the pilot reel. Note the multiple eyebrows!
Sean Kenney has makeup applied to his face in order to portray the disfigured and paralyzed Captain Pike for the "wrap" story The Menagerie used in the first season of Star Trek TOS. Could this be the hand of Fred Phillips applying the makeup?
Gratitude to birdofthegalaxy’s Photostream on Flickr
See all of the rest of the photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdofthegalaxy/
ping
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve forwarded it to my oldest son. He’s 45, and a Star Trek nerd.
They were doing test shots for the makeup, so they filmed her with the green makeup on. The next day, the film came back from the lab, and Oliver had normal skin color.
The filmmakers were surprised, and the director gave the order to "paint her greener." So they painted her "greener" and tried again. The next day, the film came back from the lab, showing Oliver with normal skin color.
They finally realized that each night, the guy developing and printing the test film was freaking out at what appeared to be a woman with green skin. So, he would filter the light when making the print to bring her skin tone back to normal.
No one had told him that she was supposed to be green.
Great stuff! Thanks!
Sherry Jackson was a real babe.
She probably could have gotten work as a wet nurse too.
Wow. Captain Kirk was my boyfriend when I was 4 years old. And so was James West. Started watching them both in the early 70’s.
Great stuff. Thanks !
good memories...as usual the original is still the best
How ‘bout Angelique Pettyjohn? According to Shatner she was well up for it, as her later career choice showed.
Oh OK
I read it as green onion...
I had to look
Ive never seen an “onion girl”
and I used to watch the original series...
:)
Thanks for these. Great for reminiscing. I remember watching ST over and over (& over and over!) until I finally got saturated on them.
I always got the impression that the cast & crew had as great time creating them as I had watching.
Shut up Wesley!/s
A great line from that episode is when Apollo says something along the line of being a god and Kirk replies “We have other gods now.”
Always liked that show as Kirk or Spock referenced that maybe these aliens were the basis of “gods” in ancient times - an echo of von Daniken, et al?
Felt kinda sorry for Apollo when he realizes that Game Over has occurred and wants to join the old gang.
Like others, I prefer the original series with all its corny sets - at least some of the aliens were in non-human form instead of just humanoids in different configurations.
(I hope the mods don't get mad at me)
Cool pix, thanks!
If you watch the later episodes closely, I swear you can see McCoy almost breaking character when he gets ready to say “He’s dead, Jim”.
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