To Boldly Go

Even though we missed the actual anniversary by a week, we still feel the need to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the TV show and global phenomenon that is Star Trek. At Rauner we have several collections of members of the TV and movie industry. Among them are the papers of film and television director James Goldstone (1931-1999). In 1966 Goldstone directed an episode of Star Trek entitled What are little Girls Made Of? It was his second time in the director's chair for Star Trek.

His first had been on the second pilot episode where he had won the approval of many of the production staff. However, according to IMDB, things did not go so smoothly his second time out. Plagued by script problems, the episode went two days over schedule and Goldstone was never asked to direct another episode.

Written by Robert Bloch for Desilu Productions, What Are Little Girls Made Of? focuses on Nurse Chapel, played by Majel Barrett, Gene Roddenbery's wife, who is reunited with her fiancé only to learn that he has gone mad, leading him to make an android duplicate of Captain Kirk.

CHRISTINE 

Are you all right?

KIRK 

(eyes Korby; then to Christine, nods) 

As far as I know.

KORBY

(to Christine) 

And now…meet an Android.

Korby signals over his shoulder; the table slowly rotates until Kirk is out of sight…then a second Captain Kirk rotates into sight, the turntable stopping. It’s the Android, perfect in every detail. The eyelids flutter…slowly the eyes open. Then a look around, fastening on Christine. A smile of recognition.

The shooting script we have makes the aforementioned script problems quite obvious as there is nary a page where large parts of dialogue are not crossed out. In addition there are call sheets, shooting schedules and handwritten notes by Goldstone.

To read the entire script, ask for MS-1073, the papers of James Goldstone.

"Live long and prosper"

Safe Waters

Last week, after over 160 years of searching, the Terror was located at the bottom of the Arctic Sea. The Terror was one of two ships lost by John Franklin in the most disastrous of the 19th-century attempts to find a Northwest passage. We also blogged about Franklin when his other ship, Erebus was found two years ago. The Terror, it turns out, has remained amazingly well preserved, safely submerged in icy water.

To celebrate, we thought it might be nice to remember the Terror's glory days when it successfully navigated arctic waters, provided shelter for its crew, and returned triumphant. In 1836, Captain George Back led a two-year expedition of discovery into the Arctic commanding the Terror. The ship had been specially fitted with a heating system and the hull reinforced to withstand the ice's pressure. The Terror was home to the crew during the long polar winter when they were trapped in the ice.

Back, who was later knighted for leading the expedition, wrote a stirring account. The illustrations show the ship in peril, but always as a refuge from the real terror, the weather. The Terror brought Back and his crew home safely on this journey, Franklin was not so lucky.

To see the images, ask for Back's Narrative of the Expedition in H.M.S Terror, Stef G650 1836 .B12.