Sheena on TV - Pt 2: Filming in Mexico Page 3

IRISH McCALLA ON TV

Part 2 - Filming In Mexico
Page 3 - The Pilot Episodes

The Nassour's plan was to film some pilot episodes of their new project so that these could be used to pitch the idea to interested television executives. Irish has said that some time in 1954, almost a year after the audition for the role, and soon after the birth of her second son, Sean, three pilots were filmed in California. The first episode filmed, which we now know as The Renegades (click on link to see more details for that episode), was probably filmed at The Arboretum in Arcadia (far north LA). According to Irish, the director's instructions consisted of, "All right, now you run to this; now, watch out for that plant right there. Don't step on that! And then you come and you jump; when you jump over, you have to jump a little to the left for the camera. And watch out; land on the left foot because the right foot might touch this plant over here. And you have to go this way because we don't want the tags on the plants to show." (The TV Collector). (see photo below right of Irish amongst the foliage of The Renegades)

Irish has also said that her first experiences with filming were very stressful because she didn't know what she was supposed to do and had difficulty following the director's instructions ("I didn't know half of the terms they used on the set, like what a pan shot was, or how close a close up was, for example.) The director she was working with, Arthur Pierson, appears to have had little tolerance for the inexperienced starlet he was forced to work with and treated Irish roughly. She would go home at night nervous, exhausted and would cry herself to sleep. She did, however, find the crew on the pilot to be very supportive. They would explain to her why the director was yelling at her, and when they were rehearsing one of the guys would take her aside and explain things to her to help her avoid being yelled at. She said that the crew were like the older guys she knew while growing up. They treated her well and later confided in her that they liked her because she hadn't arrived on the set acting like a big star who had just gotten the part. They told her she came on showing that she was a little confused (Femme Fatales & Glamour Girls).

The other two pilots were filmed at Bronson Canyon, in Griffith Park (far north-west LA), possibly the single most recognisable film location ever used. These two episodes became Forbidden Cargo, the first one aired, and Touch of Death, the very last one screened (click on the links to see the pages for those episodes). The production company managed to successfully hide the stark and rugged granite scenery of Bronson Canyon in these two episodes. When I watched them again recently I was impressed how little they resembled the familiar terrain I knew sowell from The Lone Ranger and Bonanza. Abundant set dressing with ferns and palms convincingly created the illusion of tropical Africa (see photo below right of Irish and Christian Drake amongst the more open terrain of Touch of Death). All three pilot episodes also had the distinction of using experienced and recognisable Hollywood character actors (see the individual pages for these episodes for more details). With the exception of the Bull Kendall trilogy, three episodes featuring Buddy Baer, an an ex-heavyweight boxing champion and experienced character actor, none of the episodes shot in Mexico featured American character actors of great note (see individual pages for The Lash, Land of the Rogue and The Rival Queen).

Irish has said that the pilot episode was filmed in colour , but was only ever screened in black and white. Black and Feret, Irish's biographers, claim that the colour pilot was an hour long episode. Irish once recounted that a man at a fan convention approached her and said that he had a copy of the colour pilot and he gave her his phone number. Unfortunately, Irish lost the slip of paper with

the man's details and she was unable to contact him (Black & Feret). The story of the "hour long" colour pilot seems spurious to me. The two episodes filmed at Bronson Canyon are totally unrelated, use different guest stars and do not tie together cohesively. It is equally difficult to imagine a complete half hour of lost footage for The Renegades. I'm at a loss to explain the story of the fellow at the fan convention.

The pilots remained unsold for almost a year. As described on Page 6: Promoting the Product in the Audition section, in early 1955 the Nassours took Irish to TV sales conventions in New York and Washington where they were finally successful in selling the series to ABC Film Syndication. Within a few months the cast and crew were in Mexico. They were initially told it would be a 3 month shoot. Little did they know that it would take seven-and-a-half gruelling months to capture the other twenty-three episodes on film.

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PAGE 4 - THE LOCATION

OTHER SHEENA PAGES
Please don't forget to visit my pages devoted to the twenty-six episodes of Sheena Queen of the Jungle, if you haven't done so already. You will find plot summaries, numerous comments about the individual episodes and video captures from all of the surviving episodes. There are also large-sized copies of a many of the photos used on these pages available to download on the Sheena Gallery page.

SOURCES
• The TV Collector magazine, Jan/Feb 97
• Femme Fatales magazine, Jan 99
• Glamour Girls: Then and Now magazine, Editor Steve Sullivan. Premiere issue Mar/Apr 94
• TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla by Bill Black and Bill Feret, Paragon Publications 1992
PHOTOS
• The vidcaps from the three pilot episodes - (top to bottom) The Renegades, Forbidden Cargo, and Touch of Death - were taken frm my DVD-Rs of this series
• The vidcaps from The Renegades (left) and Touch of Death (right) illustrating the differences in terrain were taken form my DVD-Rs of this series
LYNX
• Read about all of the films that used The Arboretum as a shooting location at The Arboretum's website
• Read the DVD Savant's article on Bronson Canyon

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