- Welcome back to another segment
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons.
Today, I'm going to be talking about the episode,
The Chicken Thief.
This episode was from Season 2 and was directed
by Ralph Senensky.
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For those of you who don't know,
Ralph Senensky has a wonderful blog that he has written
about all of the episodes of television and film
that he has directed.
It's well worth a read.
In the case of The Chicken Thief,
this is what Ralph had to say.
"The Chicken Thief, when I read it,
I realized, was a television script
unlike those I had been receiving.
In the decade since I had begun directing film,
I had seen the early scripts that had been influenced
by live television change into a more action-driven style,
more intent on exciting than in probing the human psyche.
The Chicken Thief was returned to the study
of human behavior."
He goes on to say,
"I was to learn the extra step taken to arrive
at that high quality, a step never found taken
in any other production.
Two or three days prior to the beginning of photography,
the five adults in the cast, Richard Thomas,
Ralph Waite, Michael Learned,
Will Geer and Ellen Corby,
would assemble in producer Robert Jack's office
during a lunch-hour.
With series creator, Earl Hamner,
and story editor, Carol McKeand present,
the script was read by the five actors,
which gave Earl and Carol a chance to hear
the words of dialogue.
After that, a discussion was held.
Any objections the actors might have had were offered,
any ideas for something new to be added were requested.
It was a way of adding texture to an already rich script
and a deterrent to possible future rewriting on the set."
So that answers the questions some of you had
about whether or not there was a table read.
So as Ralph mentions,
the table read only included the adult actors in the series.
Ralph continues.
He says, "Episodes of The Waltons were filmed
in six and a half days.
The Chicken Thief started at the half day after lunch.
My first scene was in the Walton kitchen with eight
of the 10 members of the family involved.
Did I spend that final morning of my prep reviewing my plans
for my first sequence of this brand new show?
No.
I remember my biggest problem
was trying to sort out those damn kids.
I didn't have any problem with Richard Thomas.
I had directed Richard two years earlier
when he guest starred on the FBI.
I knew he was John Boy.
But I didn't wanna go on a set and say to the others,
'Hey, you!'
So I spent a half day drilling myself to learn
that Jon was Jason, Eric was Ben,
David was Jim Bob,
but the real killers, Kami was Elizabeth,
Mary Elizabeth McDonough was Erin, and Judy was Mary Ellen."
Well done, Ralph.
Early in the episode, John Boy stops by Ike's store
and finds Grandpa shooting pool with Yancy Tucker,
played by Robert Donner.
Now, Grandpa makes a couple of pool shots here.
I'm not sure that Will Geer played pool,
but I do know when you get a couple of these sorts of edits
going on, in one case,
you see Will line up a shot and you see him take the shot.
Then, there's an opportunity there for a separate shot
where you see the ball go into the pocket.
So those could be two completely different shots
and probably were.
Now whether Will made the shot that actually went
into the pocket or whether someone else took that shot
and how many takes it took to get that shot, you know,
for that ball to actually go into the pocket, who knows?
A little bit later on, you see Will take another shot
and it seems that the camera pans down
and then follows the ball into the pocket.
So in this case, it would give the impression that Will
had made that shot.
Now, whether it was done in one take or 10 takes
or 20 takes, I don't know.
They had the opportunity obviously to do a cutaway
in a separate edit.
So it must not have taken too many shots,
or they probably would have moved on to plan B.
While at Ike's store,
he gives John Boy a letter for Ben.
And it turns out that it is a letter from Liberty Magazine,
which is a magazine that Ben has been selling
subscriptions to, but that's not what this letter is about.
An opportunity to see editing in play.
In this case, you see John Boy coming down the stairs
and you're shooting through the screen door.
So this would have been shot on Stage 26.
So an interior, because you can see into the house
and clearly see up those stairs.
So he comes down and he exits.
Then, they would have,
at a different time on the back lot of the studio,
shot the exterior of the house when John Boy actually exits
and you see him come down off the porch.
So that would have involved making sure that at the time
that they shot the second part of that,
now which one they shot first?
I don't know.
They might've shot the outside thing first.
And then later on, been on the soundstage
and shot the interior.
But in either case, it meant that everybody connected
with hair, wardrobe,
makeup had to make sure that everything that Richard
was wearing, how he looked,
all matched, so that those two edited together seamlessly.
Ralph had this to say about the locations.
"Our third day of filming was a location day.
We went to Cuddy Farm in Lake of the Woods, California."
So this was basically what I refer to a lot of times
as Frazier Park.
That was the larger area,
and the Cuddy Ranch was a location we used at times.
And we used that location.
I believe, also,
this particular location
when GW Haines, when we saw where his family lived,
I think we might've also used this location in The Calf.
So we frequently reused locations in different episodes
and they weren't always the same person's farm.
Ralph said that "Lorimar,"
our production company,
"had no objection to filming day for night.
And when it came to filming night scene exteriors
like the ones we were doing, I agreed with them."
So day for night basically means you're shooting
during the day, but you're shooting night sequences.
"I thought that filming during the day with night filters
produced a moonlight effect that was more realistic
than filming at night with spotlight beams
projecting from behind trees.
The following day, we did have a major tragedy.
Half of the film was destroyed at the lab during developing.
No problem.
We returned to the location for added filming,
and I think the tab for that was picked up
by the lab's insurance."
The sequence involves John Boy
seeing Yancy come out of Charlie's chicken coop
carrying two chickens.
Yancy sees John Boy, John Boy sees Yancy.
Yancy knows John Boy seen him, and then he runs off.
Then when Charlie comes out, having heard all the commotion
near the chicken coop and asked if John Boy saw anything,
John Boy lies to him, basically,
or is very evasive and says, "No.
No, I didn't see anyone.
It's dark out."
The kids are all walking home from school.
Mary Ellen is talking to John Boy,
telling him that GW said something very romantic
and doe John Boy, wanna hear what it was?
And John Boy's not interested.
And then I make some reference to Ben acting like a grump.
This is what Ralph Senensky had to say about shooting
that sequence.
"Three camera dolly setups to film 38 seconds
of bantering dialogue while traipsing down a dusty road,
and just to remind that Ben is acting strangely."
And he says that never would have happened
back at QM Productions, which was Quinn Martin,
who he worked for in other series.
Yancy comes by to talk to John Boy and basically says
he knows that John Boy saw him,
and that he is really kind of taking these chickens.
And he borrowed them, basically.
(laughs)
And that in a sense, he considers himself
sort of a modern-day Robin Hood.
So very much like the character of Charlie Snead
in The Homecoming.
And Yancy says to not put John Boy on the spot.
He will return those chickens.
And John Boy's like, "Okay."
That works for him.
We find out that Charlie has been shot by a chicken thief.
And so
John and John Boy,
thinking that Yancy may somehow be involved in this
and knowing that Charlie has told Ep
that that's who he suspects,
they try to find Yancy before the sheriff does.
And there's a lovely montage as they go around and talk
to various different people in the community.
And one of the people they stop by and see
is Maude Gormley, played by the wonderful Marie Earle.
And Marie was so fascinating.
I don't think she really started acting professionally
till she was nearly 80. (laughs)
And she first appeared in Season 1 in The Minstrel.
And here she is again, in this episode.
The sheriff does catch up with Yancy and arrests him.
John and John Boy want to go find out from Yancy
what the story is and defend him if they can.
And because they really don't believe that he did this.
When they get to the jail, they find out that Yancy
has all these visitors, all these people in the community
that he has helped by taking them food or chickens or eggs
when they were in real need, have come by to bring food
to Yancy and keep him company,
including a woman who, apparently,
is a love interest.
And it was the character of Jane Aspen.
And I thought, "Oh gosh,
she looks very familiar."
And it turns out it was indeed Cissy Wellman
who came back later in the series to play "Cissy"
who ends up marrying Yancy.
So a different character, but same actress,
and Robert Donner's wife in real life.
After all of the visitors leave,
John and John Boy have a chance to talk to Yancy,
and they're going to see about getting him out of there.
And he's like, "There's worse places to be.
I'm getting fed. I have lots of company."
And he doesn't want John Boy to be involved in this.
So if John Boy says,
you know, that he knows something,
then Yancy feels like it pulls John Boy in.
And it also means that he will be arrested for real
and thrown in jail for being a chicken thief.
So at this point, he feels like he will be exonerated
if he just gives it a little bit of time.
And that way, he will not do real prison time
and John Boy won't be involved.
They see the logic of this and leave Yancy to his plan.
Ben finally confesses to Olivia, to Mama,
that this letter from Liberty Magazine
was basically saying that he had won a poetry contest
that was for all of the sales boys.
Olivia is very proud of him,
but he confesses that it's actually
was a poem of John Boy's,
and he feels like he stole John Boy's poem,
and so he feels bad about this and what should he do?
And she says, "Well,
you know, you should tell John Boy this."
Ben does end up going to John Boy and confessing
and shows him the poem that he wrote
and the poem that John Boy originally wrote,
and John Boy says, "Well,
you completely rewrote it.
You just took the idea."
And that writers do that all the time.
They take an idea from another writer
and they rewrite it completely in their own vein,
but you know, ideas come from everywhere.
So he makes Ben feel better and congratulates him
on the poem that he wrote in hopes that John Boy,
he too, will be published sometime soon.
John Boy goes to talk to Charlie to see if he can find out
any more information about what happened when he was shot.
Charlie's griping about how he can't do any of his chores,
and John Boy says, "Well,
I have an afternoon free.
I will do your chores for free."
So he does.
And during the time that he is doing those chores,
all these various different neighbors that Yancy helped
come by and return chickens, return eggs,
all kinds of things,
and Charlie keeps seeing all this happening.
(laughs)
And I think he doesn't quite know what to make of all of it.
John shows up to talk to Charlie
and mentions that Dr. Vance said that Charlie was shot
with a 22,
and that he's been shooting with Yancy
a lot of times, and that's not what Yancy uses.
But he does know that Charlie has a 22.
And so Charlie confesses that through a series of incidents,
he accidentally tripped and shot himself,
but then he was too embarrassed to say it.
So
it gets Yancy off the hook there.
There's a whole fun sequence at the end of the episode
where the edition of Liberty Magazine has arrived
with the poem of Ben's and all of the children come running
to hear the poem, see Ben's name in print,
and you see Erin hop off the seesaw and Jim Bob fall off.
You see Jason and Jim Bob come down out of the hayloft,
and that just looked like such fun coming down on that rope.
I'm sure they,
somebody taught them how to do it
and they seem to have no problem
and were probably having terrific fun.
I wish I'd gotten to do that.
Sounded like something that I would have enjoyed.
Anyway, we all gather on the porch
very much like in the opening sequence when we all ran
and gathered around the radio.
And we look at Ben's name in print
and
John Boy reads the poem out loud,
and we all celebrate Ben's success.
I appreciate Ralph Senensky's input on this episode.
I found it very enlightening, and I hope you did too.
And that's what I have for you for this segment
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons about The Chicken Thief.
I'll be back with more Behind the Scenes of The Waltons
and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.