- Welcome back to another segment
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons.
Today, as I continue covering episodes from Season 4,
I'm going to be talking about "The Test",
which was written by Kathleen Hite
and directed by Harvey Laidman
who had been one of our 1st Assistant Directors
for a lot of years and then had an opportunity
to direct a number of episodes of "The Waltons".
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As the episode begins, John along with John Boy,
Ben and Jason, are working to finish up
a furniture order for a hotel.
Now, Eric at times has talked about how Will Geer
had a habit of leaning on people,
and here you see an example of that
where he is using Eric's shoulder as a bit of an armrest,
and then a little bit later you see him also
with an arm around Jason.
So, one of Will's favorite things to do.
Mr. Knightley arrives to supposedly pick up
all this furniture that he has ordered
and we find out that the hotel,
that the furniture was going to - their boiler blew,
and so they're having to use all of their reserve cash
to repair that and the damage
so there is no longer any furniture order
because there's no money to pay for it.
This sets up the dilemma for this episode
whereby John is working to try
and find how he can make money.
There don't seem to be any jobs available,
no one's ordering lumber.
Meanwhile, Olivia finds that she has an avenue
whereby she can earn money
and help the family during this difficult time.
Olivia has fashioned a dress for Elizabeth's doll
as well as a matching one for Elizabeth
out of fabric that Elizabeth was given
by the Baldwin sisters.
Elizabeth and Olivia go to see the Baldwin sisters
to thank them for this gift of the lovely fabric.
The Baldwin sisters ask Olivia
if she would like to see all these amazing fabrics
that they have.
They look through this trunk
and the Baldwin sisters get the idea
to have Olivia make some dresses for the two of them
for which they will pay Olivia, and so she does.
I had a lot of fun with this scene
where I'm basically being a dress mannequin for Olivia
as she is looking to pin a dress hemline
for a dress that she is creating for Miss Mamie.
So, there I am grumbling
and (laughing) trying not to get stuck with pins.
Shortly after that,
we see the Baldwin sisters wearing these dresses,
including the one that I had been a mannequin for.
They look stunning, love the hats,
and then they say that they wore it at a garden party
of some sort and there was a woman there,
one of the top modiste in town
who loved the the needle work, the sewing work of Olivia's,
and would be very interested
in talking to her about doing some additional sewing work.
As Olivia is pinning me into this dress,
because of the angle you see some of the ceiling.
Well, typically there wouldn't be ceiling
on a lot of these bedrooms and things.
So whenever they had to do something like this
where you would see the ceiling,
they would literally put in a piece of ceilings
so that the camera wasn't just seeing the top of the wall
and then up into the sound stage.
So that caught my attention as I watched this scene.
John Boy takes Olivia to Westham to visit Stella Lewis
who is the modiste at the store.
This actress is Abby Dalton who played Stella.
So Olivia arrives at the store
and says that yes she's interested in doing seamstress work.
Stella hires her on the spot
because she thinks her work is fabulous.
However, the stipulation is,
that Olivia would have to actually work in the store
because that's where the customers would be,
where she'd need to do all the fittings and things.
But it is for a sizable amount of money
that the family could really use,
so Olivia decides to go ahead and accept the job.
John finds himself in a different position than he's used to
where he's the one out searching for work,
which is not unusual, but that Olivia is the one
who's actually earning the money for the family right now.
It's not an easy thing for John.
Meanwhile, we see Olivia and Stella having lunch at a diner
and that's something unusual for Olivia.
She is really enjoying the company of Stella
and feeling valuable
and that she is contributing to the family.
So this is important for Olivia.
Plus she's just having a lot of fun
in this sequence at the diner.
The gentleman behind the checkout counter is Gordon
who was one of our longtime stand-ins on the show
and also we see pop-up in various different scenes
when we need background players,
and sometimes here and there he actually had a line
or two as well.
When John Boy comes to pick Olivia up
from the end of her day of work,
she's wearing a gorgeous gown
and turning around to look at herself in the mirror
and just enjoying feeling different.
Stella puts a mink cape on her, put some pearls on her,
and then says that she would like Olivia to come to New York
with her on a buying trip and she would be gone about a week
and would like Olivia to consider this.
So Olivia does go home and ask John about it.
Grandma and Grandpa think it's a fabulous idea
and they say they can completely take care of the children
and the house and everything.
So it's decided that Olivia will go with Stella to New York.
Before Olivia leaves on the trip,
Stella actually arrives at the house
in a fabulous convertible and looking very elegant.
She wants to meet the family,
she wants to meet all these children.
Everything that Olivia has talked about in her life,
she wants to come and experience this.
She also wants to talk with Olivia about a bigger idea,
the idea of having Olivia take over the shop in Westham
because Stella would like to expand her business
and open a store in maybe DC or, you know, or Rockfish.
She's looking at this opportunity because she trusts Olivia
and feels like this would be her opportunity to expand.
Olivia's a little overwhelmed by this idea
and needs some time to think about it.
Stella does have a chance to see some
of the dynamics within the family
because Reckless has gotten himself up a tree,
up into the tree house somehow.
They think maybe he chased a cat up there.
It would've been really, really difficult
for Reckless to have gotten up there,
I'm sure he was put up there.
But, meanwhile, the children, they fashion a sling
and they lower Reckless down.
And you can see some shots where the dog
is not all that interested in being, you know,
removed from the tree house and he's really fighting
or she is really fighting,
being kind of pushed out of the tree house,
but is safely lowered to the ground.
After some careful thought and deliberation,
Olivia decides that she does not want to become
a full-time worker in the store
or go to New York or any of that.
That she really is happy with her life here on the mountain.
And so her decision is to stay home,
and that her adventure in Westham
and being a seamstress is done for now.
There's a very sweet subplot involving Maude Gormley,
and Grandma. Maude comes by the house at one point
to visit Myrtle.
And then at one point Grandma
sees someone disappearing into the barn
and when she calls Grandpa and they go in there,
turns out that Maude is in there hiding
because her son Leonard has arrived to tell her
that he wants her to go to this old folks' home
and she's run away to hide because she feels safer here.
Leonard comes by the Walton's house
and explains to the Waltons that he's worried about her.
That she lives alone and what if she took a fall
or there was a fire or something.
And so ultimately she feels sort of overwhelmed
by Leonard's, his thoughts and his feelings,
and so she reluctantly goes along with it.
A little later, Grandma does go to visit Maude
at this old folks' home.
And while it's very nice, she isn't happy there
and she feels like she misses the mountain
and misses being able to go and pick berries with Grandma
where they would eat more than they would pick
and all those sorts of things.
And Grandma can tell how sad she is and feels badly for her
and has basically said,
"Don't anybody ever dare do that to me."
Before the end of the episode,
Maude has broken out of the home
and has gotten a bus somewhere
and then has hitched a ride on the ice wagon.
And so she arrives back at the Walton house.
She has decided she's coming back to the mountain.
So nice to see her back.
Always fun to work with Merie Earle,
she was such a character.
She started acting much later in her life
than most people turned professional.
But she was just so unique and entertaining
and I know she did quite a bit of work in her later years
and the character of Maude Gormley was so much fun.
She was so sort of eccentric
and Merie was very much like that character in real life.
I think most of the characters,
you might have seen her play in shows were a lot alike.
And I think that was just,
that was sort of who Merie was
and we always had a good time having her on the show.
That's what I have for you for this episode
of Behind the Scenes of The Waltons.
I will be back with more behind the scenes of the Waltons
and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.