- Welcome to another segment
of Behind the scenes of the Waltons.
Today, I'm going to be talking about the episode
The Genius from Season 4.
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In The Genius, John-Boy is asked to bring home
a fellow student from Boatwright University,
a young man named Lyle Thomas,
played by actor Dennis Kort.
Lyle, although absolutely brilliant, in fact, a genius,
just is completely hopeless
when it comes to social interaction.
He comes off as arrogant
and
uncaring about other people's feelings.
And actually without any awareness of the way
in which the things that he says can be offensive to others.
So John-Boy brings him home
and soon finds himself in the awkward position
of recognizing
how much the things that Lyle is saying
are upsetting the other members of his family.
Grandma and Mamma in particular,
find themselves challenged by Lyle's views
of faith,
religion versus science,
his unwillingness to consider going to church
or even admitting the existence of a God.
That strikes Grandma as,
beyond the pale that he would be so arrogant in his youth.
And in fact,
give off the sense that he feels
that the rest of the Waltons by their beliefs
are actually ignorant.
Olivia tries a little harder to understand
where Lyle might be coming from
and perhaps encourage him towards another point of view.
Lyle in his youthful
certainty,
just refuses to consider that any
opinion other than his, based completely
on what he considers black and white science and facts,
and things that can be proven.
It's just not to be budged at that moment,
so it creates a bit of a conflict within the family
having Lyle there.
There's an interesting driving sequence here
just from a shooting and editing standpoint,
where you see John-Boy driving along a country road.
Which I believe was shot on location
not on the backlot of the studio,
and then a little further along we're into a process shot
meaning that we're on the soundstage
with
a pre shot
video of the road
that then is playing in the background
as John-Boy and Lyle have this conversation.
This intercuts with them coming out of a country road,
which was shot on the backlot of the studio
and arriving at Godsey's store.
So you have three different pieces to this driving sequence
all edited together to create a seamless transition
from the road to Godsey's store.
Mary Ellen is the only one initially to defend
Lyle,
feeling that some of the things that he's saying,
she thinks are perfectly reasonable.
I think because of this,
Lyle has a little crush on Mary Ellen,
which
turns into a cute little subplot.
He asks John-Boy,
how he might
talk with Mary Ellen
and how one talks with girls, what to talk about.
And then when John-Boy is talking with Grandpa,
they do a lovely set up here in this shot,
where John-Boy and Grandpa are in the foreground.
And in the background,
you see me, Mary Ellen gardening.
And that sort of draws us then into the next scene,
which is Lyle coming over
and trying to talk to Mary Ellen without great success,
and without any awareness that he is having no success.
Ultimately I squirt him with the hose,
which I'm sure I thought was great fun to be able to do.
I'm guessing we only did that part of the scene once
because then he would have been soaking wet
and it would've meant drying all the clothes,
drying him, fixing his makeup hair, all of that.
So what happens with a scene like this,
is that the director
will
roll the camera,
will do the scene -
and if there's been any problem with the scene
prior to the point where the water comes into play,
the camera man, or someone will signal
or the director will cut it
so that we don't actually get to the point of the hose.
Or they'll be done in two sections
where they'll cut there,
make sure that they have all of that.
Do everything else they need,
and then finally do this section
with the host separately,
so that we know that we have the whole scene
and don't have to deal with drying the actor off again.
Again - editing.
After the scene in the garden,
it goes back to John-Boy and Grandpa.
So the director did a wonderful job
of linking these three scenes together
so there was a sense of the entire
scope of the yard and what was going on.
Shortly after that one, Lyle leaves.
He's wet, he's gonna run into the house.
He encounters Grandma
and goes a different direction.
Moves over towards the back porch,
where Erin - who is trying to put together
her Joan of Arc play -
is really trying to rehearse with the rest
of her siblings who were being very uncooperative.
So again, there's a wonderful
scope to this scene
where from one angle you could see Lyle and Grandma,
and you could see Mary Ellen still in the garden.
And as it moves to the other side,
you still see the front porch
and you see the kids at the back porch.
So all of these flow together really well,
which - I love the continuity of that.
It keeps it from feeling like a bunch of choppy pieces.
That's just good directing.
Sometimes for scene like at the bizarre,
we needed extra people,
so in this case several of our siblings
came to help fill out the space.
In this case, you see Eric's brother Dana riding Blue.
When we go into the church for the performance
of Joan of Arc,
you see my brother Dave.
And then in the front row is Kami's brother Jeffrey,
who went on later to play the role of Pip in the episode,
The Children's Carol.
So keeping it in the family. Not unexpectedly,
the conclusion of this episode has a happy ending.
Lyle does agree to help out with the play
and much to his surprise enjoys himself.
He has learned some new social skills,
which will serve him in his life,
make his path a little smoother.
He also has developed a touch of humor,
when at the very end,
he says,
to demonstrate that he actually likes us and me,
Mary Ellen in particular,.
he pours a cup of water on my head,
(laughs)
Again, this would have had to be shot carefully
so that
I only got wet once
and didn't have to go dry my hair
which would have been quite a bit of work,
since my hair was pretty long at that point.
And it was fun,
I don't remember if the water was cold
but it's always a little startling to have water squirted
at you or dumped on you, but it was fun.
I enjoyed that moment
and I think it was, it was a nice ending for the episode.
That's what I have for you for this episode,
The Genius.
I hope you'll join me next time
for another segment of Behind the scenes of the Waltons
or Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.