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De Kelley in Roddenberry's 333 Montgomery

Maurice

Maurice

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I haven't seen this discussed in any threads on the board, but the TV pilot 333 Montgomery, which was produced and written by Gene Roddenberry and starred DeForest Kelley is up on YouTube.

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The scripts sure smacks of Roddenberry, and it's fun to see De in a suit, tie and fedora.

This is the version of the pilot that was aired on Alcoa Theater in June 1960.
 
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HO-LEE

SHIT.


YES!!!!!!!!!

I've been very curious to watch this for months and now I can! But I'll have to wait since I gotta go to work now...

Thanks!!!
 
Thanks for finding this.

The clothing is mind boggling, did you see the size of the pocket square! It looked like he folded up an a3 people of paper and stuffed it in!
 
Very interesting to see Kelley doing something other than McCoy. It's definitely Roddenberry material, but I think I can see something of why it might not have sold. I think it had a good dose of realism, but as a whole it doesn't really grab you--speaking for myself anyway.
 
You're right, the dialogue does have Roddenberry written all over it - but I am not surprised it didn't sell. It had a preachy feel to it and just didn't sound right.
 
Well, that was... interesting. The casual misogyny of it wasn't very unusual for 1960, but it does kind of underline the difficulty in believing that Roddenberry was the great feminist he claimed to be. The stilted writing and acting weren't unusual for the period either, but I don't think Kelley was as well suited for this kind of big, speechifying hero as for a more unaffected and human character like McCoy.

The courtroom drama was about as unbelievable as it usually is in fiction, committing the common sin of having the attorney character go into the trial unprepared and unaware of the other side's case. I'm not sure what the discovery rules were like in 1960, but ideally the defense should've been briefed on the police's findings before going into the courtroom. Even if the discovery rules were lax, Brittin seemed to have enough friends on the force that he should've been able to ask around and find out the results of their investigation before it came up in the courtroom. And there's probably some kind of rule under which a defense attorney openly calling his own client a liar in front of the jury constitutes misconduct.

There's also a culture shock for us in the age of CSI watching old cop shows where they reconstruct crimes by conjecture and guesswork and handle evidence with their bare fingers.

Interesting that, aside from Kelley, the only person in this production that Roddenberry would work with again on any of his later productions (that I know of) was composer Harry Sukman, who scored his Genesis II and Planet Earth pilots.
 
Warped9 said:
Very interesting to see Kelley doing something other than McCoy. It's definitely Roddenberry material, but I think I can see something of why it might not have sold. I think it had a good dose of realism, but as a whole it doesn't really grab you--speaking for myself anyway.
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No, I felt the same way. It was fine as a one-off show, but I don't think I would have watched an entire series of it.

That being said though, hope somebody uploads Kelley's Police Story pilot that he did with Grace Lee Whitney. I'd like to see that sometime.
 
Christopher said:
Well, that was... interesting. The casual misogyny of it wasn't very unusual for 1960, but it does kind of underline the difficulty in believing that Roddenberry was the great feminist he claimed to be.
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Good point

Also, they played heavily on "class" distinctions. We're there such huge chasms in the 60s? Sounds more like an English class system then the (supposedly ) egalitarian US of A
 
Even today there are perceived class distinctions dependent on what circles you move in. You might not be barred from moving from one class to another, but until you make that transition some might look at you askance.
 
The character De plays is based on the real Jake Ehrlich, who was the model for television lawyers Perry Mason and Sam Benedict.

"333 Montgomery" (June 13, 1960) starred DeForest Kelley in the pilot episode of an unsold series written by Gene Roddenberry. It was based on the book Never Plead Guilty by San Francisco criminal lawyer Jake Ehrlich. Kelley acted in three separate pilots for Columbia, and the studio decided to try him in a lead and sent him to meet Roddenberry. Kelley and Roddenberry went to San Francisco to meet Ehrlich, who chose him for the lead. This event was crucial to Kelley's career because it introduced him to Roddenberry, later resulting in his Star Trek role.
—Wikipedia
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If you watch any Perry Mason you'll see that the pilot is very much of its time. That said, the script's not great, and it's just too speechy.
 
GNDN18 said:
PCz911 said:
Thanks for finding this.

The clothing is mind boggling, did you see the size of the pocket square! It looked like he folded up an a3 people of paper and stuffed it in!
Click to expand...

That pocket square is so distracting, so outré that it stretches my suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point.

And yet "it's real!"

http://neverpleadguilty.blogspot.com/2008/05/gene-roddenberry-deforest-kelly-jake.html
Click to expand...

That is mind boggling! Didn't even occur to me that someone might have actually dressed that way in real life
 
Warped9 said:
Even today there are perceived class distinctions dependent on what circles you move in. You might not be barred from moving from one class to another, but until you make that transition some might look at you askance.
Click to expand...

Not entirely sure I agree with that statement. I think it's more an educational separation, unless you're speaking specifically about the criminal class. (aka professional career criminals).

But blue collar vs white collar? My extended family has everything from mechanics to doctors /lawyers.
 
Sexist right off the bat in the teaser. You're right, Christopher, it's of the times, but sure sounds dated.

I do that pocket square with my napkin and plastic silverware at potlucks.

Re. class, I was JUST thinking about the period up into the 70s or so, when people wanted to move up. The middlebrow period. Reader's Digest condensed books on the shelf. LP box sets of the great classics. Ballet on Ed Sullivan. Now dumb and shlumpy is in. We had parents coming to parent/teacher conferences in pajama pants this year.
 
Well, I just finished it.

I enjoyed it as a product of its time since it's clearly dated, but I'll tell you this: Unlike a few of you, it did leave me wanting more.

Now, is there some bias there because of my affection for De Kelley? Sure, there probably is. But I enjoyed his performance.

I don't know that there was a series here, but perhaps a series of TV specials or the like, I would've enjoyed that.

I would've liked to have seen a few more episodes. Whether Roddenberry could've kept it interesting beyond that, we'll never know.
 
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