Billy Gray Movies

Set during the last days of the old west, this zany adventure follows the exploits of a pair of cow-poke bankrobbers her are captured and then given the choice between going to jail or going overseas to fight WW I. They choose the latter and end up in France where they eventually join a squadron of British pilots. The fliers have been assigned to gun down a well-protected, gigantic German zeppelin that has been causing many headaches for the Allies. Unfortunately, the attempts take a heavy toll on the planes and slightly addled British plane mechanic Fritz is having increasing difficulties piecing the planes back together. Tables turn for the better when the two unwilling soldiers learn to fly the planes themselves. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Father Knows Best was one of the most beloved situation comedies of the 1950s. Happily, all the cast members of the original FKB were still around to show up in this 72-minute TV-movie reunion (subsequently reedited to an hour). On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Jim and Margaret Anderson (Robert Young and Jane Wyatt), the Anderson kids interrupt their busy adult schedules to attend the festivities. To bring you up to date, Betty (Elinor Donahue), aka "Princess," is now a widowed mother; Kathy (Laurin Chapin), better known as "Kitten," is a single woman dating an older man; and Bud (Billy Gray) is a motorcycle racer. Intended as the pilot for a new series, Father Knows Best posted good ratings when it was first telecast May 15, 1977, but sponsor and network interest were not forthcoming. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maverick director Floyd Mutrux made his feature debut with this offbeat semi-documentary look at the realities of the Los Angeles drug scene. Mutrux and his camera crew follow a handful of real-life heroin addicts as they go through their daily routines of scoring dope and whiling away the hours until their next fix. (The dealers are played by actors, among them William Fraker, a noted cinematographer who helped shoot the film, and Billy Gray, a former child star from Father Knows Best.) Dusty and Sweets are a thirty-something couple whose often strained relationship is held together by their shared dependence on heroin. Kit is a blasé male hustler who turns tricks to support his habit. Tip is a self-described "everyday card-carrying dope fiend" who demonstrates his technique for ripping off supermarkets and explains how to keep up a habit behind bars. And a cheerfully blank teenage couple seem to spend their days either shooting up, nodding off, or wondering where to get more dope. Though featuring enough on-screen skin popping to make nearly any audience wince, Dusty and Sweets McGee's beautiful photography and languid mood captures the blissfully narcotic allure of Los Angeles in a way that makes the film compelling, while allowing its subjects to seem both human and tragic. Dusty and Sweets McGee also includes a soundtrack of vintage rock and roll radio, and a brief appearance by the group Blues Image, playing their sole hit "Ride Captain Ride". ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Monstrous carnivorous trees with dangerously acidic saliva set off from their secret tropical paradise home in Antarctica to eat every human on Earth. Fortunately, the U.S. Navy isn't about to let that happen. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Ordered to destroy a German bridge, Saunders (Vic Morrow) and Littlejohn (Dick Peabody) make their way to a command post in hopes of getting reinforcements. But the post has endured heavy enemy fire and the extra troops have scattered--leaving behind only four disreputable GI prisoners who were being held for court-martial. This slimmed-down precursor to The Dirty Dozen features impressive dramatic performances by two sitcom veterans: Bill Bixby (My Favorite Martian and Bill Gray (Father Knows Best). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the two-character play by William Gibson, Two for the Seesaw was unnecessarily expanded for the film version. Robert Mitchum plays an Omaha businessman, newly arrived in New York. Though unhappily married, Mitchum is averse to asking for a divorce. This state of affairs gets dicey when Mitchum falls in love with Bronx-born professional dancer Shirley MacLaine. Once he does get a divorce, Mitchum, nervous about making any new commitments, fails to tell MacLaine. Though they remain fond of one another, Mitchum and MacLaine finally realize that any future relationship will do more harm than good for both of them. The original Broadway production of Two for the Seesaw starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft; by the time the film was made, Fonda was feuding with playwright Gibson and Bancroft was filming The Miracle Worker, so Mitchum and MacLaine were substituted. She is ideally suited to her role, but he seems ill at ease playing an indecisive jerk. Two for the Seesaw is at its best when concentrating on the minimalist text of the original play; the inclusion of secondary characters and location photography adds little to the project. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this socially conscious drama, based on a true-story, a high school teacher gets in trouble for having his students write compositions describing their feelings about sex. He is suspended; his students unite to defend him. A confrontation with the prudish school board ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This special episode of Father Knows Best was done one behalf of the United States Treasury Department in 1959, and was never aired on television -- it was, however, widely shown on 16mm prints at schools and churches, and to civic groups, to help sell U.S. Savings Bonds. Jim Anderson (Robert Young) is chosen to run a campaign to sell Savings Bonds through the Payroll Savings Plan and the Bond-a-Month Plan, and discovers that his three children are reluctant to participate. When he realizes the depth of their apathy, he decides to prove to them the importance of Savings Bonds and what they provide, in securing peace and freedom, by making them a bet -- that for 24 hours, they will not live in America, but in "Tyrantland," where a dictator in their home will control every aspect of their lives. He and Margaret (Jane Wyatt) play their roles to the hilt, eliminating all freedom of expression and choice for them for the next night and day. Betty (linor Donahue), Bud (Billy Gray), and Kathy (Lauren Chapin) are given numbers instead of names, and put on a rigid regimen of chores and errands. In the end, the three children recognize what they risk losing and relent. Like other, similar shows done for the Treasury Department (such as "Stamp Day For Superman"), "24 Hours In Tyrantland" was never part of the official list of episodes of its parent series, and only saw official commercial release in 2008, as part of the DVD set Father Knows Best: Season One. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

With his movie career fading in 1955, Bob Hope was amenable to writer/director Mel Shavelson's suggestion that Hope try something different. The Seven Little Foys was the first of Hope's two "straight" biopics (the second was 1956's Beau James). Though not completely abandoning his patented persona, Hope does an admirable job of impersonating legendary Broadway song-and-dance man Eddie Foy, right down to the soft-shoe shuffle and affected lisp. A successful "single" in vaudeville, Foy meets and marries lovely Italian songstress Madeleine Morando (Milly Vitale). The union results in seven children, moving the Foys' priest to comment "we're running out of Holy water" after the seventh baptism. Hardly an ideal family man, Foy leaves Madeleine and her sister Clara (Angela Clarke) behind in their Connecticut home to raise the kids, while he rises to spectacular career height. Returning home after attending a testimonial for George M. Cohan (James Cagney, who played this unbilled cameo on the proviso that Hope turn over Cagney's salary to charity), Foy discovers that his wife has died of pneumonia. Months pass: Foy sulks in his rambling house, while his seven kids run roughshod. Foy's manager (George Tobias) suggests that the entire family be assembled into a vaudeville troupe called The Seven Little Foys. Though the kids are profoundly bereft of talent, the act gets by on its charm, and before long Foy is a bigger success than ever. But when Foy and the kids are booked into the Palace on Christmas Day, Aunt Clara decides that the kids are being cruelly exploited, and arranges for the authorities to arrest the act on charges of violating a state law barring children from singing and dancing. The authorities decide to drop the charges when the kids rally around their father, declaring their genuine love for him--but the deciding factor is a quick demonstration that the kids can't sing or dance to save their lives! The Seven Little Foys is a standard Hollywood whitewash job, emphasizing Eddie Foy's virtues (including his on-stage heroism during the infamous Iroquois Theatre fire of 1903) and soft-pedaling or ignoring his faults (e.g. his capacity for alcohol). Wisely, the scenes between Bob Hope and the seven children playing the Little Foys (including Father Knows Best's Billy Gray, The Real McCoys' Lydia Reed and Leave It to Beaver's Jerry Mathers) are refreshingly free of cloying sentiment. Also, Hope is a good enough natural actor to convince us that he deeply cares for his children without gooey effusions of emotion. The film's hands-down highlight is the "challenge dance" between Foy (Bob Hope) and Cohan (James Cagney)--a lasting testament of the superb terpsichorean talents of both men. The Seven Little Foys was narrated by Eddie's son Charley Foy, a fine comedian in his own right. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide