Walter S. Baldwin Movies

Here's the obligatory "Women's Lib" episode, a requirement of every TV sitcom of the late 1960s. The newest female to embrace The Cause is Billie Jo (Meredith MacRae), who returns from Chicago fired up with feminist fervor. Her efforts to enlist her sisters in the movement causes nothing but trouble--especially with the resident Male Chauvinist Pigs of Hooterville. Frank Ferguson takes over from Paul Hartman in the role of barber Bert Remsey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 75th anniversary of the railroad between Pixley and Hooterville will be celebrated with a gala "golden spike" ceremony. Given the honor of driving the spike, Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) brings his hammer down full-force--and strikes oil! Instantly, Joe begins imagining all the wonderful things that he'll buy with his windfall...but as usual, our hero is riding for a fall. Frank Wilcox, who used to play oil company executive John Brewster on The Beverly Hillbillies, essays an almost identical role in this episode. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Kate (Bea Benaderet) is given an opportunity to sell the Shady Rest at a huge profit. At first, Kate's daughters are in favor of this move, but the neighbors aren't. Eventually the girls change their minds and join the neighbors in putting pressure on Kate to stay in Hooterville. This episode was originally scheduled for March 14, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sam Drucker's store becomes a beehive of activity when Kate (Bea Benadaret) shows up expecting a long-distance call from Betty Jo (Linda Kaye) and Steve (Mike Minor). The newlyweds are honeymooning in Hawaii, and they've promised to call as soon as they're--uh--able. Before long, practically everyone in Hooterville has crowded into the store in anticipation of the call...assuming, of course, that the call will ever get through the Valley's notoriously inefficient phone system! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season two of the hallucinogenic hayseed comedy Green Acres begins as the citizens of Hooterville face the loss of their entire corn crop to the dreaded bing bug. At least, that's what's supposed to be the central plotline of this episode. In truth, a lot more time is devoted to a WWII flashback, explaining how former fighter pilot Oliver Douglas (Eddie Albert) first met his sexy Hungarian wife Lisa (Eva Gabor). (No, it isn't what you think: she had to rescue him from the Nazis!) Eventually, the two plot strands merge as Oliver, newly inducted to the Hooterville Veteran's Organization, again takes to the air to bomb the bings out of existence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In typical backward fashion, there exists a Hooterville Volunteer Fire Department Band--but there's no Hooterville Fire Department. It seems that they've got the money for instruments, but no firefighting equipment. Under the semi-skilled guidance of bandleader Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan), the band stages a concert in hopes of raising the necessary funds. (Trivia note: Tom Fadden, the actor playing Ben Miller, was only six years younger than Walter Baldwin, the actor playing Ben's grandpa!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Oliver (Eddie Albert) wants to plant 160 acres of wheat on his farm -- just wheat, nothing else. Stumble-tongued agricultural agent Hank Kimball (Alvy Moore) informs Oliver that unless he practices parity (that is, varying his crops) he will be hit with a huge fine. Normally, a situation of this nature wouldn't arouse much laughter, but this is Green Acres, not "The Morning Farm Report"! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Ford's last western film, Cheyenne Autumn was allegedly produced to compensate for the hundreds of Native Americans who had bitten the dust in Ford's earlier films (that was the director's story, anyway). Set in 1887, the film recounts the defiant migration of 300 Cheyennes from their reservation in Oklahoma territory to their original home in Wyoming. They have done this at the behest of chiefs Little Wolf (Ricardo Montalban) and Dull Knife (Gilbert Roland), peaceful souls who have been driven to desperate measures because the US government has ignored their pleas for food and shelter. Since the Cheyennes' trek is in defiance of their treaty, Captain Thomas Archer (Richard Widmark), who agrees with the Indians in principle, reluctantly leads his troops in pursuit of the tribe. While there was never any intention to shed blood, the white press finds it politically expedient to distort the Cheyennes' action into a declaration of war. Thanks to the cruelties of such chauvinistic whites as Captain Oscar Wessels (Karl Malden), the Cheyennes are forced to defend themselves--and whenever Indians take arms against whites in the 1880s, it's usually misrepresented as a massacre. Only the intervention of US secretary of the interior Carl Schurz (Edward G. Robinson) prevents the hostilities from erupting into wholesale bloodshed. Based on a novel by Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn is a cinematic elegy--not only for the beleaguered Cheyennes, but for John Ford's fifty years in pictures. It is weakest when arbitrarily throwing in a wearisome romance between Richard Widmark and pacifistic schoolmarm Carroll Baker, who out of sympathy for the Indians has joined them in their 1500-mile westward journey. When the Warner Bros. people decided that the film ran too long, they chopped out the wholly unnecessary but very funny episode involving a poker-obsessed Wyatt Earp (James Stewart). Contrary to popular belief, this episode was included in the earliest non-roadshow prints of Cheyenne Autumn; the scene was excised only when the film went into its second and third runs in 1966 (it has since been restored). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Predictable and a little slow and labyrinthian, this western features Bill Williams as Temple Houston, a gun-toting D.A. whose heart lies with the cause of justice but whose actions toward that end can be controversial. Bigelow (Grant Richards) is a railroad agent who frames a Cherokee chief (as usual, played by a very non-Cherokee Ted de Corsia) for the murder of the Indian Commissioner. The crafty Bigelow wants the Cherokee nation to declare war, which would make their lands automatically available for use by the railroad according to an 1867 treaty. Temple Houston has to prosecute the Chief, a long-time friend, and although he wins his case the story is not over yet. As he soon discovers, the Chief is most decidedly innocent. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

You Can't Run Away From It is a musical remake of Frank Capra's Oscar-winning classic It Happened One Night, complete with same-named characters and word-for-word scene reconstructions. It all begins when spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (June Allyson) is literally kidnapped from the altar by her wealthy father (Charles Bickford). Escaping from her daddy's yacht with only a handful of clothes and minimal finances, Ellie hops a bus, intending to travel cross-country to be reunited with her fortune-hunting husband. Reporter Peter Warne (Jack Lemmon), sensing a swell newspaper story, tags along. Though Peter and Ellie aren't terribly fond of one another (that's putting it mildly!), by the end of their journey they've fallen in love -- but there are still several last-minute complications before a happy ending can be reached. Most of the musical numbers in the remake are awkwardly inserted during the more famous scenes from the Capra original: the "Walls of Jericho," the impromptu singalong on the bus, the hitchhiking bit, etc. Benefiting from the breezy performances of Jack Lemmon and June Allyson, You Can't Run Away From It is easy to take, but hardly within shouting distance of the original film's brilliance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted from a novel by Louis L'Amour, Stranger on Horseback is one of Joel McCrea's shorter western vehicles, zipping merrily along at a mere 66 minutes. McCrea plays a travelling judge who makes it his mission in life to clean up the town of Bannerman. This proves difficult, in that the town is virtually owned by the Bannerman family. But when the family's youngest son (Kevin McCarthy) commits murder, McCrea vows to bring the boy to justice -- and to see that he gets a fair trial, despite pressure from the Bannermans' enemies. Czech-Mexican actress Miroslava makes one of her rare American film appearances as McCrea's love interest; shortly after Stranger on Horseback was released, Miroslava committed suicide, allegedly as a result of an unhappy romance with bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The third and (as of 1998) final film version of Max Brand's Destry Rides Again, this 1954 Audie Murphy vehicle owes more to the 1939 Jimmy Stewart version than it does to the Brand original. Murphy plays Tom Destry, the peace-loving son of a notorious gunslinger. Destry is summoned to a wide-open western town in hopes that he can stem the villainies of saloon owner Decker (Lyle Bettger) and crooked mayor Sellers (Edgar Buchanan). Though he prefers to talk rather than slap leather, Destry manages to keep the bad guys at bay. But when his best friend, town-drunk-turned-sheriff Rags Barnaby (Thomas Mitchell), is killed by Decker's minions, Destry straps on the shootin' irons and goes to work. Mari Blanchard essays the Marlene Dietrich role as vacillating saloon-hall chirp Brandy, while Lori Nelson is the "good"girl with whom Destry ultimately settles down. Though most of the highlights of Destry -- including the all-girl saloon brawl -- are lifted bodily from 1939's Destry Rides Again, the 1954 film lacks the light touch of the earlier picture, despite the fact that comedy craftsman George Marshall directed both pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 1954 Martin-and-Lewis romp Living It Up is an amusing remake of the 1937 comedy classic Nothing Sacred. More specifically, it is the film version of the Broadway musical Hazel Flagg, which was based on Nothing Sacred. The heroine of the original undergoes a sex change to become feckless Homer Flagg (Jerry Lewis), who is led to believe that he's dying of radiation poisoning. Manhattan newspaperwoman Wally Cook (Janet Leigh), hoping to improve circulation of her paper, convinces her boss, Oliver Stone (Fred Clark), to fete Homer as a hero with an all-expenses-paid trip to the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Homer learns from local doctor Steve (Dean Martin) that he isn't dying at all. But Steve talks Homer into taking advantage of the celebrity treatment bestowed on him by Wally, and a good time is had by all -- until medical specialist Dr. Egelhofer (Sig Rumann) insists upon examining Homer. Highlights include a hilarious bit at Yankee Stadium, and an energetic jitterbug number featuring Jerry Lewis and Sheree North. The handful of songs retained from Hazel Flagg include "Every Street's a Boulevard in Old New York." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide