Jerry Mathers Movies

A laid-back health inspector's comfortable routine receives an unwelcome shake up when he's assigned the task of training his new rookie partner and investigating the outbreak of a mysterious illness at one of the city's most posh restraints in this no-holds-barred comedy starring Blue Collar standup king Larry the Cable Guy. It's all greasy spoons and low-rent ethnic eateries in the world of seasoned big-city health inspector Larry (Larry the Cable Guy), and that's just the way he likes it. After begrudgingly accepting the task of training by-the-books trainee Amy (Iris Bahr), Larry lands the biggest case of his career when a group of high-class diners fall ill following a particularly pricey meal. Though the gruff but lovable health inspector soon loses his job as a direct result of his questionable manners, he soon wins the heart of a shy waitress while attempting to go undercover to crack the case and ensure that the conspirators who engineered the poisonous plan are brought to justice. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

An attractive businesswoman is ignored by her abusive, uncaring husband. She has an affair with a male stripper and another affair with a young black woman. When pictures of her and her black female lover turn up, blackmail and murder result. Her ex-boyfriend -- a cop -- believes that she has been framed and sets out to find the real killer. ~ Brian Gusse, Rovi

In this comedy, defense lawyer Vic Scalia (Andrew Stevens) teams up with the criminals he defends in order to pull off a lucrative robbery. However, Scalia's accomplices are less-than-honorable as they backstab and steal from each other on the way to deliver the loot. ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

This video contains a pair of episodes from the '80s television show that chronicled the adult exploits of the formerly irascible '50s icon of childhood innocence, Beaver Cleaver and his family. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Perhaps it's a blessing that old Ward Cleaver didn't live to see how his son Beaver (Jerry Mathers) turned out. Now in his mid-30s, the Beav is divorced, out of work, and living in his mother's house with his two children. Beaver's brother Wally, also married, is doing rather better, but his friendship with neighborhood sharpster Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond) threatens his financial wellbeing. Only the boys' Mom June (Barbara Billingsley) has matured in the twenty years since Leave It to Beaver left the air. Still the Beaver was the pilot for one of those ubiquitous "reunion" series of the 1980s; this one sold, and ran for several seasons on the TBS Superstation as The New Leave It to Beaver. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Moving from Saturdays to Thursdays for its sixth and final season, Leave It to Beaver acknowledges the fact that both Beaver Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) and his brother Wally (Tony Dow) are now teenagers by reorchestrating the series' familiar theme music in emulation of a rock & roll beat. Also, whereas Wally was previously the only sports hero in the family, now Beaver is old enough to win a football award, and to score a winning touchdown -- though he's still not mature enough to handle the responsibilities of athletic fame and adulation. Additionally, for the first time in the series, Beav and Wally go on a double date with two attractive sisters -- and later on, Beav and not Wally gets in trouble for scheduling two dates on the same night! Too, Wally's hormones have kicked in to the extent that he seriously considers growing a moustache to impress his steady.
Yes, six years have definitely gone by since Leave It to Beaver's first season. Episode highlights this year include "Eddie the Businessman," in which that unregenerate creep Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond) unwittingly becomes accessory to a robbery scheme, and the thematically similar "Beaver the Caddy," in which The Beav must choose between telling a lie and getting a big tip on the links; "Tell It to Ella," wherein Beaver's complaint to a newspaper advice columnist about unfair parents backfires big-time (watch for a young Tim Matheson in this episode); and "Wally and the Fraternity," in which Wally's plan to pledge to his father Ward's (Hugh Beaumont) old fraternity may be scuttled by the words of a disgruntled ex-pledge. One of the season's best offerings showcases Doris Packer in the role of Beaver's eighth-grade teacher Miss Rayburn; in "Beaver's Book Report," Beav attempts to summarize The Three Musketeers based on the 1939 film version starring the Ritz Brothers. The series' 234th and final episode is also the only "cheater" in Leave It to Beaver's history: "Family Album" is a retrospective of clips from classic earlier episodes, including the series' very first offering, 1957's "Beaver Gets 'Spelled." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Still securely ensconced in a Saturday-night time slot, Leave It to Beaver satisfies its ever-growing fan base with 39 new episodes in its fourth season on the air. Joining the familiar cast of regulars is child actor Richard Correll as Beaver's new pal Richard, a replacement of sorts for the departing Larry Mondello. This season includes two of the series' most moving and realistic episodes. In the season opener "Beaver Won't Eat," Beaver (Jerry Mathers) and his mom June (Barbara Billingsley) form a closer bond than ever before -- and it's a plate of Brussels sprouts that causes it all. And in "Beaver's House Guest," Barry J. Gordon (A Thousand Clowns) guests as Beaver's friend Chopper, who desperately tries to convince everyone that he really, truly enjoys being a child of divorce. Elsewhere, the "creepy" Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond) unexpectedly evokes the sympathy of the viewers when he is two-timed by a conniving female in "Eddie's Double Cross"; Beav must face the unimaginable horror of forever losing his favorite schoolteacher in "Miss Landers' Fiancé"; a youthful kleptomaniac gets Beav in Dutch in "Beaver and Kenneth"; and Wally's oafish pal Lumpy Rutherford (Frank Bank) learns the hard way that dating the "Teacher's Daughter" is not a guaranteed method of improving one's grades ("Yes, F. It's the lowest grade they allow me to give.") Also: Eddie and Lumpy inadvertently get Wally kicked off the track team in "Wally's Track Meet," then advertently get Beaver in trouble with dad Ward (Hugh Beaumont) by cleverly changing a "D minus" into a "B plus" in "Beaver's Report Card"; Beav stirs up trouble on his own by being trapped into a dare in "The School Picture"; and Wally offers his services as "Substitute Father" when Beav is hauled before the principal for swearing in school (no, we don't hear the words!). By far the season's funniest and most famous episode is "In the Soup," which, of course, is the one in which Beaver climbs onto an elaborate billboard and manages to get himself stuck in a gigantic soup bowl! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Leave It to Beaver entered its second season in a new time slot (Thursdays rather than Fridays at 7:30 pm EST), a new network (ABC instead of CBS), and a new movie studio (Revue Productions had moved its base of operations from Republic to Universal). Things get off to a delightful start with "Beaver's Poem," one of the series' many "crisis of conscience" episodes in which Beaver wins an award for a poem written by his dad Ward (Hugh Beaumont). Subsequent first-rate episodes include "Beaver and Chuey," wherein The Beav nearly loses the friendship of his new Mexican acquaintance thanks to the duplicitous machinations of the redoubtable Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond); "Beaver's Ring," which finds our hero stoically contemplating amputation when he gets a valuable family ring stuck on his finger; and "The Shave," in which Beav's older brother Wally (Tony Dow) contemplates scraping off a few "chin whiskers" that frankly don't yet exist. (This episode features Howard McNear, best known as Floyd the barber on The Andy Griffith Show, here cast as -- you guessed it -- a barber!) Also: In "The Grass is Greener," Wally and Beav learn to appreciate what they have in life when they meet a poor family; in "Beaver Plays Hookey," Beaver and his buddy Larry (Rusty Stevens) skip school, only to be caught in the act by a TV camera; in "Wally's Pug Nose," Wally is given reason to be self-conscious by his new girlfriend Gloria (played by Cheryl Holdridge before she was established in the role of Judy Foster); "Beaver and Gilbert" introduces Stephen Talbot in the role of preteen conniver Gilbert Gates (later Bates), who wastes no time hatching a scheme that will get Beaver "clobbered" by his dad; Beav manages to get locked in the principal's office and get his head stuck in an iron gate in "The Price of Fame," and later causes embarrassment for himself when he brags about his father's WWII exploits in "Beaver's Hero"; and in "Wally's Haircomb," Wally shocks his parents by emerging from the bathroom with his hair in an Elvis-like duck tail (listen for that gloriously phony rock & roll music on the soundtrack!) The season ends with "Most Interesting Character," which feature our hero's latest schoolteacher, the pretty Miss Landers (Sue Randall). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Musical comedy star Betty Garrett goes dramatic big-time in the hostage drama Shadow on the Window. Betty plays Linda Atlas, the mother of seven-year-old Petey Atlas (portrayed by Jerry "The Beaver" Mathers). When Petey witnesses a murder committed by a trio of juvenile delinquents, he wanders off in a state of shock. The three punks (John Barrymore Jr., Corey Allen and Gerald Sarricini) kidnap Linda, who's also witnessed their crime, holding her prisoner to keep the boy from talking -- if and when he recovers. Meanwhile, the authorities launch a frenzied manhunt in search of the catatonic boy, led by Petey's dad, police officer Tony Atlas (Phil Carey). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of the undisputed classics of American television, the weekly, half-hour sitcom Leave It to Beaver was created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who had risen to prominence as principal writers of the TV version of Amos 'n' Andy. Fulfilling their ambition to create a warm, credible sitcom about modern suburban life as seen through the eyes of small children, Connelly and Mosher came up with a pilot film, "It's a Small World," in 1957. This trial balloon featured Jerry Mathers as six-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, Paul Sullivan as his 11-year-old brother Wally, Casey Adams (aka Max Showalter) as their accountant father Ward, and Barbara Billingsley as their housewife mother June. Also appearing in the pilot were Diane Brewster, Richard Deacon, and, in the one-scene role of a wise guy neighbor kid named Frankie, a very young Harry Shearer. Though the concept did not fly as "It's a Small World" (the pilot would be folded into a syndicated anthology series, Studio 57), CBS evinced interest when it reemerged, with several new cast members, as Leave It to Beaver, which debuted October 4, 1957.
Carried over from "It's a Small World" were Jerry Mathers and Barbara Billingsley, while new to the cast were Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver and Tony Dow as Wally. Likewise retained were Diane Brewster and Richard Deacon, albeit in different roles as respectively, Beaver's schoolteacher Miss Canfield and Ward's co-worker Fred Rutherford. The basic original premise was also kept on, with Beaver and Wally trying to interpret the ways of the world through their own youthful and naïve perspective. The Cleavers lived in the town of Mayfield, and shared many of the same trials and tribulations as the "nuclear families" who comprised the series' fan base. What really sold the series was the warm, realistic rapport between the Cleaver kids and their parents, and the authentic-sounding dialogue, full of the slang and idioms common to youngsters of the Eisenhower era. The huge supporting cast included Rusty Stevens as Beaver's chubby pal Larry Mondello, who was invariably seen chomping on an apple and who lived in fear of his disciplinarian father who always seemed to be on a business trip to Cincinnati (Madge Blake, aka Batman's Aunt Harriet, was occasionally seen as Larry's mom); Stanley "Tiger" Fafara as another Beaver buddy, the adenoidal Whitey Whitney; Stephen Talbot as young Gilbert Bates, who spent most of his time talking Beaver into getting in trouble; Richard Correll as Richard, evidently brought in during the series' third season as a Larry Mondello replacement; Jeri Weil as snotty, insulting Judy Hensler, Beaver's classroom nemesis; Frank Bank as Wally's school chum (and Fred Rutherford's son) Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford, an amiable, none-too-bright oaf; Pamela Beard as Mary Ellen Rogers and Cheryl Holdridge as Judy Foster, Wally's erstwhile girlfriends; and Sue Randall and Doris Packer respectively as Miss Canfield's successors at Beaver's school, Miss Landers and Miss Rayburn. By far the most famous and celebrated of the series' supporting players was Ken Osmond as Wally's pal Eddie Haskell, that juvenile Uriah Heep who laid on the insincere charm whenever he was around Beaver's parents ("Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver. My, Mrs. Cleaver, you're looking lovely tonight. Are Wallace and Theodore at home?"), but who reverted to his true personality as a weaselly, conniving creep whenever he was alone with Wally and The Beav. Moving from CBS to ABC for its second season, Leave It to Beaver ultimately lasted six seasons and 234 episodes, signing off only because Tony Dow and especially Jerry Mathers had outgrown their roles. The final network episode aired on September 12, 1963; one week later, the series entered rerun syndication, where it has flourished ever since. And in 1985, most of the original cast (minus the late Hugh Beaumont) were reunited in their same roles in a new series, The New Leave It to Beaver, which was a spin-off of the earlier retro special Still the Beaver, and which remained in production until 1989. While the newer version is not held in terribly high esteem by fans, the original remains an audience favorite. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on an article in the New Yorker, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life stars James Mason (who also produced the film) as elementary school teacher Ed Avery, a thoughtful, gentle man, with a loving wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), and a young son, Richie (Christopher Olsen), who loves him. Avery is successful and well liked in his community, but he is over-extended in his pursuit of the American dream -- he secretly works a second job to earn extra money, and doesn't dare break stride, despite the increasingly painful physical spasms that he suffers. He collapses one day, and the doctors inform him that he suffers from an arterial disease that will probably give him less than a year to live. But they also offer him one hope, with treatment using cortisone, which was then a new, not-fully-tested drug. Avery makes a seemingly full recovery and returns to work, but it soon becomes clear that he's not the same -- he has a new, cavalier attitude toward money, and then Lou becomes alarmed over his expressions of rage over seemingly insignificant annoyances. He starts expressing himself in grand, exalted terms, first to Lou and then to his colleagues at school, including his closest friend, Wally Gibbs (Walter Matthau). And matters only get worse when Wally determines that it is the cortisone -- which Ed has been taking in far greater doses than prescribed -- that is making him act this way. And his obsession w ith forcing Richie to live up to his full potential soon turns into a much darker fixation. Director Ray later offered regret over having used cortisone by name, as it was still not standard treatment and its benefits and drawbacks weren't known. But this did lend the movie a verisimilitude that was essential for what appeal it did hold for audiences. (Seven years later, screenwriter William Read Woodfield would incorporate Bigger Than Life's cortisone plot device into his script for the Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea episode \"Mutiny\". Bigger Than Life's more immediate problem at the time lay in its broader plot -- with a story that brought drug addiction and fact-based psychological unhingement into a suburban American setting, it was a daring subject for its time, for which audiences were unprepared in 1956. It was also one of a group of offbeat pictures that Mason produced as well as starred in. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

The trouble with Harry is that he's dead. The scene is a autumnal Vermont village, where a pre-Leave It to Beaver Jerry Mathers stumbles upon Harry's corpse in the woods. Mathers alerts his mother Shirley MacLaine (making her film debut), who recognizes Harry as her ex-husband. Later on, retired sea captain Edmund Gwenn likewise comes across the moribund Harry. Both MacLaine and Gwenn have reason to believe that they're responsible for Harry's demise; MacLaine thinks that she killed Harry by clobbering him with a bottle, while Gwenn is certain that he shot the poor fellow while hunting. As the day draws to a close, seemingly every person in town is convinced that he or she has had some hand in Harry's death, thus they conspire to hide the body from the authorities. Visiting artist John Forsythe, dumbfounded at the calm, collected reactions of the villagers regarding Harry (whose ubiquitous body pops up at the most inopportune moments), solves the "mystery." Though not his most successful film, The Trouble with Harry was one of director Alfred Hitchcock's favorites. The story's whimsical black-comedy elements are perfectly complemented by Bernard Herrmann's playful music score. Best bit: Mildred Natwick, coming upon Gwenn as the latter is strenuously dragging away Harry's corpse, asking offhandedly "What seems to be the trouble, Captain?" The Trouble With Harry was adapted by John Michael Hayes from the novel by John Trevor. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi