Jeff de Benning Movies

Tony (Larry Hagman) gives Jeannie (Barbara Eden) a working toy model of a top-secret nuclear earth station. Unaware of its importance, Jeannie subsequently gives the toy to a child, who then shows it to his father, an ambitious toy manufacturer. As a result, the "secret" is exposed via mass production and exploitation, and Tony is facing a court-martial! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robert Morse recreated his Tony-winning stage role in this 1967 film version of Frank Loesser's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical. A humble window washer at the New York offices of World Wide Wickets, J. Pierpont Finch applies the lessons he's learned from a book called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to wangle his way to the top of the executive heap. Though advised by the mailroom supervisor (Sammy Smith) to keep a low profile and play things "The Company Way," Finch follows his own skewed set of rules, endearing himself to bombastic company president J. B. Biggely (Rudy Vallee) by posing as a graduate of Grand Old Ivy, Biggely's alma mater. As he climbs to the top, Finch manages to dispose of an over-amorous rival by arranging a tryst between that rival and curvaceous secretary Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur)--who happens to be Biggely's live-in girlfriend. Finch also gets rid of the troublesome Mr. Ovington (Murray Matheson) by exposing the latter as an alumnus of Old Ivy's hated rival university. Graduating to vice-president, Finch feels secure enough to sing the show's one genuine love song "I Believe In You"--to himself! Actually, he's really in love with true-blue secretary Rosemary (Michele Lee), but won't admit to this until he suffers a career setback. Most of Loesser's songs survived the transition from stage to screen, with the exception of "Paris Original," which is heard merely as background music. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

My Favorite Martian launches its third and final season with its first color episode, and its first (and only) two-part story. In his efforts to return to the moment just before he crash-landed on earth in 1963, Uncle Martin (Ray Walston) deploys his Cathode-Ray Centrifugal Time Breakascope--which hurls himself and Tim (Bill Bixby) way, WAY back to the St. Louis of the year 1849. Here the two time-travellers meet Marshal Brennan (Alan Hewitt), great-grandfather of Martin's perennial nemesis Detective Brennan (also Alan Hewitt), who upholds family tradition by arresting the duo as counterfeiters when they try to pass 20th Century currency. Later on, Tim and Martin confront the great-grandmother of their landlady Lorelei Brown (both roles played by Pamela Britton)--and promptly make a mistake that could grievously alter the course of the future! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One more stock western in a long line stretching back to the turn of the 20th century, this oater by peripatetic director Edward L. Cahn has nothing particularly distinctive in its story about a group of outlaws. Billy Wade (played by the athletic James Brown) is an ex-gunslinger who is approached by his outlaw brother Matt (Robert Karnes), not long out of prison, to help him with a big-time robbery. Matt forces Billy's participation with an offer he cannot refuse, unaware that Billy is actually working on the side of the law. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide