Barbara Eden Movies
Born in Arizona on August 23, 1934, actress Barbara Eden was three years old when her family moved to San Francisco, where as a teenager she plunged into acting and singing classes at San Francisco State College's Conservatory of Music. After briefly working as a band singer, Eden took up residence at Hollywood's Studio Club, an inexpensive rooming house for aspiring actresses. Other Studio Club residents would note in later years that Eden would look at the club's bulletin board and apply for every show business job available, even those that she was advised would "ruin" her career. Persistence paid off, and in 1956 Eden made her film debut in Back from Eternity. She worked steadily in television, finally attaining leading-lady status on the 1958 sitcom How to Marry a Millionaire, in which she played a myopic "Marilyn Monroe"-type golddigger. Good film and TV roles followed for the lovely blonde actress, and full stardom arrived with the NBC comedy series I Dream of Jeannie. Eden played the curvaceous bottle imp from 1965-70, reviving the character in a brace of TV movies, the last one produced in 1991. Eden's post-Jeannie career has included several films, TV guest star appearances, theatrical and nightclub engagements, and still another sitcom, 1981's Harper Valley P.T.A.In 1983, Eden joined the cast of Jaws 3, and played a role in Chattanooga Choo Choo (1984) before participating in The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal in 1985. The actress would return to her Genie roots throughout her later career, including in the 1985 comedy I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later, and I Still Dream of Jeannie (1991). Eden also made her mark in other sitcom-based films, most notably A Very Brady Sequel (1996).
After starring alongside Hal Linden for the play Love Letters and taking a guest-starring role on Army Wives, a drama from Lifetime, Eden joined the cast of Always and Forever, a made-for-television movie for The Hallmark Channel (2009). In 2011, Eden published a memoir titled Jeannie Out of the Bottle that spoke candidly of her personal life, including detailed accounts of her failed marriages and the tragic death of her son.
~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1960
Although this quickly made, routine drama has some future television talent acting in it (Barbara Eden, Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight), the story wanders back and forth between straight drama and an unintentional parody. Martin (Nico Minardos) has just witnessed a murder and in order to protect him, the police establish him in relative obscurity in a suburban neighborhood. What Martin does not know is that one of the policemen is not what he seems, and the cop sets up the unsuspecting man as a target to be eliminated. This is another in a long list of similar dramas directed by Edward L. Cahn in 1960-61. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nico Minardos, Barbara Eden, (more)
This adaptation of John O'Hara's From the Terrace stars Paul Newman as Alfred Eaton, an unhappily married financial adviser, while his real-life wife, Joanne Woodward, portrays Mary St. John, his promiscuous screen spouse. Mary's libertine behavior is a by-product of her husband's inability to express love and affection, a trait he has inherited from his cold-blooded father. Mark Robson directs and Myrna Loy heads up a large supporting cast as Newman's alcoholic mother. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, (more)
- 1959
A trio of energetic young men try to put on a good show for their Army camp, in this lightweight comedy by Raoul Walsh. Luigi (Sal Mineo just risen to stardom), Jerry (Berry Coe), and Mike (Gary Crosby) are in boot camp when they are presented with a chance to represent their unit in competition on a national television show. The three guys are up to the challenge, which begins a chain of unusual circumstances that not only have them singing and dancing at the proper times, but also running into a trio of alluring young women (Barbara Eden, Terry Moore, and Christine Carere). Then there is that little mix-up when the Assistant Secretary of War mistakenly marries herself off to a doped-up Private Jerry, all for a good cause. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sal Mineo, Christine Carère, (more)
- 1957
This Republic potboiler is no relation to the like-vintage Swedish film of the same title. The wayward girl in question is Judy Wingate (Marcia Henderson), the stepdaughter of predatory alcoholic Frances Wingate (Katherine Barrett). Judy is thrown into prison for a murder actually committed by Frances. The motivation: both women were in love with the same man. Frances keeps mum about her crime until it's almost too late for the people whom the audience truly care about. Some of the best scenes involve B-picture "regular" Whit Bissell as a lovelorn middle-ager. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Marcia Henderson, Peter Walker, (more)
- 1957
A pre-I Dream of Jeannie Barbara Eden guest stars as Diana Jordan, a sexy young lass who attends a country club dance along with the Ricardos, the Mertzes, and the Ramseys. Much to their wives' dismay, Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), Fred Mertz (William Frawley), and Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson) are all much smitten by the flirtatious Diana. In order to regain their husbands' attentions, Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance), and Betty Ramsey (Mary Jane Croft) all purchase expensive new clothes and subject themselves to an elaborate "glamour" treatment. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mary Jane Croft, Frank Nelson, (more)
- 1957
While vacationing in Bear Valley, Perry (Raymond Burr) is pressed into service when wheelchair-bound water skiier Mark Cushing (Eric Sinclair). It seems that Belle Adrian (Sylvia Field) had sworn vengeance against Mark for assaulting her daughter Carla (played by a pre-I Dream of Jeannie Barbara Eden). The key evidence in the case turns out to be something as simple as a lipstick sample. Paul Fix makes the first of several appearances as William Hale, the small-town district attorney with whom Perry matches wits whenever outside the jurisdiction of his tradtional nemesis Hamilton Burger. This episode is based on a 1951 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1957
Jayne Mansfield recreated her starmaking stage role in this film adaptation of George Axelrod's Broadway comedy. Mansfield plays a Monroe-like movie queen whom adman Tony Randall hopes to sign for a product endorsement. Through a fluke, the press believes that Randall is having an affair with Mansfield; she eagerly pounces on the attendant publicity, much to the dismay of her body-builder beau (Mickey Hargitay, then married to Mansfield). At the behest of his ad agency, Randall is forced to propose to Mansfield on a coast-to-coast TV show, which breaks the heart of his true love (Betsy Drake). Both Randall and Mansfield are saved from a marriage neither one wants by the last-minute arrival of Mansfield's hometown boy friend (Groucho Marx). Director Frank Tashlin uses Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter as an excuse to take satirical potshots at everything from TV commercials to the unwieldiness of CinemaScope. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jayne Mansfield, Tony Randall, (more)
- 1956
Director John Farrow's Back From Eternity is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of Farrow's 1939 film Five Came Back. The earlier film is the better of the two, if only because it is 22 minutes shorter. The plot concerns a small passenger plane that crashlands in South America, square in the heart of headhunter country. Pilot Robert Ryan is able to get the plane back into flying condition; unfortunately he discovers that the plane will only be able to carry five of its eleven passengers to safety. Who will have to be left behind: condemned murderer Rod Steiger, socialite Phyllis Kirk, her weak-willed fiance Gene Barry, copilot Keith Andes, elderly married couple Beulah Bondi and Cameron Prud'homme, songstress Anita Ekberg, foul-tempered cop Fred Clark, soft-hearted crook Jesse White, or tousle-haired kid Jon Provost? Rod Steiger is just fine in the role orginally played by Joseph Calleia, but Ekberg is no match for the original's Lucille Ball. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, (more)
- 1967
- R
Two law-abiding citizens pose as ne'er-do-wells on choppers in this Sixties biker flick. The Hellcats are an outlaw motorcycle gang who spend their days swilling beer, looking for kicks and supporting their nomadic lifestyle by acting as drug mules for a small but powerful crime syndicate. An undercover cop was on the verge of infiltrating the Hellcats when the mobsters found him out and had him murdered; the late detective's fiancée Linda (Dee Duffy) meets his brother, former Army sergeant Monte (Ross Hagen), and they decide to pick up where he left off by posing as bikers and joining the gang to ferret out the killers. Monte and Linda soon discover that while the men do most of the carousing in the Hellcats, it's the biker mamas who do most of the work in transporting heroin, and Linda forms a dangerous alliance with Shelia (Sharyn Kinzie), the brains of the drug-running outfit to maintain her cover. Meanwhile, Monte finds Shelia is falling for his moody charm, despite Linda's clear disapproval. Del "Sonny" West, a member of Elvis Presley's "Memphis Mafia," appears in the supporting cast as a biker named Snake. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ross Hagen, Dee Duffy, (more)
Like its lively predecessor, The Brady Bunch Movie (1995), this mild comic send-up takes its characters and situations from the popular family sitcom of the 1970s, The Brady Bunch. Set in the '90s, it is filled with in-joke references to American pop culture. However, one need not be familiar with the original series in order to enjoy this film. Bad guy Trevor Thomas (Tim Matheson) is posing as supermom Carol Brady's long-dead first husband Roy Martin. He claims to have been amnesiac and made unrecognizable by plastic surgery after suffering disfiguring injuries, but in truth, he is on the hunt for a very valuable artifact, an ancient Chinese horse carving which Roy sent to his family from the field. Because of the family's sheer niceness, they could never imagine such deception, and husband Mike Brady (Gary Cole) welcomes him into their midst. This causes Roy no end of frustration, as not only must he live with this incredibly sweet and cheerful family while he searches for the carving, but he must endure having his ill-tempered sarcastic jibes go completely unrecognized. When Carol (Shelley Long) is kidnapped, the whole family goes a-hunting. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Shelley Long, Gary Cole, (more)
Just how far would you go to get financing for your business? Donald Chandler (Roy Werner) is the owner of a restaurant who suddenly finds himself without a business or a job when his wife leaves him, taking the deed to the eatery with her. Eager to start over, Donald goes into a business partnership with Miguel Sanchez (Gerardo Mejia), a gardener who was taking care of Donald's lawn until he won a fortune in the lottery. Miguel is willing to front Donald the money to open a new restaurant, but there's a catch -- in exchange, Donald has to marry Catalina (Laura Elena Harring), Miguel's beautiful but ill-tempered daughter who needs an American husband in order to get a green card and stay in California. Loco Love (produced under the title Mi Casa, Su Casa was the first feature film from director Bryan Lewis. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Laura Elena Harring, Roy Werner, (more)
A woman becomes deeply disturbed when she starts having psychic visions of a brutal murder. Unfortunately, when she goes to the police, they treat her not as a witness, but as the prime suspect. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Barbara Eden, James Brolin, (more)
- 1984
- PG
The owner of a professional football team must restore the titular train and run it from Tennessee to NYC in 24 hours if he is to inherit $1 million in this comedy. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi
An ocean-themed Florida amusement park comes under attack from an angry Great White shark in this third installment of the horror series. The film maintains only a loose relationship to the original Steven Spielberg hit, centering on Mike (Dennis Quaid) and Sean (John Putch), the sons of police chief Martin Brody (originally played by Roy Scheider). Mike works at Sea World, where a baby Great White shark has accidentially been let into the park. Soon, the baby's vicious and extremely powerful mother comes in search of her child. The film focuses most of its attention on the series of tense shark attacks that follow, as tourists run for their lives while the park workers struggle to destroy the sharp-toothed beast. The suspense sequences were made somewhat more memorable during the film's original release with 3-D photography, an attribute lost on video, thereby removing the most distinctive element of an otherwise run-of-the-mill sequel. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, (more)
This low-budget expansion of the popular Tom T. Hall/Jeannie C. Riley song "Harper Valley PTA" is surprisingly good, boasting lively performances by star Barbara Eden and everybody else in the cast. Eden plays Stella Johnson, a widowed single mom whose gaudy makeup, miniskirts and tight jeans are a source of scandal for the smug, self-righteous members of the local PTA. Forced to leave town with her teenaged daughter Dee (Susan Swift), Stella gets revenge with photographic evidence revealing the sexual peccadilloes and drunken misbehavior of the oh-so-righteous PTA members. The supporting cast includes such seasoned comic pros as Nanette Fabray, Louis Nye, Pat Paulsen and Audrey Christie, all performing above and beyond the call of duty. A weekly-TV version of Harper Valley PTA, also starring Barbara Eden, soon followed. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Barbara Eden, Ronny Cox, (more)
With Five Weeks in a Balloon, 20th Century-Fox hoped to cash on the success of the studio's earlier Jules Verne adaptation Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1959). The plot is set in motion when 19th-century explorer Fergusson (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) volunteers to head a balloon expedition to claim an otherwise unreachable chunk of African territory for the British Empire. Along for the ride are reporter Donald O'Shay (Red Buttons), absent-minded professor Sir Henry Vining (Richard Haydn), Vining's assistant Jacques (Fabian) and schoolmarm Susan Gale (Barbara Eden). Along the way, the little party acquires another passenger when they rescue native girl Makia (Barbara Luna) from a slave trader. Their many near-death experiences include a run-in with evil potentate Sheik Ageiba (Henry Daniell). Other reliable characters on hand include Peter Lorre, Herbert Marshall, Reginald Owen, Mike Mazurki, and, in a dual role, sneezemaster Billy Gilbert. Since no one could be expected to take this sort of fare seriously, Five Weeks in a Balloon is played tongue-in-cheek, peppered with such overripe dialogue as "You, sir, are a cad!" and "Kismet! We are doomed!" ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Red Buttons, Fabian, (more)
- 1961
- PG
Walter Pidgeon is the nominal star of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, portraying Admiral Harriman Nelson, the designer of the submarine Seaview, a glass-nosed research submarine. The sub embarks on her shakedown cruise under the polar ice cap as the movie begins. Upon surfacing, however, the crew discovers that the entire sky is on fire -- the Van Allen radiation belt has been ignited by a freak meteor shower, and the Earth is being slowly burnt to a cinder. Nelson and his colleague, Commodore Lucius Emery (Peter Lorre), devise a plan to extinguish the belt using one of the Seaview's nuclear missiles, but they are denounced at an emergency meeting of the United Nations. Disregarding the UN vote against him, Nelson decides to go forward with his plan before the Earth is destroyed, hoping to get the approval of the president of the United States while his ship races from New York to the Marianas in the Pacific to launch its missile on time and target, with the world's navies hunting her down and communication with Washington impossible because of the fire in the sky. Nelson must combat not only the threats from other ships but also the doubts of his own protégé, Commander Lee Crane (Robert Sterling), the captain of the Seaview, about his plan and his methods, and the growing suspicion -- being spread by Dr. Susan Hiller (Joan Fontaine), a psychiatrist who was visiting the vessel -- about his sanity, as well as the growing discontent of the crew, who would like to see their families before the end of the world, and the presence of one religious fanatic (Michael Ansara) who thinks the fire in the sky is God's will. Worse still, there appears to be a saboteur -- and possibly more than one -- aboard. The plot is episodic in pacing and features elements that were clearly derived in inspiration from Disney's 1954 production of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, such as Nelson's eccentricity and the "outlaw" status of his ship; but the undersea maneuvers to tap the trans-Atlantic telephone cable (in order to reach Washington), the battle with a giant squid, a duel with an attack submarine, and a harrowing tangle with a WWII mine field would become standard elements of the series of the same name that followed this movie two years later. Pidgeon brings dignity if not a huge amount of energy to the role of the admiral, and Lorre, Fontaine, Ansara, and Henry Daniell (playing Nelson's scientific nemesis) add some colorful performances, and Barbara Eden, as Nelson's secretary, is pretty to look at; and there are some excellent supporting performances by Delbert Monroe (aka Del Monroe, who appeared later in the series, as Kowalsky), Mark Slade, John Litel, Howard McNear, and Robert Easton. The real "star" of the movie, however, is the submarine Seaview and the special effects by L.B. Abbott, which, to be fully appreciated, should be seen in a letterboxed presentation of the movie. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
- Starring:
- Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine, (more)
Tensely directed by Don Siegel, Flaming Star is the grittiest of Elvis Presley's post-Army films. Elvis plays Pacer Burton, a half-breed youth in the old West, torn between loyalty to the whites, as represented by his father (John McIntyre), and the Indians, represented by his mother (Dolores Del Rio). A series of brutal Kiowa raids, and the subsequent reprisals by the white settlers, sorely test Pacer's fortitude. Though offered moral support from his loved ones, Pacer is forced to work things out himself. The film was based on a novel by Clair Huffaker. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Elvis Presley, Steve Forrest, (more)
Fabian, Tab Hunter, and Peter Brown star as three surfers--Jody, Steamer and Chase--who make a pilgrimage from California to the north shore of Oahu for a vacation. Surfers from all over gather here every winter to compete with each other for the title of "the last ride" champion. While surfing the gigantic waves of the Pacific, the three young men each find romance with attractive young ladies (Shelley Fabares, Susan Hart, and Barbara Eden). Ride the Wild Surf features extensive surf footage of the Hawaiian Islands by cinematographer Joseph Biroc. Biroc was credited for a total of five feature productions in 1964. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi
- Starring:
- Fabian, Shelley Fabares, (more)
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