Billy Gray Movies
Juvenile actor Billy Gray began appearing in movie bit parts at age 5. The best-remembered of his 1950s film appearances were in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) as the inquisitive son of Patricia Neal; On Moonlight Bay (1952), as Booth Tarkington's Penrod; and The Seven Little Foys (1955), in which he played the teenaged version of future film producer Bryan Foy. Billy was slated to portray Tag Oakley on the 1953 TV western Annie Oakley, but instead opted to co-star as Bud Anderson on the long-running Father Knows Best (1954-60). His appearances in film and on television became sporadic after the 1950s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1988
Little Dorrit was intended as the cinematic equivalent to the mammoth, eight hour Royal Shakespeare Company's staging of Dickens' Nicholas Nickelby. The film was released to theatres in two parts, each running approximately three hours. The first part, subtitled "Nobody's Fault," introduced us to the seamstress title character (Sarah Pickering), who chooses to live in debtor's prison with her father (Alec Guinness). Good samaritan Derek Jacobi endeavors to help both father and daughter. The second part, also known as "Little Dorrit's Story," details Dorrit's escape from penury to lasting happiness. Eschewing the usual 19th century-style British music often heard in Dickensian adaptations, director Christine Edzard creatively-and effectively--opts for the strains of Giuseppe Verdi. Edzard's eye for period detail is also deserving of unbounded praise. Unfortunately, Part Two of Little Dorrit spends nearly half of its running time recapping Part One, utilizing much of the same footage. For those familiar with "Nobody's Fault," "Little Dorrit's Story" is more a redundancy than a continuation. Still, taken together, parts one and two all fully deserving of the enthusiastic critical commentary that greeted them upon their original release-not to mention the multiple Academy Award nominations bestowed upon the project and its participants. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec Guinness, Derek Jacobi, (more)
- 1977
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
- 1977
Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas was the second of three TV pilot films for a proposed (and abandoned) revival of the 1950s sitcom classic Father Knows Best. Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Elinor Donahue, Billy Gray and Laurin Chapin reprise their old TV roles as the Anderson family. Jim and Margaret Anderson (Young and Wyatt), facing the prospect of celebrating Christmas alone, are further depressed by the possibility of having to sell their home. Their children Betty, Bud and Kathy (Donahue, Gray and Chapin), now grown and pursuing their own lives, drop what they're doing to rally around their parents. Father Knows Best: Home for Christmas was slightly more realistic than its 1950s inspiration, but Sentiment wins out over Truth once more. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
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
A journalist investigates after his lover begins complaining of being haunted by the spirit of a countess who died two decades ago. Together the writer and the troubled woman travel to a spooky old castle. As soon as they arrive, the girl falls into a deep trance and leads him to a torture chamber where terror awaits. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1962
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
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1961
The seventh season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents gets under way with a nasty little tale of academic gamesmanship featuring former Phil Silvers Show regular Paul Ford and onetime Father Knows Best co-star Billy Gray. Ford plays college anatomy professor Jarvis, who finds out that one of his students, Perry Hatch (Gray), intends to cheat on an exam. Desperate to save himself from expulsion, Perry scrambles around to find a way to "get even" with Jarvis -- and thinks he has solved his dilemma when circumstantial evidence suggests that the good professor has done away with his wife. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
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
- Starring:
- William Shatner, Lee Kinsolving, (more)
- 1959
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
- 1956
The Scarlet Hour was a relatively bold experiment for a mid-1950s Paramount release. The studio expended a great deal of money on the project and enlisted the services of top-flight director Michael Curtiz -- then populated the cast with young unknowns. Carol Ohmart and Tom Tryon (yes, the future novelist) star as Paulie and Marsh, respectively the film's villainess and protagonist. Knowing that Marsh is hopelessly in love with her, Paulie uses him as a dupe in an upcoming jewelry heist. Only after a killing has occurred does Marsh come to his senses. Jody Lawrance, whose previous career as a Columbia contract player had led nowhere, is "introduced" as the good girl to whom Marsh eventually retreats. Other comparative newcomers in the cast include Elaine Stritch, James Gregory and Edward Binns. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carol Ohmart, Tom Tryon, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Bob Hope, James Cagney, (more)
- 1954
Filmed on location in Utah, The Outlaw Stallion top-bills Phil Carey and Dorothy Patrick, but the star of the proceedings is young Billy Gray. Living on a ranch with his widowed mother (Patrick), Billy makes friends with the white stallion who leads the herd of wild horses living under the ranch's protection. Villain Roy Roberts intends to flout the law by corralling the stallion's herd, then shipping the horses across the border. To accomplish this, Roberts uses a fierce black stallion to lead the herd astray. After a hoof-to-hoof fight between the "good" and "bad" stallions, Roberts resorts to kidnapping Gray and his mother to bring the white horse out in the open--and that's where hero Carey justifies his presence in the film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Philip Carey, Dorothy Patrick, (more)
- 1953
A frantic woman named Harriet Hopper (Vera Marshe) bursts into the offices of the "Daily Planet" demanding to speak to Superman--and makes a beeline to the office of Clark Kent (George Reeves! How has Harriet managed to tumble to Clark's secret identity? Well, it seems that her nephew Alan (played by Billy Gray of Father Knows Best fame) is a camera bug, and has managed to snap an infra-red photo of Clark changing into his Superman outfit. Though Kent manages to alibi his way out of this sticky situation, young Alan is not yet out of the woods: He has also taken a picture of a dangerous criminal named Burnside (John Eldredge) faking his own death in order to defraud an insurance company. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1953
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By the Light of the Silvery Moon was a sequel to Warner Bros' On Moonlight Bay (1951); both films were loosely based on the "Penrod" stories by Booth Tarkington. Penrod himself (played by Billy Gray) takes a back seat to the main plot, concerning the hot-and-cold romance between Doris Day and Gordon MacRae. Gordon will not marry Doris until he is financially able to do so, which results in several breakups and reunions before the final clinch at the local ice rink. A silly subplot involves Penrod's suspicions that an attractive French schoolteacher (Maria Palmer) is not only romancing his father (Leon Ames), but is also an enemy spy! Set shortly after the end of World War I, Silvery Moon takes full advantage of that era's popular songs. The film isn't quite as good as On Moonlight Bay, but fans of Day and MacRae went home happy. Also: watch closely, and you'll spot Merv Griffin in a minor role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, (more)
