Linda Kaye Movies

The highlights of this classic children's story are the performances of Diana Rigg as the Mean Queen and Billy Barty as Biddy the Dwarf. The seven-year-old Snow White is played by Nicola Stapleton, with Sarah Patterson portraying the princess at age 16. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Although Petticoat Junction's already sagging ratings had dropped precipitously upon the death of star Bea Benaderet in the fall of 1968, the series still maintained enough of a viewership to warrant a seventh and final season, which commenced in September of 1969. Edgar Buchanan is now top-billed as Uncle Joe Carson, the delightfully shiftless owner of Hooterville's Shady Rest Hotel. June Lockhart, introduced in season six as Dr. Janet Craig, is now afforded second billing in the series' opening credits; alas, talented though Lockhart may be, she was unable to replace the late Bea Benaderet in the hearts of the series' staunchest fans. With Uncle Joe's niece Betty Jo (Linda Kaye Henning)'s recent marriage to crop duster Steve Elliott (Mike Minor) and the birth of little Kathy Jo Elliott (now played by Elna Hubbell), Betty Jo's sisters Billie Jo (Meredith Mac Rae) and Bobbie Jo (Lori Saunders) are seriously contemplating matrimony -- which is not only the logical course of events, but also a blatant bid by the series' producers to generate audience interest by holding out the promise of two more onscreen weddings. Billie Jo's erstwhile beau Jerry is played by Greg Mullavey, who later became the real-life husband of Meredith Mac Rae (just as Linda Kaye Henning and Mike Minor were husband and wife offscreen). As for Bobbie Jo, she is courted by the terminally shy game warden Orrin Pike (Jonathan Daly). And in another domestic development, Petticoat Junction this season serves up the obligatory (in 1970) "women's lib" episode, "Susan B. Anthony, I Love You," which though lightly amusing, seems deliberately calculated to enrage contemporary feminists! Even though the romantic entanglements of the Bradley girls did not significantly improve the ratings of Petticoat Junction, the series might have survived for another season had it not been cut short by CBS as part of the network's ongoing efforts to "de-ruralize" its target audience. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In retrospect, the first episode of Petticoat Junction's fifth season, "Is This My Daughter?," is ironically amusing. Kate Bradley, widowed owner of Hooterville's Shady Rest Hotel, is astonished by how much her daughter Betty Jo (Linda Kaye Henning), has changed upon returning from a trip to Europe. This in itself is astonishing since, of the six actresses who have portrayed Kate's three daughters during the previous five seasons, Linda Kaye Henning is the only one who has been with the series since the outset! (This loyalty may or may not stem from the fact that Henning was the daughter of the "boss," Petticoat Junction executive producer Paul Henning). That said, it can be noted that Betty Jo is pretty much the entire focus of season five. After choosing among the three Bradley girls, handsome crop duster Steve Elliott (Mike Minor) decides to propose to Betty, leading inevitably to a wedding episode, cunningly designed to boost Petticoat Junction's sagging ratings. Halfway through the season, Kate Bradley goes "out of town," obliging her lazy Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) to take charge of the Shady Rest, with the occasional help of a hitherto unseen Bradley relative, Aunt Helen (played by Rosemary de Camp, who had previously co-starred in producer Paul Henning's "The Bob Cummings Show.") Kate would not return to Hooterville until the season finale, and then only briefly. The reason for her conspicuous absence was both simple and tragic: series star Bea Benaderet was seriously ill with cancer, unable to appear before the cameras for any more than a few minutes at a time. Bea Benaderet would be heard (but not seen) in only one more Petticoat Junction episode, filmed just before her death on October 13, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Since the first two black-and-white seasons of Petticoat Junction have not been included in the series' syndicated package, for many contemporary viewers Petticoat Junction "begins" with season three, when the show switches over to color. This is hardly the only change implemented as the program enters its third year: Jeannine Riley and Patricia Woodell, who since the series' inception had played the roles of Billie Jo and Bobbie Jo Bradley, both left the series at the end of the second season for personal reasons. Thus, Gunilla Hutton and Lori Saunders are introduced as the "new" Billie Jo and Bobbie Jo, joining established regulars Bea Benaderet (Kate Bradley), Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe Carson) and Linda Kaye Henning (Betty Jo). Originally networkcast from the fall of 1965 to the spring of 1966, this was also the season that the Petticoat Junction spin-off Green Acres debuted on CBS. Inasmuch as several of the Petticoat regulars were now making crossover Green Acres appearances -- notably Edgar Buchanan and Frank Cady (Sam Drucker) -- it is only fair that Green Acres stars Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor return the favor. Thus it is that Oliver and Lisa Douglas are prominently cast in such Petticoat episodes as "The Baffling Raffle," "The Good Luck Ring," "Joe Carson, General Contractor," "Hooterville a Go-Go" and "Betty Jo Goes to New York," among others. Ranked 15th in the Top Twenty programs of the 1964-1965 season, Petticoat Junction fell back to 23rd place in 1965-1966; ironically, its "stepchild" Green Acres made it to 6th place that same season! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Strictly speaking, there are but four basic plotlines during the first season of Petticoat Junction. The first concerns the efforts by widow Kate Bradley (Bea Benaderet) to make a financial go of the Shady Rest, the quaint traveler's hotel she owns in the Illinois town of Hooterville. The second involves the romantic travails of Kate's three extremely attractive daughters, Betty Jo (Linda Kaye) , Billie Jo (Jeannine Riley), and Bobbie Jo (Patricia Woodell). The third is devoted to the limitless get-rich-quick schemes hatched by Kate's lazy uncle Joe Carson (Edgar Buchanan), in lieu of seeking out anything resembling gainful employment. And the fourth is manifested in the tireless and fruitless crusade by Homer Bedloe (Charles Lane), scheming troubleshooter for the C.F.&W. Railroad line, to shut down and scrap the Hooterville Cannonball, the line's sole surviving steam locomotive -- thereby throwing venerable engineers Charley Pratt (Smiley Burnette) and Floyd Smoot (Rufe Davis) out of work.
Worth noting this season are the various actors cast as the boyfriends of the Bradley girls, including Ken Osmond of Leave It to Beaver fame in one of his rare non-Eddie Haskell roles; and Jack Bannon, the son of series regular Bea Benaderet and later a regular on Lou Grant. In other casting notes, Elvia Allman, who in subsequent seasons played Kate Bradley's obnoxious social rival Sema Plout, appears in a different role in the episode "A Night at the Hooterville Hilton"; Dennis Hopper, five years removed from Easy Rider, plays a bearded itinerant poet in "Bobbie Jo and the Beatnik"; future Batman leading man Adam West is seen as doctor in "Hooterville vs. Hollywood"; Steve Franken, fresh from his stint as the insufferable Chatsworth Osborne Jr. on Dobie Gillis, is equally insufferable as the son of Homer Bedloe in "Bedloe & Son"; and another Dobie Gillis alumnae, Sheila James (aka Zelda Gillis), joins the three Bradley sisters to form a female version of the Beatles in "The Ladybugs." (No, her character name isn't "Bingo"!) The final episode of the season introduces Hank Patterson and Barbara Pepper as Mr. and Mrs. Ziffel, who would be firmly established as the "parents" of porcine superstar Arnold the Pig on the Petticoat Junction spinoff Green Acres. Ranking fourth in the 1963-1964 Nielsen ratings, the first season of Petticoat Junction was filmed in black-and-white -- and as such, has been removed from the series' all-color syndicated package. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1992, Reservoir Dogs transformed Quentin Tarantino practically overnight from an obscure, unproduced screenwriter and part-time actor to the most influential new filmmaker of the 1990s. The story looks at what happens before and after (but not during) a botched jewelry store robbery organized by Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney). Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) is a career criminal who takes a liking to newcomer Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and enjoys showing him the ropes. Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) is a weaselly loner obsessed with professionalism. Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) has just gotten out of jail after taking the rap on a job for Cabot; he's grateful for the work but isn't the same person he used to be. While Mr. Blonde goes nuts during the heist, the thieves are surprised by the sudden arrival of the police, and Mr. Pink is convinced one of their team is a cop. So who's the rat? What do they do about Mr. Blonde? And what do they do with Mr. Orange, who took a bullet in the gut and is slowly bleeding to death? Reservoir Dogs jumps back and forth between pre- and post-robbery events, occasionally putting the narrative on pause to let the characters discuss such topics as the relative importance of tipping, who starred in Get Christie Love!, and what to do when you enter a men's room full of cops carrying a briefcase full of marijuana. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide