Madge Kennedy Movies

Barbara Hershey stars as the "baby maker" of the title. Tish Gray (Hershey) hires herself out to married couple Jay and Suzanne Wilcox (Sam Groom and Collin Wilcox-Horne), who've been unable to conceive a child of their own. Tish agrees to bear the child for them, assuming that her hippie boyfriend, Ted Jacks (Scott Glenn), will go along with the plan. The problem is that Tish must allow Jay to impregnate her, causing severe strains on both couple's relationships. In 1970, the notion of surrogate motherhood was radical in the extreme, so The Baby Maker seemed quite progressive and daring. This served as the theatrical-feature directorial debut for screenwriter James Bridges. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Aunt Martha (Madge Kennedy) wants to send Beaver (Jerry Mathers) to a prestigious New England prep school that has graduated many another member of her family. Beaver balks at the idea until Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June (Barbara Billingsley) tell him of the school's many exciting extracurricular activities. Ultimately, however, Beaver must make the difficult decision to either please Aunt Martha or follow his own heart all by himself. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Two young women have been murdered in the woods surrounding the campus of a college, and in each case the victim's body was sliced up in surgical fashion. While the police investigate the possibility that one of the faculty members is the killer, medical student Daphne Grey (Vera Miles) lives in mortal fear that she might be the next victim. Even so, Daphne agrees to act as bait in a scheme concocted by her psychology-professor boyfriend, Harold (Jeffrey Hunter), to trap the murderer. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Upon wedding the lovely Sybilla (Barbara Bel Geddes), lifelong bachelor Horace Meade (Alexander Scourby) has second thoughts and asks for a divorce. When she refuses to give him one, he begins making entries in his diary, apparently plotting Sybilla's murder. In truth, he is only fantasizing, but his fantasies take a sinister turn when Sybilla tells him that she has turned the diary over to her lawyer with instructions that it be read in the event of her death -- a tragedy that Horace will now have to toil night and day to prevent! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Beaver (Jerry Mathers) shells out good coin for a mail-order magic trick, but no one seems impressed by his conjuring skills. In desperation, Beaver and Larry (Rusty Stevens) put on a mini-magic show for the only person willing to watch: four-year-old Benjie Bellamy (Joey Scott). Larry covers Beav with a cloak, says the magic words and -- presto -- Beaver is gone and a rock is in his place. The astonished Benjie is now convinced that Beaver has turned into a rock, and cannot be convinced otherwise. The situation gets stickier when Benjie's mom insists to Ward (Hugh Beaumont) and June (Barbara Billingsley) that Beaver immediately reveal himself to mollify her fretting son -- something that just isn't possible at the moment! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this Western, a good-hearted gunfighter helps a young cowboy find the cruel cattle baron who killed his daddy. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this comedy, an auto mechanic and a horse trainer successfully steal $30,000 from a bank and squander it. They buy a race horse with the remainder, but need money to train it, so they rob another bank and are caught this time. The bank takes over ownership of the horse, which becomes a big winner. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi

Former silent film star Madge Kennedy makes her first series appearance as the Cleaver boys' imperious Aunt Martha. While June (Barbara Billingsley) is out of town visiting her sister Peggy, Aunt Martha agrees to look after Beaver (Jerry Mathers) and Wally (Tony Dow). Unfortunately, she also uses this opportunity to purchase an embarrassing "Little Lord Fauntleroy" outfit for Beaver -- and worse, she insists that he wear it to school! Among other things, this is the episode in which we learn why Beaver never uses his given name, Theodore. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Bette Davis goes the "kitchen sink drama" route in The Catered Affair. As the frowsy wife of Bronx cabdriver Ernest Borgnine, Davis insists that her daughter Debbie Reynolds have a high-class wedding--caterers and all. Reynolds and future hubby Rod Taylor want a simple ceremony, but Davis' mind is made up. The wedding snowballs into an unwieldy affair as Davis and Borgnine find that they must invite everyone they know or risk incurring the wrath of their neighborhood. When the cost of the affair exceeds the family's bank account, Davis rails at Borgnine for failing to be a good provider. It takes her till the very end of the film to realize what a fool she's been. Gore Vidal, of all people, adapted The Catered Affair from a TV drama written by Paddy Chayefsky; the original telecast had starred Thelma Ritter. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This filmed biography of Vincent Van Gogh was adapted by Norman Corwin from the best-selling novel by Irving Stone, which was in turn inspired by the written correspondence between Van Gogh and his brother Theo. Kirk Douglas plays the tormented genius, whose obsessive devotion to his art engulfs, consumes, and finally destroys him. James Donald costars as Theo Van Gogh, who provides financial and moral support to his brother from the time Vincent leaves his Holland home in 1878 to his death in Auvers in 1890. Anthony Quinn won an Oscar for his eight-minute turn as Van Gogh's fast friend and erstwhile rival Paul Gaugin. Nearly 200 of Van Gogh's original paintings were borrowed from private collections for brief display in the film: some are "recreated" before our eyes, as the artist stands before his easel, spattered with paint and with a look of white-hot intensity burned into his countenance. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

After The Rains Came (1939), this epic romantic melodrama was the second version of author Louis Bromfield's novel to get the deluxe, big-budget treatment from Twentieth Century Fox. Lana Turner stars as Lady Edwina Esketh, the spoiled and hedonistic wife of Lord Esketh (Michael Rennie), a British royal. Intending to purchase some horses, the Eskeths accept an invitation to the Indian city of Ranchipur by the Maharani (Eugene Leontovich). Once there, Edwina meets and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Dr. Safti (Richard Burton), a handsome Hindu doctor and the Maharani's chosen heir. While in Ranchipur, Edwina also runs into an old acquaintance, Tom Ransome (Fred MacMurray), now the town drunk. As Edwina begins to realize that she's feeling real love for Safti, the doctor succumbs to her charms and a torrid affair begins, as a series of earthquakes and a devastating flood strike Ranchipur. The Rains of Ranchipur (1955) was Oscar nominated for Best Visual Effects. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi