Barbara Billingsley Movies

An unusually disturbing noir from a director better known for more mainstream fare like High Noon and From Here to Eternity, Act of Violence focuses on a WWII veteran haunted by his past. A film that was close to the director's heart, he said that it represented "the first time that I felt confident that I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it." Van Heflin stars as Frank Enley, a contractor living a peaceful life in a small California town, when Joe Parkson, a man who served in the army with him, arrives in the area, intent on killing him. He follows Frank to a lake where he's fishing but is unable to kill him. When a lakeside bartender tells Frank that a man with a limp is looking for him, Frank is frightened, realizing why he has come. He tells his wife, Edith (Janet Leigh), that Joe is a man who spent time with in a Nazi POW camp, who is now mentally ill, and that he intends to avoid him. When Frank goes to Los Angeles for a business convention, Joe arrives at his house and tells his wife that her husband is responsible for his injury and for the deaths of a number of men. Fearing for her husband's life, Edith heads for L.A. with Joe not far behind. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

The upsurge in commercial air travel in the postwar years resulted in several films dealing with the trials and tribulations of airline stewardesses. Gloria Henry, who'd later star as Alice Mitchell in TV's Dennis the Menace, is teamed with Danny Thomas' future TV wife Marjorie Lord and Audrey Long in Air Hostess. The three leading ladies are cast as stewardesses-in-training, and of course each of the girls is pursuing her own agenda. Henry wants to follow in the footsteps of her sister; Lord wants to honor the memory of her late husband, an airline pilot; and Long is on the lookout for a wealthy husband. Way down on the cast list is another TV star-to-be, Barbara "June Cleaver" Billingsley. In addition, Air Hostess represents one of the few talking pictures made by former silent-screen favorite Leatrice Joy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello not only starred in the delightfully "retro" Back to the Beach, but also served as executive producers. Appropriately set 25 years after such drive-in faves as Beach Blanket Bingo, the film finds Frankie and Annette as husband and wife, living far from the surf 'n' sand in Ohio. Heading to California to visit their daughter Lori Loughlin, Frankie and Annette are appalled to learn that she has been keeping time with punker Tommy Hinkley. In time-honored fashion, our hero and heroine set about to make the beach safe for funlovers everywhere by driving out Hinkley's unsavory pals. Along the way, Frankie nearly bollixes up his marriage by dallying with Connie Stevens-one of several pop-culture icons appearing in Back to the Beach, including Don Adams, Bob Denver, Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Dick Dale & the Del-Tones , Stevie Ray Vaughan, and even Pee-wee Herman! Back to the Beach is fun for a while, but its six-person writing team can't figure out a logical way to wind it all up. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Gerry Mayer, nephew of MGM-head Louis B. Mayer, proved that nepotism had nothing to do with his hiring by turning out the first-rate historical melodrama Inside Straight. The film begins in 1870 San Francisco, as the city is threatened with financial disaster due to overspeculation on the Comstock Lode. David Brian stars as local tycoon Rip MacCool, who in a series of flashbacks recalls his rise to prominence. While wheeling and dealing with other people's money, MacCool loves and loses two wives: Lily Douvane (Arlene Dahl) takes him for every penny he's got, while Zoe Carnot (Paula Raymond) dies in childbirth. Back in the present, MacCool is forced to make a fateful decision that will, for once, benefit someone else rather than himself. In a supporting role as town banker Ada Stritch, Mercedes McCambridge figures prominently in the final sequence, in which everything hinges on the titular poker hand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of the undisputed classics of American television, the weekly, half-hour sitcom Leave It to Beaver was created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, who had risen to prominence as principal writers of the TV version of Amos 'n' Andy. Fulfilling their ambition to create a warm, credible sitcom about modern suburban life as seen through the eyes of small children, Connelly and Mosher came up with a pilot film, "It's a Small World," in 1957. This trial balloon featured Jerry Mathers as six-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, Paul Sullivan as his 11-year-old brother Wally, Casey Adams (aka Max Showalter) as their accountant father Ward, and Barbara Billingsley as their housewife mother June. Also appearing in the pilot were Diane Brewster, Richard Deacon, and, in the one-scene role of a wise guy neighbor kid named Frankie, a very young Harry Shearer. Though the concept did not fly as "It's a Small World" (the pilot would be folded into a syndicated anthology series, Studio 57), CBS evinced interest when it reemerged, with several new cast members, as Leave It to Beaver, which debuted October 4, 1957.
Carried over from "It's a Small World" were Jerry Mathers and Barbara Billingsley, while new to the cast were Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver and Tony Dow as Wally. Likewise retained were Diane Brewster and Richard Deacon, albeit in different roles as respectively, Beaver's schoolteacher Miss Canfield and Ward's co-worker Fred Rutherford. The basic original premise was also kept on, with Beaver and Wally trying to interpret the ways of the world through their own youthful and naïve perspective. The Cleavers lived in the town of Mayfield, and shared many of the same trials and tribulations as the "nuclear families" who comprised the series' fan base. What really sold the series was the warm, realistic rapport between the Cleaver kids and their parents, and the authentic-sounding dialogue, full of the slang and idioms common to youngsters of the Eisenhower era. The huge supporting cast included Rusty Stevens as Beaver's chubby pal Larry Mondello, who was invariably seen chomping on an apple and who lived in fear of his disciplinarian father who always seemed to be on a business trip to Cincinnati (Madge Blake, aka Batman's Aunt Harriet, was occasionally seen as Larry's mom); Stanley "Tiger" Fafara as another Beaver buddy, the adenoidal Whitey Whitney; Stephen Talbot as young Gilbert Bates, who spent most of his time talking Beaver into getting in trouble; Richard Correll as Richard, evidently brought in during the series' third season as a Larry Mondello replacement; Jeri Weil as snotty, insulting Judy Hensler, Beaver's classroom nemesis; Frank Bank as Wally's school chum (and Fred Rutherford's son) Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford, an amiable, none-too-bright oaf; Pamela Beard as Mary Ellen Rogers and Cheryl Holdridge as Judy Foster, Wally's erstwhile girlfriends; and Sue Randall and Doris Packer respectively as Miss Canfield's successors at Beaver's school, Miss Landers and Miss Rayburn. By far the most famous and celebrated of the series' supporting players was Ken Osmond as Wally's pal Eddie Haskell, that juvenile Uriah Heep who laid on the insincere charm whenever he was around Beaver's parents ("Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver. My, Mrs. Cleaver, you're looking lovely tonight. Are Wallace and Theodore at home?"), but who reverted to his true personality as a weaselly, conniving creep whenever he was alone with Wally and The Beav. Moving from CBS to ABC for its second season, Leave It to Beaver ultimately lasted six seasons and 234 episodes, signing off only because Tony Dow and especially Jerry Mathers had outgrown their roles. The final network episode aired on September 12, 1963; one week later, the series entered rerun syndication, where it has flourished ever since. And in 1985, most of the original cast (minus the late Hugh Beaumont) were reunited in their same roles in a new series, The New Leave It to Beaver, which was a spin-off of the earlier retro special Still the Beaver, and which remained in production until 1989. While the newer version is not held in terribly high esteem by fans, the original remains an audience favorite. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Leave It to Beaver entered its second season in a new time slot (Thursdays rather than Fridays at 7:30 pm EST), a new network (ABC instead of CBS), and a new movie studio (Revue Productions had moved its base of operations from Republic to Universal). Things get off to a delightful start with "Beaver's Poem," one of the series' many "crisis of conscience" episodes in which Beaver wins an award for a poem written by his dad Ward (Hugh Beaumont). Subsequent first-rate episodes include "Beaver and Chuey," wherein The Beav nearly loses the friendship of his new Mexican acquaintance thanks to the duplicitous machinations of the redoubtable Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond); "Beaver's Ring," which finds our hero stoically contemplating amputation when he gets a valuable family ring stuck on his finger; and "The Shave," in which Beav's older brother Wally (Tony Dow) contemplates scraping off a few "chin whiskers" that frankly don't yet exist. (This episode features Howard McNear, best known as Floyd the barber on The Andy Griffith Show, here cast as -- you guessed it -- a barber!) Also: In "The Grass is Greener," Wally and Beav learn to appreciate what they have in life when they meet a poor family; in "Beaver Plays Hookey," Beaver and his buddy Larry (Rusty Stevens) skip school, only to be caught in the act by a TV camera; in "Wally's Pug Nose," Wally is given reason to be self-conscious by his new girlfriend Gloria (played by Cheryl Holdridge before she was established in the role of Judy Foster); "Beaver and Gilbert" introduces Stephen Talbot in the role of preteen conniver Gilbert Gates (later Bates), who wastes no time hatching a scheme that will get Beaver "clobbered" by his dad; Beav manages to get locked in the principal's office and get his head stuck in an iron gate in "The Price of Fame," and later causes embarrassment for himself when he brags about his father's WWII exploits in "Beaver's Hero"; and in "Wally's Haircomb," Wally shocks his parents by emerging from the bathroom with his hair in an Elvis-like duck tail (listen for that gloriously phony rock & roll music on the soundtrack!) The season ends with "Most Interesting Character," which feature our hero's latest schoolteacher, the pretty Miss Landers (Sue Randall). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Still securely ensconced in a Saturday-night time slot, Leave It to Beaver satisfies its ever-growing fan base with 39 new episodes in its fourth season on the air. Joining the familiar cast of regulars is child actor Richard Correll as Beaver's new pal Richard, a replacement of sorts for the departing Larry Mondello. This season includes two of the series' most moving and realistic episodes. In the season opener "Beaver Won't Eat," Beaver (Jerry Mathers) and his mom June (Barbara Billingsley) form a closer bond than ever before -- and it's a plate of Brussels sprouts that causes it all. And in "Beaver's House Guest," Barry J. Gordon (A Thousand Clowns) guests as Beaver's friend Chopper, who desperately tries to convince everyone that he really, truly enjoys being a child of divorce. Elsewhere, the "creepy" Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond) unexpectedly evokes the sympathy of the viewers when he is two-timed by a conniving female in "Eddie's Double Cross"; Beav must face the unimaginable horror of forever losing his favorite schoolteacher in "Miss Landers' Fiancé"; a youthful kleptomaniac gets Beav in Dutch in "Beaver and Kenneth"; and Wally's oafish pal Lumpy Rutherford (Frank Bank) learns the hard way that dating the "Teacher's Daughter" is not a guaranteed method of improving one's grades ("Yes, F. It's the lowest grade they allow me to give.") Also: Eddie and Lumpy inadvertently get Wally kicked off the track team in "Wally's Track Meet," then advertently get Beaver in trouble with dad Ward (Hugh Beaumont) by cleverly changing a "D minus" into a "B plus" in "Beaver's Report Card"; Beav stirs up trouble on his own by being trapped into a dare in "The School Picture"; and Wally offers his services as "Substitute Father" when Beav is hauled before the principal for swearing in school (no, we don't hear the words!). By far the season's funniest and most famous episode is "In the Soup," which, of course, is the one in which Beaver climbs onto an elaborate billboard and manages to get himself stuck in a gigantic soup bowl! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Moving from Saturdays to Thursdays for its sixth and final season, Leave It to Beaver acknowledges the fact that both Beaver Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) and his brother Wally (Tony Dow) are now teenagers by reorchestrating the series' familiar theme music in emulation of a rock & roll beat. Also, whereas Wally was previously the only sports hero in the family, now Beaver is old enough to win a football award, and to score a winning touchdown -- though he's still not mature enough to handle the responsibilities of athletic fame and adulation. Additionally, for the first time in the series, Beav and Wally go on a double date with two attractive sisters -- and later on, Beav and not Wally gets in trouble for scheduling two dates on the same night! Too, Wally's hormones have kicked in to the extent that he seriously considers growing a moustache to impress his steady.
Yes, six years have definitely gone by since Leave It to Beaver's first season. Episode highlights this year include "Eddie the Businessman," in which that unregenerate creep Eddie Haskell (Ken Osmond) unwittingly becomes accessory to a robbery scheme, and the thematically similar "Beaver the Caddy," in which The Beav must choose between telling a lie and getting a big tip on the links; "Tell It to Ella," wherein Beaver's complaint to a newspaper advice columnist about unfair parents backfires big-time (watch for a young Tim Matheson in this episode); and "Wally and the Fraternity," in which Wally's plan to pledge to his father Ward's (Hugh Beaumont) old fraternity may be scuttled by the words of a disgruntled ex-pledge. One of the season's best offerings showcases Doris Packer in the role of Beaver's eighth-grade teacher Miss Rayburn; in "Beaver's Book Report," Beav attempts to summarize The Three Musketeers based on the 1939 film version starring the Ritz Brothers. The series' 234th and final episode is also the only "cheater" in Leave It to Beaver's history: "Family Album" is a retrospective of clips from classic earlier episodes, including the series' very first offering, 1957's "Beaver Gets 'Spelled." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This cautionary fable was produced by the Protestant Film Commission. The main character is plant-manager Joe Hanson (David Bruce), who manages himself to be free of all forms of racial prejudice. Yet when he feels that his job is being threatened by Jewish co-worker Al Green (Bruce Edwards), Joe can't keep his inbred hostilities to himself. He inadvertently causes Al to be transferred to a less-desirable job, resulting in misery all around. The timely intervention of Joe's minister (James Seay) rights the wrongs caused by careless talk. Featured in the cast of Prejudice as Mrs. Green is none other than Barbara "June Cleaver" Billingsley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this hour-long episode of clips, a fortune teller (played by John Goodman) tells little Jackie and little Roseanne what their future holds. Meanwhile, an adult D.J. recalls his youth during a therapy session. The clips are introduced by the "Sitcom Moms Welcome Wagon," including famous sitcom moms Barbara Billingsley, June Lockhart, Isabel Sanford, Alley Mills, and Patricia Crowley. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

A murder is witnessed by the victim's little daughter (Gigi Perreau), who immediately goes into a state of shock. All the girl has seen is the shadow of her mother's killer, but the audience knows that the murderer is Ann Sothern. At first Sothern is secure that the girl will never be able to identify her, but as the child shows signs of recovering, Sothern panics. Though the murder was unintentional and the killer is quite fond of the little girl, she nonetheless begins scheming to put the potential witness out of the way. Quite tense at times, especially in the last scene, Shadow on the Wall represents one of the few unsympathetic performances by the otherwise likable Ann Sothern. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This video contains a pair of episodes from the '80s television show that chronicled the adult exploits of the formerly irascible '50s icon of childhood innocence, Beaver Cleaver and his family. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide