Phil Silvers Movies

This animated anthology is comprised of a few television cartoons from Nelvana Studios and includes "The Jack Rabbit Story." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Narrated by Milton Berle, Hey Abbott! is a compilation of highlights from Abbott & Costello's numerous television programs. Includes routines like "Who's on First," "The Birthday Party," "Floogle Street" and "Oyster Stew." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

The New Love Boat was the third pilot film for the long-running TV series. After several casting missteps in the two earlier films, the series' regular characters are herein solidified: Gavin McLeod as Capt. Stubing, Bernie Kopell as Doc, Fred Grandy as Gopher, Ted Lange as Isaac and Lauren Tewes as Julie. Guest stars include Georgia Engel as a stowaway, Gary Frank and Melanie Mayron as a pair of tremulous honeymooners, Stella Stevens and Pat Harrington as an eternally bickering married couple, and Audra Lindley and Phil Silvers as, respectively, an outspoken middle-aged lady and a woebegone widower. The New Love Boat was originally telecast May 5, 1977, while the Love Boat series ran from 1977 to 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hollywood Blue is a compilation of scenes taken from cinematic pornography over the years. Mickey Rooney and June Wilkerson are interviewed and give their thoughts about the late Jane Mansfield. Supposedly, Marilyn Monroe is the subject of one film where the female writhes on the floor in her underpants. Another film is a homosexual meeting in a park between a sailor and a marine. One of the performers went on to a successful career as a rugged western film hero. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

In the conclusion of a two-part story arc, con man Shifty Shafer (Phil Silver) has inveigled Jed Clampett into yet another risky investment. This time, Shafer has convinced Jed to bankroll a drilling project, designed to siphon the smog from Los Angeles! In the course of events, both Shifty and his wife Flo (Kathleen Freeman) are compelled to impersonate Mexicans -- musical comedy accents and all. "Honesty Is the Best Policy" originally aired on March 18, 1970, as the final episode of The Beverly Hillbillies' eighth season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the second episode of a three-part story arc, the Clampetts arrive in Washington, DC, where they plan to donate their entire fortune to the cause of ending air pollution in America. Though they intend to pay a visit to President Nixon, they are sidetracked by their old acquaintance Honest John -- actually, con artist Shifty Shafer (Phil Silvers). Claiming to be deeply touched by the Clampetts' ecological sentiments, Shafer schemes to deeply touch the Clampetts to the tune of several million bucks. Kathleen Freeman appears as Shifty Shafer's equally crooked wife Flo. Largely filmed on location, "The Clampetts in Washington" originally aired on September 22, 1970. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With Elly May's Ozark wedding called off, the Clampett family begins casting about for another potential husband. Figuring that he'll have better luck in a new location, Jed draws up plans to visit New York. Unfortunately, he falls into the clutches of a chap named "Honest John" -- actually con artist Shifty Shafer (Phil Silvers) -- who arranges for Jed to "buy" Central Park. The first episode in a three-part story arc filmed on location in New York City, "Jed Buys Central Park" originally aired on October 29, 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ed Stander (Robert Morse), with the help of an all-star cast, teaches Paul Manning (Walter Matthau) the fine art of philandering in A Guide for the Married Man. Paul, happily married to sexy Ruth (Inger Stevens), has no burning desire to cheat, but Ed makes the prospect sound very attractive. Finally taking the "big step" with a glamorous brunette after months of careful preparation, Paul finds that he loves his wife way too much to betray her -- while the ever-careful Ed ends up in divorce court. Among the myriad of "advisors" peppered throughout Guide for the Married Man are Art Carney, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Jayne Mansfield, Terry-Thomas, and Carl Reiner. The best guest-star vignette features Joey Bishop as a man caught in bed with another woman by his wife -- whereupon he calmly puts on his clothes, straightens up the room, and quietly responds to his wife's outrage by saying "What bed? What girl?" Adapted by Frank Tarloff from his book of the same name, Guide for the Married Man was directed by Gene Kelly, who makes a cameo "appearance" of his own as a voice on a TV set. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Per the episode's title, Phil Silvers appears as Oliver Kasten, the gung-ho efficiency expert hired to get the bank in top shape. Within a few minutes, Kasten has demoted the "inefficient" Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon) and promoted Lucy (Lucille Ball) to the position of administrative assistant. Determined to prove her worth, Lucy organizes an assembly-line demonstration at the Grantland Toy Factory--whereupon, in the words of William Shakespeare, "Confusion hath made his masterpiece"! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Richard Lester uses the Burt Shevelove/Larry Gelbart/Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical hit as a launching pad for some of his wildest slapstick gaggery. Zero Mostel repeats his stage role as Pseudolus, the cunning Roman slave who'll do anything to win his freedom. The plot hinges on three Roman houses next door to each another. One is the home of Pseudolus' masters: the philandering Senex (Michael Hordern), his domineering wife Domina (Patricia Jessel), and their handsome but empty-headed son Hero (Michael Crawford. The second house is a brothel belonging to unctuous procurer Lycus (Phil Silvers). The third house has long been empty, in that its owner, the senile Erronious (Buster Keaton), has gone on a long journey to find his children, who were kidnapped in infancy by pirates. Other principals include Pseudolus' fellow slave, the aptly named Hysterium (Jack Gilford); vain warrior Miles Gloriosus (Leon Greene), who marches triumphantly into Rome declaring "I am a parade!"; and the virginal Philia (Annette Andre), a resident of Lycus' "domicile" who is loved by Hero but who has been promised in marriage to Miles Glorious. There are also acrobats, transvestites, a phony funeral, and an outsized climactic chase. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Damon Runyon's story "Little Miss Marker" gets a mid-'60s update in this comedy. Steve McCluskey (Tony Curtis) is the manager of a nightspot in Lake Tahoe owned by Bernie Friedman (Phil Silvers). Steve is the kind of guy who has heard every sob story in the book and is not easily impressed, but his hard heart begins to soften a bit when he meets Penny Piper (Claire Wilcox), a young orphan girl with no one to turn to and nowhere to go. Steve grudgingly takes her in and soon grows fond of the tyke. Penny thinks that Steve needs to get married and settle down, so she starts playing Cupid, trying to set him up with pretty Chris Lockwood (Suzanne Pleshette). However, Steve is still reeling from his failed first marriage and isn't so sure that another trip to the altar would be good for him. The film's finale sends Steve on a wild chase through Disneyland. Forty Pounds of Trouble marked the feature directorial debut of Norman Jewison, who would go on to make In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof, and Jesus Christ Superstar. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Created by Paul Henning, The Beverly Hillbillies was, next to The Andy Griffith Show, the most successful of CBS' "rural" sitcoms, not to mention one of the most consistently popular comedy series of all time. Its premise was as old as...well, as old as the hills: a family of ignorant country rubes were transplanted to the big city, where in their own simple, unpretentious manner, they often proved themselves to be wiser and more honorable than the sophisticated "slickers." It was a formula that kept the property alive and kicking for nine seasons on CBS, and forever after in off-network syndication. As musically explained at the beginning of each episode in "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (sung by Jerry Scoggins and performed on guitar by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs), the members of the Clampett family were "poor mountaineers" who suddenly became very, very rich when widowed paterfamilias Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen) accidentally struck oil on his Appalachian property. Following the advice of both neighbors and "flatlanders," Jed and his immediate kinfolk -- his spunky, curvaceous daughter Elly May Clampett (Donna Douglas); his doltish, musclebound nephew Jethro Bodine (Max Baer Jr.); and Jed's ancient but feisty mother-in-law Daisy "Granny" Moses (Irene Ryan) -- packed their belongings and their family bloodhound Duke in their dilapidated automobile and drove to the land of "swimmin' pools, movie stars," Beverly Hills, CA. The hillbillies moved into a luxurious mansion just across the road from the home of their banker, Milburn Drysdale (Raymond Bailey), who did everything he could to make the mountaineers happy in their new surroundings -- and, incidentally, to keep the family's millions in his bank. (By series' end, Jed was worth around 95,000,000 dollars!) Drysdale's loyal secretary Miss Jane Hathaway (Nancy Kulp) was assigned to help the Clampett clan assimilate themselves into Beverly Hills society, a task she took on with gusto, primarily because she secretly harbored a hankerin' for the brawny Jethro. Meanwhile, Drysdale's snobbish wife Margaret, who despised "those dreadful hillbillies" (even though they were never less than friendly and courteous to her), plotted and planned to oust the Clampetts from her neighborhood. During the series' first season, the action alternated between Beverly Hills and the Clampett's hometown of Bug Tussle, where Jed's cousin (and Jethro's mom) Pearl Bodine (Bea Benaderet) had long been Granny's rival as the local social leader. Pearl was written out of the series when Benaderet was cast in her own sitcom, Petticoat Junction -- as was Pearl's daughter Jethrine, who was amusingly played in drag by Max Baer Jr. (with "her" voice dubbed by another future Petticoat Junction regular, Linda Kaye, daughter of producer Paul Henning). Dozens of other supporting characters came and went during the series' lengthy run, but only one could be regarded as a regular: Mark Templeton (Roger Torrey), a Navy frogman who became Elly May Clampett's fiancé during the final season. Debuting September 26, 1962, The Beverly Hillbillies ranked as America's top-rated series in its first and second season, and was comfortably settled in the Top Ten during seasons four, five, and seven. Its cancellation on September 7, 1971, after 274 episodes (168 in color) was due less to a falling-off of viewership than CBS' decision to "de-ruralize" its audience demographic and concentrate on grabbing the all-important big-city viewership. Reruns of The Beverly Hillbillies were seen on CBS' daytime lineup from 1966 through 1972. In addition, a TV-movie reunion special, The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies, was telecast in 1981; and 12 years later, a theatrical-feature version of The Beverly Hillbillies was released, starring Jim Varney as Jed, Erika Eleniak as Elly May, Diedrich Bader as Jethro, Cloris Leachman as Granny, Dabney Coleman as Mr. Drysdale, Lily Tomlin as Miss Hathaway -- and Buddy Ebsen, recreating his later TV-series role as detective Barnaby Jones! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide