Jane Withers Movies

In this drama, two childhood sweethearts endure the first pains of adult love. The young lady is beginning to feel frustrated because her beau has been spending too much time building gliders. When his uncle is visited by a cute, and flirtatious older friend, the precocious lass begins dating him. She is soon to discover that the sophisticated gent has much more than the innocent pleasures of dating upon his mind. Oh my! ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this drama, a female horse trainer works on her grandpa's farm training trotters. Trouble ensues when he is forced to sell his land to a millionaire who endeavors to replace the trotters with regular racehorses. The trainer ends up falling for the new owner. Even though her favorite horse loses the big race, the woman succeeds in getting the owner to return her affections. The grandfather also wins when the couple donates a large amount to his favorite charity, the local community hospital. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

With The Mad Martindales, the eight-year association between 20th Century-Fox and child star Jane Withers came to an end. 16-year-old Withers is cast as Kathy Martindale, the youngest member of a wacky turn-of-the-century San Francisco household. A dedicated suffragette, Kathy occasionally takes time out to rescue her improvident father (Alan Mowbray) from his various get-rich-quick business schemes. Romance enters the picture when Peter Varney (Byron Barr), the wealthy boyfriend of Kathy's older sister Evelyn (Marjorie Weaver), falls for Kathy instead. But don't despair for Evelyn: her heart is ultimately captured by industrious young Italian immigrant Julio (George Reeves). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this bit of WWII propaganda (designed to boost support of America's alliance with Russia against Germany), Kolya (Dana Andrews), Kurin (Walter Huston), Damian (Farley Granger), and Marina (Anne Baxter) are members of a farming collective in the Ukraine known as the North Star. The hard-working but happy members of the North Star find their way of life shattered when Germany, in defiance of previous treaties, storms the nation and begins a brutal occupation. Dr. Otto Von Harden (Erich Von Stroheim) begins gathering children -- who are to be used for blood transfusions and medical experiments. Many of the outraged farmers take to the hills to fight with the anti-Nazi resistance, while those who stay behind bravely destroy precious crops and materiel rather than turn them over to the Nazi war machine. Producer Samuel Goldwyn made The North Star at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (whose son James was an executive at Goldwyn's studio). Ironically, several members of the film's creative team (including screenwriter Lilian Hellman) later found their motivations for making the film questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee, who declared it Communist propaganda. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

A druggist's pretty assistance ignores the call of the bright lights and audience that runs in the veins of her show biz family. Eventually though, the family succeeds in getting the talented lass to perform the music of a struggling young composer. His music is great and she enthusiastically helps him to launch his new show. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Brothers Henry and Wayne Cooper (Grant Withers and William Haade) have a mission to help their younger, shyer sister, Geraldine Jane Withers, who has just received a large inheritance from their mother. It was their dying mother's request that the brother's find a suitable suitor for their younger sister. Geraldine, however, rejects all the men they bring courting, including her current beau Willy Briggs Jimmy Lydon. They must chase her as she flies to London, trying to keep her out of harm's way as she lives up her new-found freedom to the hilt. ~ Rovi

George Stevens' sprawling adaptation of Edna Ferber's best-selling novel successfully walks a fine line between potboiler and serious drama for its 210-minute running time, making it one of the few epics of its era that continues to hold up as engrossing entertainment across the decades. Giant opens circa 1922 in Maryland, where Texas rancher Jordan "Bick" Benedict (Rock Hudson) has arrived to buy a stallion called War Winds from its owner, Dr. Horace Lynnton (Paul Fix). But much as Bick loves and knows horses, he finds himself even more transfixed by the doctor's daughter, Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor), and after some awkward moments, she has to admit that she's equally drawn to the shy, laconic Texan. They get married and Leslie spends her honeymoon traveling with Jordan to his ranch, Reata, which covers nearly a million acres of Texas. Once there, however, she finds that she has to push her way into her rightful role as mistress of the house, past Bick's sister, Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), who can't accept her brother's marriage or the changes it means in the home they share. Also working around Reata is the laconic ranch hand Jett Rink (James Dean) -- from a family as rooted in Texas as the Benedicts but not nearly as lucky (or "foxy"), Jett is dirt-poor and barely educated at all, and he fairly oozes resentment at Bick for his arrogance, although Luz likes him and for that reason alone Bick is obliged to keep him on. One thing Jett does have in common with his employer is that he is in awe of Leslie's beauty; another is his nearly total contempt for the Mexican-Americans who work for them -- Jett and Bick may have contempt for each other, but either one is just as likely to dismiss the Mexican-Americans around them as a bunch of shiftless "wetbacks." Luz feels so threatened with a loss of power and control that she decides to assert herself with War Winds, yet another "prize" that Bick brought back from Maryland that resists her authority -- then decides to ride the stallion despite being warned that no one but Leslie is wholly safe on him, and spurs him brutally in an effort to break him, which ends up destroying them both in the battle of wills she starts.

After Luz's death, Jett learns that she left him a tiny piece of land for his own, on Reata, which he refuses to sell back to Bick, preferring to keep it for his own and maybe prospect for oil on it. Meanwhile, Leslie and Bick have their own problems -- Leslie can't abide the wretched conditions in which the Mexican families who work on Reata are allowed to live, taking a special interest in Mr. and Mrs. Obregon and their baby, Angel; but Bick doesn't want his wife, or any member of his family, concerning themselves with "those people." Leslie's humanity and her independence push their marriage to the limit, but Bick comes to accept this in his wife, and in four years of marriage they have three handsome children, a boy and two girls, and a loving if occasionally awkward home life. Meanwhile, Jett strikes oil on his land -- which he's named Little Reata -- and in a couple of years he's on his way to becoming the richest man in Texas, getting drilling contracts on all of the land in the area (except Reata) and making more money than the Benedicts ever saw from raising cattle. Bick is almost oblivious to the way Jett grows in power and influence across the years and the state, mostly because he's got his own family to worry about, including a son, Jordan III (Dennis Hopper), who doesn't want to take over the ranch from him, but wants instead to be a doctor; an older daughter, Judy (Fran Bennett), who wants to study animal husbandry and marry a local rancher (Earl Holliman) and start a tiny spread of her own; and a younger daughter, Luz (Carroll Baker), who's just a bit man-crazy and star-struck by the movies.

The American entry into the Second World War and the resulting need for oil forces Bick to go into business with Jett and allow him to drill on Reata, and suddenly the Benedicts are wealthy enough to be part of Jett Rink's circle, which includes the governor of the state and at least one United States senator at his beck and call -- and Luz develops a serious crush on Jett, who likes his women young and is especially attracted to her, as Bick's and Leslie's daughter. Young Jordan marries Juana, a Mexican-American nursing student (Elsa Cardenas), and his father accepts it begrudgingly, with help from Leslie. The war kills Angel Obregon (Sal Mineo), a death that even affects Bick, but the Benedict family gets through it wealthier than ever and grows some more with the birth of Jordan IV to Jordie and Juana. When the family attends a gala opening of Jett Rink Airport, which concludes with a dinner honoring Jett's success, however, young Jordan's wife is humiliated by Jett's racist edicts, and he is beaten up by Jett's men after punching the oil baron. Seeing this, Bick challenges his old rival to the fight that's been brewing for a quarter of a century and wins by default, Jett being too drunk to defend himself or to hit; he's also too drunk to make the grand speech that was to climax the celebration, and he ends up alone in the ballroom. The Benedicts have it out with each other, young Jordan accusing his father of being as much a racist as Jett, and Leslie caught in the middle between her husband and her son. It looks like the Benedicts may lose each other, until an encounter with a racist diner owner forces Bick to stand up and get knocked down (more than once) defending his daughter-in-law and his grandson.

Seen today, Giant seems the least dated of any of James Dean's three starring films, in part because it addresses issues that remain relevant more than 50 years later, and also because it has the best all-around acting and the best script of any of the three. Taken in broader terms, it's even better, with two of the best performances that Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson ever gave, and perhaps the second best of Hudson's whole career (after Seconds) -- the only unfortunate element at modern theatrical screenings is the tendency of younger viewers, who only know him in terms of the revelations late in his life of his being gay, to laugh and snicker at elements of Hudson's characterization; but his work is so good that the titters usually fade after the first 30 minutes or so. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Gregory Peck plays a benevolent God-like figure in a white smock as Captain Josiah Newman, the head of a psych-unit at a Southwestern army base during the waning days of World War II. Newman is a patriarchal protector to his patients, preferring to keep him in his ward, rather than return them to certain death on the battlefield. The matriarchal figure of the ward is Lieutenant Grace Blodgett (Jane Withers), but Newman is more interested in his assistant Lieutenant Francie Corum (Angie Dickinson), with whom he is having an affair. Further help is provided by human nature expert, Corp. Jackson Laibowitz (Tony Curtis), the orderly. And Newman needs all the help he can get. Particularly with three patients: Colonel Bliss (Eddie Albert) is suffering from a guilt complex from all the men he has sent to death; Corporal Tompkins (Bobby Darin, in an Academy Award-nominated performance), although decorated for bravery in combat, calls himself a coward for failing to save his pal from a burning plane; and Captain Winston (Robert Duvall) is guilt-ridden and has lapsed into catatonia because he had hidden for over a year in the basement of a building in Germany. Although Newman wants to cure these men of their psychological problems, he doesn't want to see them returned to the war to be killed. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Gas company executive Borden T. Pike (Richard Deacon) wants to lay a new pipe in the basement of the Munster mansion. Unfortunately, Pike's employees run away in terror whenever they catch a glimpse of the monstrous (but harmless) Munster family. Figuring that the Munsters are deliberately frightening away his minions so that they can force up the price on their property, Mr. Pike decides that it is time to pay a visit to the family himself...and guess what happens next! Former child star Jane Withers appears as Mrs. Pike, while future One Day at a Time regular Pat Harrington Jr. also shows up in a supporting role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Even though he was pushing thirty, John Rubinstein was still fresh-faced enough to pass for a college student in 1975's All Together Now. Rubinstein plays the oldest of four orphans, who wishes to be named legal guardian for his younger siblings. The court gives Rubinstein thirty days to prove that the family can function properly without parents. If he fails, the children will be shipped off to separate foster homes. Made for television, All Together Now is in a certain sense a "second generation" offering: John Rubinstein is the son of symphony conductor Arthur Rubinstein, while his costars Adam Arkin and Larry Bishop are the sons of Alan Arkin and Joey Bishop, respectively. Featured in the cast is a gifted teenaged actress named Helen Hunt. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Former jewel thief turned insurance investigator Dennis Stanton (Keith Michell) has changed professions once more, and is now chief of security on a cruise ship. When a woman is found dead in the ship's cargo section, it soon develops that virtually everyone on board is either a thief or a liar--not to mention a potential murderer. The only passenger whom Dennis can trust is his old friend Jessica (Angela Lansbury), who of course agrees to help him solve the case. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This direct-to-video sequel to Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame finds Quasi (voiced once again by Tom Hulce) falling in love with a magician's assistant while attempting to foil that same magician's plan to steal his bells. Previous cast members return (Kevin Kline, Demi Moore, Jason Alexander), while two new characters feature the vocal talents of Haley Joel Osment and Jennifer Love Hewitt. This release faithfully upholds the standards parents have come to expect from Disney. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi