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The Other Side of Midnight (1977)
This film serves as an illustration ...
...that a film with copious amounts of nudity can be as dry as dirt. It looks like a handsome production replete with a Michel Legrand musical score and Oscar nominated costumes from Irene Sharaff. But the leads, Marie-France Pisier and John Beck, register zero on the charisma scale. It is hard to care about anything related to them. And the lamentable thing drags on for 166 minutes.
The one saving grace is Susan Sarandon, who, even in a bad film in a sadly supporting role, still has that certain zest and spark of a true star about her, even though her palmy days would not completely arrive for another decade or so. But the rest of the film is apathetic and completely bored me.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver Makes a Loan (1959)
Angry Beaver
Beaver needs a quarter for a new notebook at school, but Ward doesn't have anything smaller than a dollar. So he gives one to Beaver and says he expects his 75 cents in change back that night. At school, when Larry sees that Beaver has a whole dollar, Larry asks Beaver if he can run downstairs and buy both their notebooks, since he wasn't able to get a quarter for his own notebook from his parents. Larry ends up having to pay a debt of fifty cents to the school before he can purchase anything, so he returns to Beaver with two notebooks, but no change.
When Beaver tells Ward what happened to his change, Ward says that Beaver should get the 75 cents he normally gets for the movies from Larry, since Larry owes him that money. You can see Larry actually does feel guilty about the debt he owes Beaver, and plans to take the 75 cents he normally gets to go to the movies to Beaver to pay him back. But along the way he meets Whity and Gilbert, gets distracted, and gets seduced by the plot outline of the "Robot Fiend"- this is the last day it's in Mayfield - and also by Whity saying that he can join them for lunch at his house where there will be hamburgers and pie. So Larry ends up going to the movies with the money he owes Beaver. Meanwhile Beaver sits at home waiting for a Larry Mondello and 75 cents that will never come. Cue one Angry Beaver as well as complications ensuing.
Wally was right to point out to Beaver that Larry Mondello was no friend. But at least Larry never had any malicious intent where Wally's best friend, Eddie Haskell, definitely did. This episode points out the fact that Larry is just a weak person without much character who gives in to all of his whims and appetites. He's the kind of person who, as an adult, will probably get into major trouble because of these traits. Plus you don't get to see Beaver this seethingly angry very often.
Still the Beaver: Ensign Cleaver (1988)
This has a great payoff for long time viewers...
... since there are plenty of tie-ins with the original Leave It To Beaver series.
June awakens to the sound of Beaver's two sons fighting over a shirt of Kip's that Oliver is wearing. Then Beaver enters the fray when he sees Kip is wearing one of his shirts. June ends up going next door to Wally's house when she gets locked out of her own with the boys still upstairs arguing, and is asked to watch Kelly for the day, since she's out sick. When Kelly admits she is faking a bit, June takes her on a drive to where she lived as a girl, and then recounts the night she and Ward met.
The rest is a flashback to 1944 when June worked at the USO and where young Ensign Ward Cleaver first sees her and is taken with her smile. These two actors really do act and speak like you'd imagine Ward and June would have in their youth. But the scene stealer is Kerry Stein who impersonates Fred Rutherford as well as the marvelous Richard Deacon did in his day. Apparently Fred and Ward met in the navy.
You get to see why June probably prioritized dancing school for Wally and Beaver so much - It's a wonder both of her feet weren't in a cast after a dance with Ward, and an interesting factoid is that character actress Irene Tedrow is playing June's aunt Martha. Tedrow played Aunt Martha's traveling companion, Mrs. Hathaway, in the LITB season two episode "The Traveling Aunts".
As a long time viewer I admit there are some inconsistencies here - In the original LITB Ward had mentioned he was a Seabee and spent the entire war in the Pacific, and in some places in the series it was said Ward and June met in college and in other episodes it was mentioned they grew up together. However, this episode is very true to the spirit of the series and the characters and it is quite magical.
Leave It to Beaver: Ward's Baseball (1960)
The devil went down to Mayfield...
... and his name is Larry Mondello.
Ward brings in a prized memento from his childhood - a baseball with the signatures of some of the greats of the day. He has purchased a small pedestal to display it on, and places it on a bookshelf in his library. Larry Mondello comes over to see Beaver, and when Beaver shows him the baseball his first reaction is to tell Beaver to take the ball outside and play catch with it. Beaver's parents are gone, then Wally leaves, so Larry says nobody will know. Beaver holds fast...for about 45 seconds and then out they go to play catch. Of course the ball gets away from them. Of course a truck runs over it. Of course Larry starts saying, YOUR father, YOUR baseball, YOUR problem to Beaver.
The two try to cover things up by putting a bunch of fake signatures on the baseball and putting it back on Ward's bookshelf, where it came from. But it's discovered by, of all people, Fred Rutherford. This makes Ward even angrier than he normally would be, realizing what has happened. Complications ensue.
Beaver has a real problem with not respecting the property of others. He did this in another episode concerning Ward's golf clubs, and he did it earlier in this episode when he used Wally's toothbrush to clean his shoes. But he had a real problem with giving in to peer pressure when it came to big things, and in particular giving in to Larry Mondello, who was always unscathed by the results of his own bad advice.
June is oddly apologetic about Beaver's behavior, probably because she did not value Ward's baseball. When it came to things she did care about she was definitely not the apologist.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver the Athlete (1959)
the tears of a clown
Beaver comes home with A's and Bs on his report card and June is ecstatic with how he's brought his grades up. I guess this report card is evidence of considerable grade inflation over the years, but I digress. When Ward comes home, however, his eyes become fixated on Beaver's D in physical education, and his fatherly pride is somewhat injured since Wally is already quite the student athlete.
Ward works with Beaver and gets him good at tumbling, but the next day the class transitions to baseball. When his turn at bat comes, Beaver decides to be the class clown to distract from his inability to hit the ball. Everyone laughs, but Judy Hensler turns the tables by imitating Beaver at first and also getting the laughs AND hitting what would have been a home run as well. Suddenly Beaver is feeling mighty low, and that night it's past dark and he still hasn't come home from school. How will this work out? Watch and find out.
This episode actually has a pretty good dual lesson. First, parents shouldn't push their kids so hard to try to be good at something that is perhaps just not up their alley. Also, as Beaver says, it's only fun to do stuff wrong if the fellas know you can do stuff right.
Leave It to Beaver: Boarding School (1958)
Wally wonders if he is unwanted
Johnny Franklin, a kid a grade ahead of Wally, comes over to visit Wally one day. Johnny has been going to a military boarding school and really promotes the place to Wally. Johnny even came over to see him in uniform. After Johnny leaves, Wally is thinking about wanting to go to the same school. June doesn't want Wally to do this, but Ward thinks it might be worth investigating.
Then Eddie Haskell comes over and talks about how his own dad is always talking up military school because he wants to get rid of him, and says that is probably what Ward wants to do to - push Wally out of the nest. But Wally disagrees and says that Johnny Franklin gave him the idea. Eddie retorts - And whose idea was it to have Johnny visit? Wally admits he has no answer for that, and he begins to second guess the entire situation, thinking that maybe his dad did manipulate him into this decision. Complications ensue.
There are several times when private schools are brought up for the boys, and each time the question of cost is never mentioned. The cost of private school is quite high today, I imagine even more so if you are talking a private boarding school. I don't know if cost isn't brought up because it wasn't an issue 65 years ago, or because it would get the 25 minute script off course.
It's also interesting that Eddie Haskell here is talking about how military school is just a way to get rid of your kid, when in the New Leave It To Beaver sequel show of the 1980s Eddie Haskell has his youngest son in military school to the point of being almost forgotten entirely, and in one episode sends the older son there too for a short while because he is angry with him over something that cost Eddie lots of money but was not really a case of bad behavior on his son's part.
Leave It to Beaver: Ward's Problem (1958)
What we have here is a failure to communicate...
... by all American father, Ward Cleaver himself.
Ward is planning a Saturday fishing trip with Wally after having already had to postpone it three times. Meanwhile, Beaver's class is going to have a father/child picnic on the same Saturday. I have to admit - not much advanced notice for the fathers here. That would never work today. So Beaver comes home with the permission slip for the outing, and Ward is enthusiastic until he sees the date. He and June talk it over, but they both agree that Wally will simply have to understand once again, because this is a school activity, and to not go would possibly leave Beaver alone as the only kid whose father was not going.
The problem is, Ward waits until the following night to tell either Wally or Beaver, and takes off early for work the next morning without signing the slip. Since Beaver and Wally have compared notes, they both conclude their dad is taking Wally fishing and not going with Beaver to his picnic. This leaves Beaver in the conspicuous position of being the only kid in the class who doesn't have a father or a father figure going on the picnic, so Beaver makes up a pack of lies to Miss Landers about his father being unavailable because he is going to Washington to meet with a company president. Complications ensue.
This is one of several episodes in season two that mention Eddie Haskell without having an actual appearance by Eddie Haskell. I read Ken Osmond's autobiography, and apparently Osmond had shot all of the season two episodes he was going to be in by September 1958, not appearing again on LITB until season three, a year later. He gives no reason for this hiatus - I don't think it was a battle over salary from the way he talked, so the reason for his absence is a mystery.
Leave It to Beaver: The Visiting Aunts (1958)
I'd rather be visited by actual ants!
Today is the last day the carnival is in town. Tooey has free passes, and so Wally, Beaver, and the guys - no Eddie this week - are going to spend the day there. Ward has promised to take the guys there and bring them back.
But hold everything, because June The Disrupter is about to take a machete to their fun. Her Aunt Martha has called on the spur of the moment and wants to come see the boys, and she is bringing some total stranger - not to her of course - that she is traveling with, Mrs. Hathaway.
When June goes on a tear not all the valium or gin in the world can get her off that tear, and so everybody is held hostage at home waiting for Aunt Martha. When she gets there she is ready to leave by 11:45, still plenty of time for the boys to have fun, but no. June INSISTS that her aunt stay for lunch! She doesn't care that it disrupts the boys plans. And so the afternoon is ruined for Wally and Beaver. Complications ensue, but the point is that June gets her own way and Wally and Beaver are perfect gentlemen during the visit, so no points against them though the episode tries to make them into the bad guys in a way.
I'm in my 60s, the age of an Aunt Martha, and I found this to be a very frustrating episode. June could have let her leave when she wanted to leave, June knew the boys had other plans, but she just had to delay things and completely ruin their day, then has the nerve to say "things just didn't work out." The fact that I'm sitting here, angry for the boys, tells you that the writing, direction, and the acting were superb. I'm giving it a 5/10 based on the underpinning premise of the entire episode - that somehow June, in any aspect, was right. She was not.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver and Henry (1958)
Another cute animal-centric episode of LITB, featuring June Cleaver, DVM
The Cleavers think a gopher is getting into their garden, and so Ward and the boys set up a simple trap to catch the gopher so they can take him some place else that is not their garden. But the trap snaps and when the box is lifted it is a white rabbit they have caught, not a gopher. He looks like he might have been somebody's pet at one time, and the boys convince their parents to let them keep him as a pet.
But then "Henry" turns out to be "Henrietta" when she gives birth to six baby bunnies. Beaver picks one up before his dad can tell him that the mother will reject a baby that has the smell of a human on him. So now Beaver has to figure out how to keep that from happening to the baby that he touched.
It's a simple episode but it has some cute scenes and lines. First off, I understand how June could figure out how Henry is actually a girl, but how did she know the rabbit was pregnant and that she was close to giving birth? Also, when Beaver sees that Henrietta has had babies and is alarmed by the sight of them nursing - he initially thinks the babies are rats who are eating Henrietta - I like how Ward and June explain the concept to Beaver of baby animals nursing from their mothers. The look on Beaver's face is - You've got to be kidding me!
Leave It to Beaver: June's Birthday (1959)
A good companion to "Beaver's Short Pants"
June's birthday is coming up, and so Ward gives the boys five dollars to buy her a present. But Beaver and Wally get into an argument over what to buy her and decide to split the five dollars and each buy their mother their own gift.
Beaver doesn't know what to buy her, so he consults Mrs. Mondello, his friend Larry's mother. She says that, if it was her, she would just like a nice blouse. So off Beaver goes to the department store, and he and Larry Mondello think they've found the perfect blouse for under 2.50 - a loud tasteless blouse with an Eiffel Tower across each breast, and "ooh la la!" and 15 other French landmarks on the back. When June opens it, Wally immediately ridicules the thing, but June tells Beaver it is lovely - she is a good liar.
But now Beaver wants June to wear this awful thing in public - to the meeting of school mothers the next day! How will this work out? Watch and find out.
I said this was a good companion to the season one episode, "Beaver's Short Pants", because June and Beaver are trading places here in a way. In that episode June's aunt Martha had bought Beaver a suit that made him look like Little Lord Fauntleroy and insisted that he wear it to school. Beaver did not want to be subjected to public ridicule, but he didn't want to hurt June's aunt Martha either. Here, Beaver is the one buying an awful piece of clothing - but with the best and most generous of intentions. Here June is the one trying both to spare Beaver's feelings AND not become a spectacle.
This first aired the day after Christmas 1959, and is seasonal in that it has lots to say about the spirit of giving being the best gift of all.
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
It's surprising that I'd never seen this film...
...which fits into the genre of movies that take place in two totally different time periods, with parallel/related stories. This is a beautifully produced film with amazing credits, directed by Karel Reisz, written by Harold Pinter, cinematography by Freddie Francis, and starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.
I should have liked this film more than I did, although I did enjoy it. It's beautiful to look at, shot mostly in Lyme Regis on the south coast of England, it focuses on actors making a movie in contemporary times; and the story of that movie, which takes place in Victorian England. Basically, two love stories involving the Meryl and Jeremy characters, one story seemingly tragic, barreling however toward a happy ending; the other, a modern story, ending unhappily, at least for Jeremy. Sometimes, it's almost very briefly unclear at first, which story you are actually watching, which is a nice touch. I liked it but probably would have liked it more, had I seen it in 1981.
Like the Jeanne Moreau character's sailor in The Sailor from Gibraltar, one wonders if the French lieutenant really existed.
Leave It to Beaver: Wally's Play (1960)
Wally and Ward get crafty for a change
Wally has been invited to join The Crusaders, a prestigious high school club for guys. Shortly after he joins the club will be putting on their annual play. This year it is a western, and Wally assumes it will be a bit part because he is new. But it's not exactly a bit part. He in fact has a big part with lots of dialogue and action. Why is this not a good thing according to Wally? Because he is supposed to play a saloon girl and wear a ridiculous outfit! You see, the Crusaders is an all male club, so the guys have to play the female parts as well as the male ones.
Wally is most un-Wally like here. Normally he is so stoic about whatever it is that life throws his way, but here he rants like he is five years old. Ward comes up to his room and offers a possible way out of this situation via a fable. The moral of the fable is to find a bigger fool - to make the part look so attractive to someone else that they want it and thus let him off the hook. Normally I would expect Ward to tell Wally to take this in the fun it is intended, but Ward is not acting like himself either.
So Wally goes looking for that bigger fool - enter stage left Eddie Haskell, who is just an extra in this play and thus only has two lines, but at least he gets to wear trousers! How will this work out? Watch and find out.
If Tommy Ivo, as Duke Hathaway, the popular head of the Crusaders, looks familiar in his one brief scene, you may know him as a very able drag racer in his post acting days. He raced until age 46 when he retired after breaking a record. He is still alive at age 88 as I write this.
Also note the bit with the desk lamp in Ward's study. Early in the episode Ward is trying to determine if the bulb has gone out. Later in the episode, the lamp is missing entirely. I wonder where that desk lamp went?
Leave It to Beaver: Child Care (1958)
A frustrating afternoon for Wally and Beaver
Wally and Beaver are looking forward to going down to the firehouse and polishing "old number seven" - a fire engine. But the couple that is going to a wedding with Ward and June on Saturday has had their sitter cancel. The husband has been told so many stories by Ward about how responsible Wally and Beaver are, that the couple has decided to ask if Wally and Beaver can babysit "Puddin" their four year old daughter.
Ward feels backed into a corner by his bragging, and so the boys end up babysitting. But when Puddin goes to the bathroom she locks the door, refuses to come out, and decides to make a wreck out of the bathroom. How does this work out? Watch and find out.
I guess the moral of this story is don't let a four year old kid lock the door in an upper story bathroom. If it had been a bathroom with no window, Wally and Beaver would have been sunk.
This reminded me of the episode "Chuckie's New Shoes" in season four, although in this particular episode I thought Ward and June were much more understanding of the situation.
Still the Beaver: Paper Tiger (1985)
Make it a 6.5
Beaver's youngest son, Oliver, is feeling a lack of confidence, so he decides to get involved in a paper drive at his school. But he's up against a girl who can offer movie tickets in return for the paper. When Oliver's ace in the hole, Freddie Haskell, refuses to give Oliver his paper stash per a previous agreement because his rival is offering movie tickets, Oliver is just about to give up. How does this work out? Watch and find out.
Probably the most entertaining part of this episode is not what the kids are doing, but seeing the adults back at Grant Avenue Elementary reliving their youth at Parent Teacher Night. Richard Rickover is now a psychiatrist and tells Beaver that Oliver is showing signs of trouble from the fact that he drew a stick figure rather than a more complete drawing. Eddie Haskell says hello to a couple of girls, now parents, that he knew back in the day and gets slapped to the point that he is hiding behind Lumpy. And Mary Ellen and Wally remember when they first met in the eighth grade and Wally shows how he still remembers her locker and its combination. Wally indeed opens the locker from memory. The problem is that the locker belonged to Mary Ellen's rival at the time, Julie Foster!
It was also good to see William Schallert as Mr. Bloomgarten, a teacher at the school back in Wally and Beaver's day, teaching a new generation. He was the teacher who rescued Beaver from his schoolmates when he showed up at school looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy in the short pants his Aunt Martha made him wear in the LITB season one episode, "Beaver's Short Pants".
Leave It to Beaver: The School Picture (1961)
Beaver, bad company, and bad judgment
Beaver gives in to peer pressure once again as Gilbert dares him to make a funny face along with him when the annual class picture is taken. Of course, Gilbert does not make the funny face, but Beaver does. Only after the picture is taken does Gilbert tell Beaver that the joke is on him.
Back in the day when taking a photo was a big deal, what Beaver has done is a big deal due to the expense and time involved of a redo. The photographer tells the school that, due to time constraints, the photo will go in the yearbook as is for the entire world to see. Any parents ordering photos will have Beaver and his goofy face ruining those photos. Can this situation be fixed? Watch and find out.
It's interesting that, when Beaver's antics are discovered, school principal Mrs. Rayburn calls the Cleaver house and, though June answers the phone, she wants to talk to Ward and Ward is who she wants to come down to the school and talk to her. What was June - the maid? Apparently, she was not an equal parent in the eyes of Mrs. Rayburn!
A side plot is Wally trying to get an army surplus walkie talkie working so that he and Eddie Haskell can talk over them. It was a way to get Eddie into the plot without actually having Eddie appear onscreen.
Leave It to Beaver: Part-Time Genius (1958)
Ward is most un-Ward like here
Ward's colleague Corny Cornelius is bothering Ward's fatherly pride by bragging on how smart his kids are. This gets Ward bothered by the "averageness" of his own kids without actually saying so. The next day there is an intelligence test administered at school, and that night Ward and June get a call at home. Beaver scored highest on the intelligence test in his school and second highest in the history of the test.
But now the public school is urging the Cleavers to send Beaver away to a special school where they can cater to the needs of the gifted student. Beaver goes on a visit to one of them and doesn't like the feeling of it at all and the sterile environment. The school figures that sports are distracting and so they don't have any, and even the school's headmaster is rather incredulous when asking Beaver what he wants to do as an adult and Beaver answers that he wants to be a garbage collector. So what goes on here? Watch and find out.
This is a rare case of June being OK with Wally and Beaver as they are and Ward being a bit unreasonable about putting pressure on his kids to be more than they really are. It's mainly an episode about accepting your kids for what they are, not what you wish that they were. Cornelius does not show up again as a colleague of Ward's, probably because Fred Rutherford, played to perfection by the marvelous Richard Deacon, was much better at being the bothersome coworker.
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)
a sweet movie with an excellent British cast
Mrs. Palfrey (Joan Plowright) is an elderly English widow who comes to London to live out her last years at the Claremont Hotel, because she liked the looks of the residential hotel in the adverts. It turns out to be a fairly dreary place (although the public rooms look quite nice, to me, anyway). The other guests are all old people in similar situations. It's kind of depressing, until Mrs. Palfrey takes a tumble in the street and is helped by an attractive young man played by Rupert Friend.
The movie has been referred to as "Separate Tables meets Harold and Maude." Nevertheless a bond develops between Mrs. Palfrey and the young man, whom she passes off as her grandson, because her real grandson never comes to visit.
It's a touching story of connection between two lost souls. I found the busy-bodyness of the other hotel guests overdone, since English people of that generation would not be so forward. Also there is a tendency for everyone to come into a room whenever there's a conflict or outburst, which reminds me of the worst excesses of 1980s American sitcoms. Also, when they do show up, Mrs. Palfrey's daughter and real grandson are simply awful. It's hard to believe that this lovely woman's family would be so vile. But overall, the movie is touching, well acted, and easy to watch.
Gilda Live (1980)
Good showcase for Gilda
I had seen this years ago, it was a hit and miss show with Gilda doing some of her most famous SNL characters, which are the best parts. Director Mike Nichols chose to film some backstage stuff which I don't think was needed. Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) is given a bit too much footage.
But Gilda provides some hilarious moments with characters like Judy Miller, the little Brownie who does her own fantasy TV show in her room, nerdy Lisa Loopner playing "The Way We Were' at a high school recital, Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci ("Aren't I cute?") and gross newscaster Rosanne Rosannadanna making a guest speech at a journalism school graduation. Some good musical moments like the vulgar "Let's Talk Dirty To The Animals' and the sweet "Honey" at the end.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver and Gilbert (1959)
It's not the bragging that's the issue so much...
... instead, for me, it was the bullying that made Gilbert look so bad in this introductory episode.
Gilbert Gates is the new kid in school, and he lives across the street from Beaver. When Beaver goes over to see Gilbert, he claims he is training for the 1968 Olympics, that his father is in the FBI and has been shot in the line of duty before, and that Gilbert has been to the North Pole. Beaver is immediately fascinated with this guy, buying whole these wild stories. But then the next day Gilbert stands Beaver up when they had planned to go to the movies. It turns out Gilbert has gone to the movies with Larry and Whity instead, and later is out front playing football with them. Then when Beaver goes over to play with them at Ward's urging, Gilbert starts bullying Beaver and turns the other two kids against him too. What goes on here? Watch and find out.
This episode was a rare uneven one for LITB. Beaver is showing extreme gullibility that I'd understand if an adult was telling these wild tales, but not another kid his own age! And why would Gilbert suddenly just turn on Beaver when they had been getting along so well. No reason was given for that turn of events. The Gilbert of this episode doesn't act like the Gilbert of any subsequent episode, and thus his bully persona just seemed like a wild departure.
I did like how Ward handled Beaver though. He managed to keep him from being babied by June without angering her, and at the same time gave Beaver some good advice concerning the situation and other similar situations that might crop up in the future.
Gilbert Gates was played by Stephen Talbot, son of actor John Talbot, who also played in a couple of LITB episodes. If you are a classic movie fan you'll recognize John Talbot as a star of some of the Warner Brothers precode films of the early 1930s.
Leave It to Beaver: Mother's Day Composition (1960)
With June Cleaver as Ruth Etting...
AKA "Love Me or Beave Me"
Mrs. Rayburn, substituting for an ill Miss Landers, asks for suggestions from the class for a theme for their next composition. The ideas the kids have for a topic include tigers and submarines, but Larry suggests the class write about their mothers and what makes them so great since Mother's Day is fast approaching. Mrs. Rayburn fine tunes that idea a bit and says the class should write a 50-word essay on what their mother's did before they married - Do realize at this time that when a woman married she usually gave up her career and became a housewife.
So Beaver interviews June and, by her own admission, she didn't have a very exciting pre-marriage life. Her only job was at a bookstore where she got fired after five days for getting her sales slips mixed up. She won a swimming contest once, and she also worked at the USO during WWII. That's about it. The next day the class reads their compositions. Judy Hensler's mother was a department store buyer, Richard's mother was a captain in the WACs, and even Larry Mondello's mother was a dental nurse, meeting Larry's father when he had cavities. Beaver is suddenly ashamed of his puny composition and when his turn comes says that the composition got lost. Mrs. Rayburn gives him another day to produce one.
So that night Beaver struggles with his composition. With his parents gone to some social event, Beaver goes downstairs to watch some TV and regroup. A Broadway star is recounting her life to a reporter. She talks about running away from home at 17, dancing in dives, being discovered by a gangster, and the gangster helping her get to Broadway. Beaver starts to write notes and decides this will be his composition.
The next day Beaver's description of his mother's single days pretty much sounds like the life story of Ruth Etting - and he throws in that his father was a famous tap dancer. The class is impressed, Mrs. Rayburn thanks Beaver and he thinks he's in the clear. And then he comes home that night to see his dad cooking dinner because Mrs. Rayburn has called June to come down to the school. Is the jig - or should I say production number - up? Watch and find out.
At the end, Beaver is saying that he feels foolish and is afraid that his classmates will razz him over his fake composition. But Larry Mondello is comforting. He says that the class knew the report was not true, but that it was like watching King Kong eat people at the movies. You know it's not true, but it sure is entertaining. Larry was the giver of much bad advice to Beaver, but he did have a good heart.
I went overboard on detail for this review because I remember clearly seeing this episode in reruns 50 years ago when I was a kid, because I could relate. My mom didn't have a youth worthy of an encyclopedia article, but she was a great mom and that made her tops in my book.
Leave It to Beaver: Lonesome Beaver (1958)
With Eddie Haskell as Barney Fife
Wally joins the Boy Scouts and Beaver, used to doing everything that Wally does, tries to join too. But the scoutmaster informs Beaver that he can't join until age eleven, and currently Beaver is only 7 and three quarters. Then one weekend the troop goes for a weekend of camping at Friend's Lake, and Beaver learns what it is to be on his own on a weekend without Wally. With his friends either occupied, away, or ill, and Gus having to ready for inspection, Beaver learns about loneliness at a young age.
There's not that much going on in this episode, and it feels a bit like filler. There are some things that recommend it though. First, joining the Boy Scouts sure seems like joining the army with the questions about age and qualifications and then the oath. Next, there is a rather frantic June, not wanting Wally to go camping, almost kissing him in front of the fellas, and obsessing over weather reports. A good wedding gift for Wally's future wife would be a sturdy pair of scissors - to cut those apron strings!
Then there is Eddie Haskell, trying to kiss up to the scoutmaster from the beginning and acting like he's in charge, like another famous know it all, Barney Fife. Finally - Was it common to put kids into bed in their pajamas all weekend so that they would not catch cold? This seems like an extreme precaution.
Leave It to Beaver: Music Lesson (1958)
The ending makes it worthwhile
Wally makes the baseball team, and Beaver is feeling a bit left out with his parents' attention seeming to focus on Wally because of this. So Beaver decides to try out for the school band. He picks the clarinet, but he doesn't make much progress with it, and so when final tryouts come Beaver doesn't make the cut, although the band teacher is as kind about letting him down as gently as possible.
But Beaver doesn't have the heart to tell his parents he didn't make the band, especially with them so proud of Wally being on the baseball team. So he carries his clarinet to and from school every day, pretending that he is in the band. And then one day notice comes of a school band concert, and the whole Cleaver family is turning out to listen to Beaver play. How will this work out? Watch and find out.
There was more than one episode about Wally the athlete or even Wally the scholar showing up Beaver and making him feel inferior or even left out. What sets this episode apart is a great moment between Beaver and his dad at the end, much like between Ward and Beaver in the episode "Beaver's Short Pants" earlier in season one.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Short Pants (1957)
This was a hard one to watch...
... almost as hard as the one where Lumpy was menacing Beaver about a watch that he said Beaver had lost when he was the one who had lost it. In this case it is Aunt Martha the terrible who is the bully, but not in the traditional sense. Instead she kills people with kindness.
June's sister has had a baby and June is going to be with her for a few days. In her stead, June's Aunt Martha will keep house for Ward and the boys. But Martha has some old fashioned ideas. In particular she doesn't like how Beaver is dressed and so she goes out and buys him a suit with short pants and knee socks that makes him look like Little Lord Fauntleroy. When his classmates see him in this get-up and tease him a fight breaks out with Beaver throwing the first punch. But the teacher who breaks up the fight sympathizes with Beaver and his ridiculous get-up and just sends him home without disciplining him.
Wally comes to Ward that night and tells him about the short pants and the fight and so Ward has to come up with a diplomatic solution that does not hurt the feelings of June's Aunt Martha. How will he do that? Watch and find out.
Apparently June's mother died when she was young and her Aunt Martha filled in that role as best she could. Martha is haughty and inflexible and I can see how, when June goes on an occasional streak of being unreasonable, how that may have come from both nature and nurture having seen Aunt Martha in action.
Leave It to Beaver: The Black Eye (1957)
When knighthood was in flower...
... or at least chivalry.
Beaver comes home with a black eye, courtesy of Violet Rutherford, daughter of Ward Cleaver's colleague, Fred Rutherford. Wally helps Beaver try to cover up the black eye with their mother's makeup, but it doesn't work that well. Ward and June immediately notice Beaver's "white eye" at dinner, but what they don't know is that it was a girl who punched Beaver.
When Beaver is asked what he did in response, and he says he ran away, Ward's fatherly pride is somewhat wounded, and he decides to give Beaver some boxing lessons. Ward then tells Beaver to confront the bully and give him as good as he got, still not knowing the assailant is a girl. When this fact later comes to light, Ward and Fred Rutherford go out to stop Beaver from following Ward's advice. Will they be in time? Watch and find out.
This was a bit of a prototype episode. It's the first appearance of Richard Deacon as Fred Rutherford, Ward's stuffed shirt blowhard of a colleague, and the second appearance of Judy Hensler, a taunting overbearing girl in Beaver's class. In the middle of the episode Judy is having a conversation with an unnamed plump boy who never stops munching on his candy bar during their discussion. This is not Larry Mondello, Beaver's best friend for three seasons on the show, but he clearly is a first draft of the same character. Violet Rutherford will later be played by Veronica Cartwright, both a few times in this series and later in "The New Leave It To Beaver" in the 1980s.
It's interesting how three of the four Cleavers had best friends who were annoying people, definitely not on anybody's side but their own. Ward's best friend was Fred Rutherford, Beaver's best friend was Larry Mondello, and Wally's was the most famous wise guy of them all - Eddie Haskell.
The Man in the Net (1959)
I wouldn't exactly call it noir...
But more likely a whodunnit of Hitchcockian proportions. Directed by Michael Curtiz in 1959 and starring Alan Ladd, it has a strong supporting cast of children, which made the film very unusual.
Ladd was a gentle, somewhat under-rated actor and he was effective as the passive husband and victim in this film. Curtiz's direction is pretty sharp, and there's the usual suspension of disbelief which one has to engage in these kinds of films. But I felt the film was 'small' in scope and would more easily have lent itself to television.
It was predictable in that Carolyn Jones wasn't a strong, leading actor and it was obvious she was going to be bumped off because she didn't have the charisma to last the full distance of the film.