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Highway Patrol: Framed Cop (1959)
A rare episode where a regular character is the center of attention
Sgt. Ken Williams gets a knock on his door one morning, and it's a young woman saying she knows Williams' aunt. She's very chatty and very flirty, and before Williams knows it he's late leaving to report for work at Highway Patrol. He makes a date with the woman for dinner and then they both leave the apartment.
While Williams has been talking to the girl, a man has taken his car, run down a pedestrian, stopped on the other side of the intersection where the accident occurred so witnesses can get a good look - He's in uniform - and then speeds away. When Williams gets to work he discovers the hit and run driver's license plate was the same as his own, plus he has no alibi since nobody of the same name as the girl he spoke with is at the hotel she said that she was staying at.
Williams has been set up by the brother of a man he helped send to prison for life the previous year, with the chatty girl that stopped by being the girlfriend of the brother, but nobody knows that. Dan Matthews assumes it's a set up and probably has something to do with Williams' work, but it could literally be the friends or family of dozens of defendants. How Matthews and Williams narrow down who it had to be starting with the only place that Williams was unable to lock his car during the past week or two is an interesting look into police work, as usual.
It was unusual for Highway Patrol to "get personal" as having the case of the week intersect or in this case be about one of the regular cast, but it worked well.
Leave It to Beaver: The Haircut (1957)
Christmas in October
Beaver has lost his lunch money three times recently and gets "yelled at" by his dad, Ward, although Ward would deny that. Then he is trusted with a dollar seventy-five with which to get a haircut. But, fidgeting in his seat at the barber shop, he manages to lose that money too. He tries bartering with the barber - asking if perhaps he'll take a nifty doorknob in exchange for a haircut, but the boss is away and the barber can't do that.
Beaver comes home, pilfers June's scissors, and tries himself. Initially it's not so bad, but he is discovered by Wally who attempts to fix matters with disastrous results. Wally and Beaver - now in this mess together - decide to both wear caps for a week and tell their parents it is part of the initiation into a secret club.
The real problem here is that there is a school holiday festival and presentation coming up very shortly, Beaver is slated to be an angel, and looking like he was attacked by a lawn mower is likely to distract the audience. This episode was first broadcast in October, which was an odd time to have a (somewhat) Christmas themed show.
I like how Beaver and Wally sticked together and did not blame each other for their joint predicament.
Leave It to Beaver: Voodoo Magic (1958)
Eddie Haskell, attorney at law, and the power of suggestion
Eddie Haskell and Wally are going to the movies with the Beaver tagging along. June asks what movie they are going to see, and it's "Voodoo Curse", probably one of those cheaply made 50s horror movies. Eddie tells June it's educational because it was shot in Haiti, but she's not buying it as proper fare for Beaver. She instructs Wally to take Beaver to see Pinocchio instead.
Once at the theater, Eddie tells Wally that June said not to take Beaver to Voodoo Curse, but that does not mean that Beaver can't take Wally, so Wally gives Beaver the money so that he can pay, and then technically, Wally did not take Beaver to the movies. He violates the spirit but not the letter of his agreement.
What gives the boys away is actually Eddie Haskell. Beaver loses his cap in the theater and, for some unknown reason, Eddie calls the Cleavers and tells June that Beaver lost his cap in the theater where she knows Voodoo Curse was playing. I guess when you write 40 episodes of TV a year you can't iron out the wrinkle in every plot point, but this seemed like a lapse. The boys are punished by having to spend the rest of the weekend in their room, and so Beaver decides to get back at Eddie by putting a voodoo curse on him, complete with pins in a doll. But then on Monday Wally and Beaver learn that Eddie is home sick and Beaver wonders if his curse really worked and if he is going to the electric chair if Eddie dies!
Eddie turns out to be faking his illness just because he wants a couple of mental health days before that term entered the vernacular, but when he learns about Beaver's curse he begins to think he has real stomach pains as the power of suggestion does its job. What's really odd is that Eddie's dad goes to the Cleaver house and complains about this curse to Ward, as though this thing is real! He even accuses Ward of teaching Beaver about black magic. Again, this seems like something that would never happen in later episodes - A parent thinking that such a crazy thing as a voodoo curse was real to the point of expressing that thought to another adult. LITB was known for showing parents and children acting realistically yet humorously.
So apparently June was right about this movie being too intense for the likes of Beaver, but perhaps it could have all been avoided if Beaver had gone to the movies with a friend his own age rather than making Wally into a kind of babysitter for the day.
I did think it was humorous how every time somebody would be thinking about the possibility of voodoo being real you'd hear those voodoo drums in the background.
Quincy M.E.: To Kill in Plain Sight (1981)
A good tense mystery
A man shows up to "front" for a hired assassin, doing recon on the location, which is an upcoming Western Governor's Convention. The man is killed by a letter bomb sent to his room. The police find evidence in the man's room that he is fronting for a hired assassin, but they don't know who the front man is, and he registered under an alias, so they use the autopsy to try and figure out who this guy is and thus maybe figure out who could have hired him and who the target of the hired assassin might be. His face is pretty much destroyed, so they try to use stomach contents and a very distinctive tattoo to determine his identity.
Meanwhile the guests start showing up at the convention, and the plot seems to be pointing the audience in the direction of two possible targets who are political rivals. One of them is a villain, maybe one is even behind the hired-killing-to-be of the other, but you are kept guessing until the end as to which is which or maybe it's none of the above. Meanwhile, the police are trying to figure out who the target is and who the assassin is with an oversized dose of help from Quincy considering he is not a police investigator.
This has the feel of one of those private investigator/political thrillers of the seventies, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I figured out who the assassin was pretty easily, and other reviewers have said the same, but the rest of the mystery - the why and who - is quite good.
There's a funny bit of business between Quincy and a tattoo artist that he visits when he is trying to narrow down who did the tattoo work on the initial victim. She gets unexpectedly flirtatious with Quincy in his office and his facial expressions are hilarious.
Quincy M.E.: Of All Sad Words (1981)
Quincy behaves oddly here...
... and I mean oddly even for Quincy.
I remembered this episode from its first run for a couple of reasons. First the "of all sad words" poem really spoke to me at the time, and also because Quincy behaves erratically in this episode.
A woman's mobster husband is killed in a fire at his restaurant. Maybe it's an accident, maybe natural causes, maybe not. So Quincy is on the case. In the process of doing the autopsy he runs into the widow and the two fall for one another, and for Quincy it seems to be more than his typical flirtation. At the same time, Quincy apparently has a doppelganger - About the same age, just as "craggy" (to be kind), just as persistent - except this guy is an insurance investigator who does a deep dive into the grieving widow and her background and is convinced that her husband's death was murder and that this was not her first murder. And it's not like this guy keeps it to himself. He tells Quincy what he thinks and why he thinks it and lets the widow know he is on her trail as well.
When the insurance investigator seems to be closing in on Quincy's girlfriend he plays some games with some vital tests performed on the dead husband's blood that could not only get him fired from the coroner's office but get him arrested for at least obstruction of justice. What goes on here? Watch and find out.
The episode takes some unbelievable turns at the end as far as Quincy taking some chances, but still at least it's one of the mystery episodes of Quincy with a little more intersection with his personal life than is normal, so it was an enjoyable watch.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Cat Problem (1961)
Is there no loyalty among the pets of Mayfield?
Beaver finds a very elegant looking long haired cat on his front porch when he comes home from school and brings it up to his room. It turns out the cat is named Bootsie and belongs to Mrs. Prentiss, a neighbor a few streets over who dotes on the cat. Before he returns home, Beaver feeds Bootsie some salmon. It is only after Bootsie returns home with his owner that Ward informs the boys that if you feed a cat it will always come back. And return it does, time after time, looking for another snack. In the meantime, everybody, including Mrs. Prentiss, seems to be tiring of the situation. How will this work out? Watch and find out.
This old story about a cat that's been fed returning may be true for strays, but I doubt it's true of cats that have homes. But even that would be an impossibility if the cat was kept inside most of the time. I guess times have changed and 65 years ago many people were less than one generation removed from life on a farm where cats and dogs commonly ran loose, but today it's a recipe for a short life for the pet if it's left outside.
I like how Beaver and Wally are portrayed as animal lovers in not only this episode but the series, always interested in the welfare of whatever animal crosses their paths.
Leave It to Beaver: Eddie's Girl (1958)
Wally's first love triangle
Eddie Haskell claims to "have a girl" - Caroline Cunningham. She's a rich girl who goes to boarding school. Eddie asks Wally if he wants to meet her, and he says sure. But when Eddie goes to her house it is readily apparent that Eddie and Caroline have never met until now. But the boy who makes an impression on Caroline is Wally. When Caroline's mother call's June on behalf of Caroline and asks her if Wally will go to the upcoming club dance with her, June accepts on Wally's behalf. This angers Wally because, not only was he not consulted, but he considers it an act of betrayal to go out with Eddie's girl, even if that is not what she actually is. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
Beaver is confused by all of this politics of dating and thinks that matters were simpler when Wally didn't like girls. At the end there is a rare vulnerable moment between Eddie and, of all people, Beaver that is worth the price of admission.
Also, Wally throws quite the tantrum in this episode, and I can't think of another episode where he behaves in such a way. It's usually Beaver who reacts explosively where Wally is usually stoic about whatever life throws his way.
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Poem (1958)
Ward is embearassed...
... and, no, I did not just misspell that word.
Ward and June are planning to go to the movies, but before they leave Beaver tells Ward that he has a poem due tomorrow and hasn't even started writing it. He got the assignment three weeks ago. So what follows is about ten minutes of what will be familiar to any parent - A child has an assignment deadline, you are just now learning about it, and you have to help this child with the assignment without actually doing it for them while the entire time they are distracted by whatever thoughts fly into their head and it ends with your patience coming to an end.
So Ward essentially ends up writing the poem for Beaver, but then it is learned that Beaver is going to win a prize for that poem and Ward and June can't let him get a reward for something he did not do. So now they just have to explain this not only to Beaver, but to the principal, Mrs. Rayburn. How does this work out? Watch and find out.
There's a funny bit of business between June and Wally. June goes upstairs to read the newspaper when Ward pushes her out of the living room where he and Beaver are working. June inquires about Wally's homework while upstairs and he basically tells her it is too complicated for her to understand because it is high school math!
Leave It to Beaver: Cat Out of the Bag (1958)
One of several pet-centric episodes and scenes through the years
The writers of LITB must have loved animals of all kinds, because animals and the importance of responsible pet ownership and care show up as themes in several episodes over the years. This last episode of season one has Wally and Beaver signing up to care for the Donaldsons' prize cat Puff Puff while the Donaldsons are at the beach for a few days. They will be paid top dollar at a rate of fifty cents a day, so naturally they are excited. Ward expresses his concern at the boys being mature enough to care for such an expensive cat, but does not prevent them from taking the job.
So what could go wrong? - Enter stage left Eddie Haskell, his dog Wolf, and one of Eddie's crooked coin tosses. Dealing with Eddie on a daily basis, I'm surprised that Wally didn't realize how Eddie was cheating Beaver.
There's a new Mr. Donaldson in this episode. Previously Mr. Donaldson was a more mature dad - a father of four - and played by veteran screen actor Lyle Talbot. This time, there's a different actor playing Mr. Donaldson, the Donaldsons are neighbors, they are childless, and Mr. Donaldson dotes on Puff Puff as though she was his child. I can tell the writers are fans of cats, because they have the boys mentioning with wonderment how cats do things - how they wash themselves, climb, and even how they eat out of a bowl. If you don't love cats you may not love this episode as much as I did.
Leave It to Beaver: The Bank Account (1958)
Ward eats the entire humble pie
Ward and June buy Wally and Beaver a piggy bank. After a few months there is over thirty dollars in it, a hefty sum in 1958. On bank day - a day in which kids bring their money to school and put it in their bank accounts - Beaver and Wally leave with the money from the piggy bank to put in their accounts. But Miss Rayburn, the principal, calls twice to the Cleaver household. The first time is to say that Beaver and Wally left the school without permission at midday, and the second time is to tell Ward that neither put any money in their bank accounts that day, that in fact they both withdrew money!
Ward is steamed. He says it's because the boys lied to him and because he suspects they wasted fifty dollars on baseball mitts based on a previous conversation they had, but it is really because the boys didn't take his advice and save their money. Complications ensue, but let's just say Ward eats the entire humble pie.
Piece by piece, there was nothing special about this episode, but the end makes the entire episode worth it as it is very heartwarming.
Leave It to Beaver: Cleaning Up Beaver (1958)
This episode meanders a bit
Wally and Eddie are going to the movies, but are asked to wait for Beaver and Larry. They both return from wherever they have been filthy, and June won't let Beaver go anywhere until he cleans himself up and changes clothes.
So Wally is understandably angry that Beaver's sloppiness and tardiness is making him late. Ward and June decide to deal with Beaver's messiness by praising Wally's neatness. This works, but perhaps not as intended as the brothers fight over this issue and Beaver asks for his own room and gets it. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
This was a well acted if not well structured episode of LITB. The best part is the beginning where Wally and Eddie are making a real ritual of going to the movies on Saturday, mainly because they have found it to be a good place to meet and talk to girls. Of course Beaver doesn't get this at all, and that is probably part of the reason for the difference in grooming habits - Wally is trying to attract girls and Beaver is not.
Highway Patrol: Efficiency Secretary (1957)
That DDT is a killer!
A secretary at an agricultural cooperative reports fifty thousand dollars missing from the cooperative's safe just before a big payout is to be made. Dan Matthews and company respond to the call. The secretary blames herself, saying she was so busy on this day as the farmers came and went that she closed the safe, but didn't lock it. She has every list that the Highway Patrol would need to do their investigation including farmers who had been to the cooperative that day, and those who came inside versus those who stayed outside.
But not all is as it appears. The secretary took the money herself and has it in her purse. At lunch, she meets her accomplice and gives him the money to put in a safe deposit box in another town for a year until the heat is off.
She planned carefully, but Matthews has been eliminating possible suspects all morning and thus turns back to the people who actually worked in the cooperative near the safe. And then "the hand of fate" makes everything clear. To find out what I mean, watch and find out.
In 1957, such a woman as the titular efficiency secretary could really not hope for anything more career wise than that of secretary, teacher, or nurse - Careers that involved serving men. Not an excuse but perhaps an explanation for why such a person would turn to crime. In 1957, fifty thousand dollars was worth about 600 thousand in 2024 - Not an amount that would have you fixed for life, by any means. So perhaps this secretary was more interested in the challenge than the cash. It appeared that way.
Highway Patrol: Girl Bandit (1956)
A bit misnamed...
Because the girl is not the bandit per se, but more of a manipulator. You usually see this in reverse, in fiction and in fact. Watch those late night "women in prison" news documentaries and just about every woman inmate is there because they got involved in some criminal enterprise because of a man or because they struck out violently against a man who had been beating them forever. But I digress.
A man is found in his car by the side of a road with a bad blow to the head. In the hospital, the doctor says that the guy is unconscious not so much because of the wound, but because he's had a shock that his conscious mind does not want to deal with. His wife is by his side at the hospital, not so much because of devotion, but because her husband walked in on her and her boyfriend planning to run away with the fifty thousand dollars that the husband stole from his employer at his wife's urging. The head wound was courtesy of her boyfriend But the boyfriend better beware, because if it was easy for the wife to betray her husband it will be just that much easier for her to betray him.
The "girl bandit" is played by Jeanne Cooper, who played lots of supporting roles in TV over the years and then landed a long running gig on the soap "Young and the Restless". I would say that if the show bothered to label her character with such a salacious title as "Girl Bandit" they should have had her behavior be just a little more cold blooded than shown. We don't even get to see anything that transpires between her and the betrayed husband. I guess such are the constraints of half hour TV shows.
Highway Patrol: Auto Press (1959)
A game of cat and mouse...
Or maybe cat and louse.
A man and his wife hold up a gas station, but the owner fights back and the robber shoots the owner in a panic. On the way back to the car the robber bumps into a customer who sees the car and the robber but doesn't get the license plate.
Meanwhile the robbers make it back to their house. This was their first armed robbery, it went bad, and unlike the more hardened characters you meet on Highway Patrol, these two are scared. The guy decides to ask his brother to put the car through his auto press at his wrecking yard. But then there is the tricky business of getting the car from the robbers' garage to the auto press. Complications ensue.
It's good TV watching Matthews and the Highway Patrol reason through what could have happened to the getaway car, and I couldn't help feel for the robber's brother who knew that he was breaking the law by helping his brother, yet didn't want to see him get the death penalty. The same thing for the robber's wife. She married a loser. If she hadn't she'd have probably never even come close to breaking the law.
Highway Patrol: Double Cross (1957)
A Hitchcockian episode of Highway Patrol
Henry Wigram, a trusted employee of the Bonded Messenger Service, conspires with his wife and an accomplice, John Grolier, to steal a twenty thousand dollar payroll. What is actually going on is unclear at first - Wigram picks up the payroll at the bank and drives off. Along the highway he tosses the bag with the money to his wife who is waiting along the road. Then he meets up with the accomplice where a robbery is supposed to be staged. Instead, Grolier double-crosses Wigram and shoots him dead. Yes, it will look like a robbery, because it is! But Grolier just shot a man dead for a sack of worthless scrap paper, and in 1957 he'd be facing the death penalty. Complications ensue. Why do I say this episode is Hitchcockian? You'll have to watch and find out, as in watch to the end.
Wigram's wife seems convincing when Dan Matthews of the Highway Patrol comes to talk to her about the robbery - nobody knows about the murder yet because the body has not been found. She asks why would her husband risk a good job and the more than adequate living that his salary buys? Digging under the surface - as Matthews always does - finds that Wigram cosigned an 8000 dollar loan for a cousin who then defaulted. So half of that twenty thousand would have paid off that debt and then some. So like a film noir, we have an average guy , Wigram, thrust into extraordinary events and making the wrong choices to deal with them.
Note that at the beginning of the episode Wigram drives away from the bank in his company car labeled "Bonded Messenger Service". Maybe that is just for illustration's sake, or maybe that was something that was actually safe to do in 1957, but I imagine that today such a person would be in an unmarked car for the safety of all concerned.
Still the Beaver (1983)
Great if you are a fan of the original series...
... but if you have no idea what the show is about, or maybe you know what it is and have seen just an episode or two, I'm just not sure how much you are going to get out of it, as there are more than a few ironic tie ins to the original LITB show. Plus, if you are younger, you may have trouble with the concept of superimposing the 50s on the 80s if you are unfamiliar with both decades.
Beaver Cleaver's wife has just thrown him out of the house. His rich father in law therefore fires him, and he doesn't even have a car since he is driving a company car. He takes a cab back to Mayfield, to his mother's house, and tries to pick up the pieces of his life in a place that seems familiar and safe. He also tries to have a better relationship with his sons, who resent the divorce and the dislocation it has caused in their lives.
Beaver's older brother Wally is a successful attorney, and in his 30s has only recently married his high school sweetheart, Mary Ellen Rogers. But being mid to late thirties, they have a problem - possible fertility problems as they try to conceive a child.
A large number of the original cast members show up - Ken Osmond as Eddie Haskell, Frank Bank as Lumpy Rutherford, Richard Deacon as Fred Rutherford, Richard Correll as Richard Rickover, Rusty Stevens as Larry Mondello, Diane Brewster as Miss Canfield, and Tiger Fafara as Tooey.
One thing that I really enjoyed as a long time viewer were the many intercuts from the present Cleaver home to some relevant scene from the TV show. Hugh Beaumont, who played Ward Cleaver, died the year before this was made, in 1982, and many of those intercut scenes involve him. I thought these scenes were a tastefully done tribute to the actor and the role he played.
Truly, Madly, Cheaply!: British B Movies (2008)
an affectionate look at low budget films in the UK...
Written and hosted by Matthew Sweet and ranging from the quota quickies of the 30s to the exploitation flicks of the 70s. In between we visit wartime comedies, the 50s youth market, and Hammer in the 60s. There are oddball one-offs like 1952's Private Information, in which none other than Jill Esmond (Mrs. Olivier #1) plays a woman who crusades against the leaky sewer pipes in her council house.
It runs 89 minutes and is loaded with clips, many from films I've never heard of. Sweet welcomes several veterans from the B movie era, and these are my favorite bits. He chats with Patricia Laffan as they watch her film Devil Girl from Mars (1954). Nicky Henson giggles as he watches himself in Psychomania (1973) riding a motorcycle through a wall and confronting some kind of giant demon frog.
It's lots of fun if you like these old films, and I do.
Highway Patrol: Lie Detector (1956)
Ranked high for drama, not for technical accuracy
An older woman who owns a motel is robbed at gunpoint by a man wearing a trench coat, hat, and bandana covering his face. The woman won't tell him where she keeps her money, so he slugs her with the gun, searches a few boxes, but then leaves empty handed.
When the Highway Patrol arrive she says she recognizes the man as somebody who checked into the hotel the night before, Roger Taylor, from the clothing he was wearing. Taylor professes his innocence though he has no alibi, and he admits to having a trench coat and hat, but none are found in his room. He's a man on his way to Baltimore who owns a grocery store and has no money problems.
Dan Matthews asks him if he'd be willing to take a lie detector test. Taylor agrees because he has nothing to hide. He passes the test which is given over four hours asking a combination of mundane questions and questions applicable to the crime. Then the test is given to the hotel owner to see if she is either lying or has doubts about who she is accusing. She passes too. So Matthews is at an impasse. He has two people with test results that are at odds with one another. The owner believes she is accusing the right man. The accused at least believes he didn't do it. Or one or both of them are sociopaths! Complications ensue.
"Lie detectors", or polygraphs which are their true names, were never administered like this - With the subject holding their fingers in the air and only that one sensor being employed. That would be a unigraph, and not at all accurate.
Putting it center stage in the script was interesting though, and maybe put a chill through any bad guys watching that might really think that the police managed to put God in a box.
Highway Patrol: Machine-Napping (1955)
Technical milestones take center stage.
Two thieves plan to steal and ransom a one hundred thousand dollar electronic brain - which is what computers were called back in the day. It is supposed to be transferred from where it was built to where it will be used, the thieves know this, and imitate truck drivers who are supposed to haul the thing. It is so heavy an 18 wheeler is required to move it. Remember the first silicon transistor was built by Bell Labs in 1954, and the first integrated circuit was built in 1958, so at the time such computers were a bunch of vacuum tubes and quite fragile. Today we all have computers much more powerful than what was stolen that cost several hundred dollars and fit in our back pockets.
The thieves reason that if successful they will wind up with the same amount of money that you get for ransoming a person without the complications or possibility of the long prison sentence that comes with kidnapping a person.
The thieves seem surprised that the Highway Patrol was using helicopters - one thief said it was something that he was not counting on. So I looked it up - Helicopters were not used by the California Highway Patrol until about 1960. This show doesn't specifically SAY they are in California, but from the landmarks and cities mentioned, that state is probably where the show is set.
So this episode turned out to be fascinating for the technical signposts. And it had a good script and acting as usual.
Still the Beaver: Give and Take (1985)
A must see for Eddie Haskell fans
Eddie is late - as in it being past 10PM - for a night out at a swanky restaurant with his wife and Wally and his wife. It turns out he is shooting pool with Lumpy, and worse yet he didn't forget, he just blew it off figuring that he could get his wife Gert to forgive him. He'd be wrong. He ends up staying at June's house and driving everybody there crazy when he starts taking advantage.
Gert won't take Eddie back unless he changes completely, but if you took the selfishness and manipulation out of Eddie you'd probably have about a quarter cup of water. Can this marriage be saved? Watch this episode and find out.
Eddie has some sincere moments here, which are always a treat, since he so seldom lets one peek beneath the surface and see his vulnerable side. Also note that in the original LITB that Eddie went around calling everybody "Gertrude" and he has ended up marrying a woman named Gertrude.
Also, it was fun to see Barbara Billingsley work in a homage to her come-back role in Airplane!.
Still the Beaver: Got to Get You Out of My Life (1987)
I don't get the low rating for this one...
... because it is classic Eddie Haskell.
Eddie's sons cause problems for the new generation of Cleavers as in getting one Cleaver suspended and another two Cleavers accused of shoplifting on the same day that Eddie's flirting with a wealthy widow in Wally's law office causes Wally to lose her as a client. This causes June to ban all Haskells from her house, and her argument to son Wally convinces him to do the same at his house. Eddie's attempts to make up with Wally are rebuffed.
This leads to an unintentional heart to heart between Eddie and his oldest son about how much they miss and need the Cleavers. At Wally's house, he and his son have the same conversation about how they don't know what that certain something is about the Haskells that makes them want them around in spite of all of the problems that they bring. How will this all work out? Watch and find out.
Two of the writers for this episode were regular writers of the original Leave It To Beaver show, and they certainly have the characters down. And Ken Osmond certainly remembers how it's done in spite of twenty years, a career as a LA policeman, and the rumors of him being Alice Cooper having occurred in the years since he last played the role of Eddie Haskell. Osmond's actual sons play his sons in the sitcom.
Carry on Matron (1972)
I always liked the Carry On series...
... and I've found most folks either love or hate the Carry Ons as a rule, and for many it's a generational thing (i.e., the films either evoke fond memories of their youth in a Britain that's vastly different from the UK of today, or they draw out unalloyed scorn for the lewd side of British comedy). And, truth be told, there's lots NOT to like about the Carry Ons, starting with the hit-or-miss quality and cheap production values of the series' entries as well as the broad style of humor found therein (a style that irritated more innovative British comics such as Tony Hancock). And, yes, for me the series proves scientifically the thesis that one film can have too many breast jokes. But, at the same time, when the core group (Sid, Hattie, Kenneth, Joan, Charles, etc.) is present and the humor is firing on all cylinders, you can see why these movies made a ton of coin: because at their best, they're hilarious.
Carry On, Matron has one of the dandiest premises in the series: a gang of crooks plans to steal birth control pills from a maternity hospital and sell them on the black market...just the kind of crime one would expect from a gang led by the ribald Sid James! Indeed, there are no prizes for good taste here, including a patient who's nine months pregnant (Joan Sims) who shows up at the hospital with false labor and then settles in to eat like a horse, and Sid's crooked son (Kenneth Cope) who dresses as a nurse in order to obtain a floor plan but ends up being harassed by the lecherous Dr. Prodd as well as distracted by his terminally curvaceous roommate (Barbara Windsor). Factor in Hattie Jacques' deft turn as Matron and Kenneth Williams, in spectacularly twitchy form, as a hypochondriac Chief of Staff, and you have yourself a movie that will keep you laughing in spite of yourself.
Highway Patrol: Prison Break (1955)
Highway Patrol starts out with a bang
This first episode of the 50s series has the Highway Patrol trying to capture a man who broke out of prison. He's ruthless and clever, stealing and then abandoning vehicles as he goes. He steals a car, then a police car badly injuring the cop who drove it, and then uses the police car to hijack a school bus which he figures will be less suspect.
The interesting thing about this episode is that although the escapee does pretty bad violence in a couple of scenes, the actual violence being done to the people is not shown. Nor is the injured person shown post violence. I wonder if this was due to some type of morals code at this particular point in television such that explicit violence, even though it is just acting, could not be shown.
Broderick Crawford plays the hands-on head of the Highway Patrol, directing the investigation and manhunt. Although I doubt the head of such an outfit would be out in the field chasing down suspects, no audience is going to stick around for a show where Crawford, star of stage and screen, spends the entire show filling out reports.
For this first show, Broderick Crawford comes out at the end to invite the audience to tune in next week.
Panic in the Streets (1950)
A great pandemic noir
A criminal type, Blackie (Jack Palance) and his two lackeys (Zero Mostel as Fitch and Tommy Cook as Poldi) chase an illegal alien through the streets of New Orleans and shoot him over him leaving a poker game after he won all of the money. They dump the body and it's found the next day. But the guy doing the exam at the morgue thinks there is something wrong with the body other than the bullet holes. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) of the U. S. Health Service is called in and says the guy died of plague.
The guy turns out to be an unknown. The authorities figure out the illegal alien part pretty quickly, and now they have to figure out where he's been (how he got it) and who the people are he's been in contact with (who is likely to get it). A full blown epidemic could be in progress in four days. The public needs to be kept in the dark because if they knew then they'll start leaving town and spread the plague nationwide or even worldwide, the press knows something is up and is trying to sniff out a story, and Dr. Reed is partnered with a homicide detective (Paul Douglas) who is not particularly fond of doctors in the first place.
A complicating factor is that Mostel's Fitch actually does get caught up in the initial dragnet the police put out, but they don't know his association with the case and let him go when he appears to know nothing. But his boss Blackie gets the wrong idea. He figures that the police are making such a fuss because their victim brought drugs into the country, and that since Poldi was the guy's cousin, that he must have the drugs and that he is holding out on him.
Especially striking were some scenes with politicians having trouble taking health experts predictions about possible infections seriously and arguments with reporters about what kind of information the public needs to know. A comment Widmark made about the pointlessness of focusing only on the location of the initial appearance of a pandemic in the modern (for 1950!) era of transportation where anyone can quickly travel half way around the world in a short time was particularly prescient. In addition to the intelligent script, the direction is excellent, combining extremely realistic, on-location documentary-style filming on the streets of New Orleans, and dark, expressionistic film noir stylistics.
There's also quite a bit about Dr. Reed's domestic life, and it seems that being a federal employee was not nearly as lucrative in 1950 as it is today. I wonder when that changed?
Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Crush (1957)
Beaver and peer pressure
Beaver has a crush on his teacher, Miss Canfield. He stays after school and helps her, and it's pretty obvious to the casual observer how he feels. It is so obvious that some of the kids tease him about it and dare him to put some "exploding snakes" in her desk to frighten her as proof he doesn't really "like" her. Beaver, always the one to give into peer pressure, does just that. Then he immediately regrets the choice, but after the kids leave the room Miss Canfield returns and he doesn't have a chance to retrieve the snakes. It seems the anticipation of Miss Canfield being scared by the snakes and his own conscience are bothering him more than being made fun of by the other kids could ever have done. Complications ensue.
There is an odd section in the middle where Beaver and Wally go to the school in the middle of the night to try and get the snakes, but the janitor's dog prevents them from succeeding. While they are gone, June goes to check on the boys and finds books in their beds instead of them. When Ward goes in a few minutes later to confirm what June said that she found, the boys are "sleeping" in their beds and Ward acts like June is seeing things. Why didn't either of them pull back the covers to see that their street clothes are probably still on? One of those inconsistencies that don't happen later as the characters find their bearings.