AlsExGal Reviews

Leave It to Beaver: The Lost Watch (1958) Season 2, Episode 5

A show about a watch that's hard to watch

[7/10 · 8 May 2024]

Beaver and Larry go watch "the big kids" play baseball. The fellows all pile their wallets, jackets, and watches on Beaver for him to watch while they play. After everybody has gathered their stuff, after the game, Lumpy asks for his watch from Beaver, but Beaver doesn't have it. Lumpy threatens to thrash him or even call the police if his fifteen dollar watch is not returned. All through the next few days this giant fellow menaces the boy. He calls him at home and threatens him, he jumps out behind shrubbery on Beaver's way to school and threatens him. It's all quite hard to watch him bully Beaver, who is convinced he lost this expensive watch.

Beaver feels like he can't tell his parents because of the talk around the house about watching things in your trust and not losing stuff. But then Beaver tries to cash a savings bond his aunt got him so that he can buy Lumpy a new watch and taking the bond gets the attention of Beaver's parents. Ward is livid about what's happened, but Clarence/Lumpy is also the son of his business partner, Fred Rutherford, and so Ward needs to proceed cautiously.

Lumpy Rutherford was initially introduced as a guy two years older than Wally and Eddie, often a bully, less so to Wally as Wally began to get a growth spurt. But he must have been left back a couple of times because at the end of the series the three are graduating together. Lumpy transitions to the not too bright, sometime partner in crime to Eddie Haskell, and the three - Wally, Eddie, and Lumpy are pretty much the three musketeers by graduation.

Leave It to Beaver: The Broken Window (1958) Season 1, Episode 25

Wally and Beaver look for advice from an odd source

[7/10 · 8 May 2024]

Wally and Beaver break a window one day when playing ball too close to the house. In fact it's one of the other boys who breaks the window, but they all scatter after the window breaks and leave Wally and Beaver holding the bag. Ward gets the window fixed, but lectures them about how close they were playing, and they promise to not play that close again.

But then the next day they are going to play ball elsewhere when Beaver asks Wally to pitch just one ball to him while they are close to the garage, and they hear the sound of breaking glass - It's the passenger window of the family car. Ward and June are out house hunting, so the boys have some time. Then Wally does a weird thing - He calls Eddie Haskell for advice! Eddie's advice is to roll down the car window and then plead ignorance when the window is inevitably raised. That is what the boys decide to do when they can't raise the money to fix the window before their parents get home. How will this work out? Watch and find out.

This was early in Eddie Haskell's tenure, and even the following year Wally would never listen to advice from Eddie. Beaver would until he got a little older because Eddie offered such tempting shortcuts to problems.

Leave It to Beaver: Beaver and Chuey (1958) Season 2, Episode 4

The international language of children

[7/10 · 7 May 2024]

Beaver has a new friend from South America who only speaks Spanish - Chuey, obviously a nickname. He's been coming over to the house a lot and he and Beaver seem to understand one another to some degree, at least enough to play together.

But then Eddie gets a dastardly idea - He's taking high school Spanish and what good is a new talent as far as Eddie is concerned if you can't cause trouble with it. He goes to Beaver and teaches Beaver a phrase in Spanish that Eddie tells him means "You are a swell guy." But it actually means "You have the face of a pig". Chuey runs home crying. Beaver doesn't know what he did, and his parents are baffled too. Soon Chuey's parents arrive - also only Spanish speakers - and they are upset about their son, but don't know how to verbally convey what they are wanting to say in English. Can anybody break through this barrier and solve the mystery? Watch and find out.

It really is funny watching the parents try to wrangle what little of the other person's language they know in order to communicate. June asks Chuey's mom if she would like some tea, Chuey's mom says yes, your house is lovely. June asks Chuey's mom to have a seat on the "mesa" (table). Confused, she figures out she means "chair" and on it goes.

LITB didn't have many episodes on multiculturism, mainly because the USA was a pretty homogeneous place in the late 50s and early 60s. But this was a pretty good episode on the international language of children, and on how they are often quick to forgive one another.

The New Leave It to Beaver: Thanksgiving Day (1984) Season 1, Episode 2

Will the Cleavers all be together on Thanksgiving?

[7/10 · 6 May 2024]

This second episode of the sequel series Still the Beaver aired the night before actual Thanksgiving Day 1984.

Beaver's oldest son, Kipp, wants to accept a friend's invitation to go to his Thanksgiving, with a major plus being that the friend has a hot tub! Beaver thinks that families should be together on Thanksgiving Day, but ultimately he lets Kipp make his own decision, hoping Kipp will come around to see it his way on his own. Kipp doesn't have to wait long to learn that lesson, because his friend's mother disinvites him - although in as nice a way as possible - because she -like Kipp's dad - thinks this day is a family affair.

Kipp ends up learning the value of being with family on special occasions from, of all people, Eddie Haskell, in a scene reminiscent of one of the several times when Eddie opened up to Kipp's dad, Beaver, back when both were kids.

This episode features a nice touch of Wally coordinating a surprise visit by the Cleavers' Aunt Gloria (presumably the late Ward Cleaver's sister), played in a cameo appearance by the real-life sister of Hugh Beaumont, Gloria Beaumont Rusman. Ms. Rusman was not an actress, and according to this website this is her only acting "credit". Hugh Beaumont died in 1982, and the LITB reunion movie made in 1983 showed Ward Cleaver, Beaumont's character, as having died in 1977.

The New Leave It to Beaver: See You in Court (1987) Season 3, Episode 8

Disorder in the court

[7/10 · 5 May 2024]

Wally and Mary Ellen are overworked and cranky, so Beaver, Lumpy, and Eddie decide to chip in and send them on a vacation to Key West. The mistake Lumpy and Beaver make is allowing Eddie to make all of the arrangements. He goes to a cut-rate travel agent (remember travel agents?) and books a trip that only costs the money that Beaver and Lumpy are pitching in.

Later, when Wally and Mary Ellen go to get on their flight they find it has been cancelled. The travel agent refuses to make good on the cancelled trip. To keep the agent from saying how much was actually paid for the flight, in which case Wally and Beaver would find out Eddie shorted them, Eddie socks the travel agent. Now Eddie is going to court for assault.

The scene in the courtroom is funny, but what type of court is this anyways? Civil or criminal? Because what would normally be the prosecuting attorney in a criminal case seems to be an attorney working for the travel agent, which would make it civil court. How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.

The Boob (1926)

A David and Goliath tale during prohibition

[6/10 · 5 May 2024]

There's a minor subgenre of silents in which a small town full of country folks somehow supports a lavish speakeasy filled with hundreds of folks in tuxedos, until the country folks toss them out. This has some connection to 1920s reality, as little towns comfortably in the sticks suddenly found themselves a short drive from a big city by car, and easily corrupted by big city money; places like Cicero and Calumet City, Illinois became wholly owned subsidiaries of the Chicago mob, and even Southern Wisconsin, for instance, is dotted with roadhouses and "inns" boasting "Al Capone slept and gambled here." You rarely if ever see the big city in movies like The Country Flapper, Delicious Little Devil, The Strong Man or The Boob; the tuxedo-wearing swells seem to generate spontaneously at night, like mushrooms.

The Boob is one of these tales and it suggests that by 1926, the subgenre was familiar enough that it could be kidded and caricatured along the way; the movie is full of broad, humor as well as a special effects dream sequence that seems to have walked straight in out of Winsor McCay's Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend. George K. Arthur is The Boob, Peter Good, whose girl May has fallen for the big city swell who runs the speakeasy (which, speaking of lavish, was apparently a redressed Ben-Hur set!).

After an old-timer teaches him the rudiments of being a rootin-tootin' gunslinger, he sets out after the speakeasy and its owner like Bill Hart in Hell's Hinges, and in a farcical manner reminiscent of The Strong Man, he does bring it down, if not exactly as he planned. If you doubt that The Strong Man was the model, note that Joan Crawford turns up in the decidedly thankless, if at least impressively feminist, role of a big city law enforcement agent whose bestowal of approval on Arthur helps him eventually win May over.

The New Leave It to Beaver: Murder in Mayfield (1987) Season 2, Episode 23

a boy and his imagination

[7/10 · 5 May 2024]

Previously, Wally took it upon himself to restructure Eddie's finances in the wake of the Pizza Palace disaster. Now Eddie has bought a pool table with the money that was to go to the bank for his next payment on his restructured loan. At the same time, Beaver's youngest son, Oliver, who always has the active imagination, fancies himself a secret agent and everything as being some kind of plot or crime in progress that only he can halt.

Oliver has a heart-to-heart discussion about this with his dad in the famous Cleaver den, but yet his imagination still runs away with him. At the same time, Eddie finds a life insurance policy that Gert has taken out on herself, hidden under the floor boards of their house. These two things - Eddie needing money and not wanting to sell the pool table to get it, and Oliver letting his imagination run away with him, has Oliver believing Eddie is planning to kill his wife for the insurance money. Complications ensue.

Eddie says some pretty horrible things about his wife - things that possibly wouldn't land so well today. What in the 80s seemed clueless, today sounds pretty creepy. Again, Wally turns out to be a better friend than Eddie deserves, and yet he seems to not know that.

The New Leave It to Beaver (1983–1989)

It has a real regard for the history of the original show

[7/10 · 5 May 2024]

This look at the extended Cleaver clan and their friends had one season on Disney from 1984-1985 and three seasons on TBS from 1986 until 1989. It got things right in the sense that it had a high regard for the history of the original show upon which in was based - Leave It To Beaver, which ran from 1957-1963 and followed the exploits of Beaver and older brother Wally Cleaver.

The only thing to happen in 1983 was one TV movie, "Still The Beaver" which aired in March 1983. There are some understandable inconsistencies between the movie and the series that premiered in 1984. First, the movie has Wally and his high school sweetheart Mary Ellen Rogers marrying in their thirties and dealing with infertility as they attempt to start a family. In the series they suddenly have a tween daughter like they have been married some 15 years. In the movie, June, widowed for several years, tells Beaver at the end of the film that she is moving to a condo and is selling him the Cleaver house at a reduced price. In the series, June still lives in the Cleaver home and never mentions moving.

Beaver, now divorced, has two sons that live with him in his childhood home, with all of them pretty much being abandoned by Beaver's ex who is going to veterinary school in Italy. Beaver's oldest son, Kip, has a friendship with Eddie Haskell's oldest son, Freddie, that somewhat mirrors Wally's teen friendship with Eddie.

Eddie Haskell, still portrayed by Ken Osmond, is still the rascal he was in the original show, still with the obvious insincere flattery. Except now Eddie is married with two children, the oldest being portrayed by Ken Osmond's actual oldest son, Eric. Eddie being such the manipulator causes problems in his marriage and in his business, and yet Wally is still his best friend in spite of the lapses in Eddie's character and judgment. Likewise, Frank Bank still plays Lumpy Rutherford, with a tween daughter who is good friends with Wally's daughter.

The humor holds up forty odd years later, just like the humor holds up on the original LITB show 65 years later. This is mainly true because the emphasis is on relationships and the importance of family, and that never really changes.

Some of the episodes, at least for the first couple of seasons, are available on youtube, although they are seemingly duped from old VHS tapes and thus the video is rather fuzzy. If you are used to blu ray quality, you'll need to adjust your expectations in that regard.

Leave It to Beaver: Captain Jack (1957) Season 1, Episode 2

Ward owes Minerva an apology!

[7/10 · 5 May 2024]

Wally and Beaver order a Florida alligator from an ad in a magazine. When they pick him up at the post office, they are disappointed to see that he is only a few inches long and feel like they were had. Because of his small size, they are able to sneak him into the house and hide him in their bathroom without their parents knowing about this. But when he won't eat the insects they catch for him, they decide to consult "Captain Jack" a caretaker at a local alligator farm.

The alligator grows to a foot in length, so the boys move him to a tub in the basement that is never used, but when the housekeeper Minerva goes down there to hang out wash to dry because it is raining, she runs back upstairs screaming that there is a monster in the basement. Ward takes the fact that she is seeing monsters and that some of his brandy is missing (the boys are using it as an alligator appetite stimulant) as proof that Minerva is drinking on the job and fires her. I certainly hope Ward gave her an apology, some severance pay, and letter of recommendation after the truth came out. Minerva is never seen or heard from on LITB again.

In these early episodes, all through the first season, there's much more playful banter between Ward and June. They always talk, but the conversation is much more serious in later seasons.

The end has something happening that the writers just forget all about the following week - the appearance of a puppy that Ward and June have gotten for the boys. Earlier in the episode, Ward said that if the boys demonstrated some responsibility, then they could have a discussion about a pet. Probably raising an alligator in captivity from a few inches to a foot long proved that responsibility. However the dog is never seen or mentioned on LITB again. Perhaps he went to live with Minerva?

Quincy M.E.: D.U.I. (1981) Season 7, Episode 5

A hybrid episode of Quincy

[7/10 · 5 May 2024]

The episode starts out with a man drinking heavily, right out of the bottle actually, running down a pedestrian. Before he hits the guy he is stopped at the curb drinking and clearly seen by a passerby. And after the accident he stops and does not run. He is charged with vehicular manslaughter after he is treated for a knee injury resulting from the crash and then released from the hospital.

Quincy performs the autopsy, and for some reason has the grieving widow of the victim in his office. He connects the widow with a counselor who is in fact a victim of a drunk driver herself - She's paralyzed from the waist down and her son was killed in that same accident.

So this starts out being one of the "social issue" episodes of Quincy where there is lots of screeching about drunk driving and the lack of criminal penalties against offenders. But then it segues into something else entirely with Quincy back in mystery solving mode like he was in earlier seasons. The hints are all there along the way, like breadcrumbs, but you need to be alert to catch them all.

So don't avoid this one because it seems like it's going to be one of the social issue episodes, because it turns out to be quite interesting. And don't ask me what a photo of actor Bret Nighman is doing attached to this episode, because although he does portray a lab technician here, he has nothing to do with the plot.

The New Leave It to Beaver: A Night in Mayfield (1987) Season 2, Episode 22

Some interesting tie ins to this episode

[7/10 · 4 May 2024]

Eddie and Wally make a late night trip to the all night pharmacy some miles away to pick up some medicine for Wally's infant son. This excursion ends with them both being arrested when Wally realizes he walked out of the house with no money after Eddie has spent the only twenty dollars he has on lottery tickets. Of course, none of them are winners. You don't see what transpired, but the last thing you see before the arrest is Eddie saying he has a way with people before trying to convince the pharmacy clerk to see things their way and let them have the medicine on account.

The first tie-in here is that Ken Osmond, the actor who portrayed Eddie Haskell, was a Los Angeles motorcycle policeman for 18 years from 1970 to 1988, and here he is being arrested. The other tie-in is that Beaver mentions to his kids that he had a rabbit as a child that ended in tragedy. The original LITB TV show did have an episode where Beaver had a rabbit, but it did not end in tragedy.

The only really odd thing in this episode - besides the very 80s clothes -is that Wally goes to the all night pharmacy in his robe and pajamas and nobody says anything about it.

The New Leave It to Beaver: A Slice of Life (1987) Season 2, Episode 20

Eddie Haskell makes a bad career choice

[6/10 · 4 May 2024]

Eddie's feeling mighty low since the house he was building would not pass inspection and he needs twenty thousand dollars he does not have to make it pass. He goes to a nearby pizza parlor and is eventually cheered up by the atmosphere, the food, and the singing waiters. He abruptly decides to buy the pizza palace as a replacement for his failed construction company.

The problem is that Eddie Haskell is not a people person. He soon loses patience with the customers and the employees and quickly runs out of both. On top of that, he bought the place by mortgaging his house and a balloon payment he does not have is due in a few days.

Unauthentic Eddie Haskell without a bone of self-awareness in his body is always good for a laugh, but it's hard to believe that the Eddie Haskell of LITB would find singing waiters anything but annoying, even as he approaches middle age.

Leave It to Beaver: The Shave (1958) Season 2, Episode 8

In a hurry to grow up

[8/10 · 4 May 2024]

Wally goes out for the freshman football team, even though June fears he'll get "wrecked". While talking with the other guys after a game, Eddie announces he's shaving. Richard says that he is as well. This gets Wally wanting to try to do so himself, but he winds up cutting himself badly. The bandages on his face at dinner alert his parents to what is going on. Ward thinks he's talked Wally out of shaving at this point in time, but in fact he's argued for the case by telling Wally that daily shaving makes one's beard stiffer and thus means you may need to continue shaving.

When Ward needs to shave one night and can't find his razor he finds Wally in the middle of shaving himself and Ward blows his top at Wally. What Ward failed to take into account is that Eddie Haskell is standing right next to Wally as this is happening, and Eddie has never failed to turn another fellow's bad moment into an opportunity to make fun of him in front of other people, even if it is his best friend. All the guys know about what happened thanks to Eddie, and Wally is getting the business at school and in the locker room.

Ward thinks Wally's bad mood and attitude are because he made him quit shaving, but Beaver knows the truth and let's his dad know that he made a fool out of him in front of the worst possible person. Ward comes up with a clever solution to resolve the situation. What is that solution? Watch and find out.

Eddie sure took Wally's friendship for granted over the years. I know why Eddie followed Wally around, what I can't figure out is why Wally reciprocated the friendship. Ward has a good moment talking to Wally about the measure of a man being what's on the inside, not what's on his chin.

Leave It to Beaver: Beaver and Poncho (1958) Season 1, Episode 23

A boy and someone else's dog

[7/10 · 4 May 2024]

Beaver trades Larry Mondello his old doorknob for a lost dog - A chihuahua. His parents insist that an ad be placed in the local paper since they are sure it belongs to someone. And they aren't sure that even if nobody comes looking that he can keep it under those circumstances either.

A couple of days later a woman calls who describes the dog to a tee, and so Beaver will have to give the dog up. Upon learning this Beaver takes the dog to school, but to what end is unclear since the woman who owns him now knows where the dog is. Beaver gets caught with the dog by Miss Canfield and Ward retrieves both boy and dog, really angry that Beaver tried to get away with keeping a dog that was not his. Or was he? Watch and find out.

This was one of many episodes in which the Cleaver boys find or otherwise interact with a diverse group of animals over the years including an alligator, this chihuahua, a couple of cats, and a rabbit. It was very progressive of LITB to emphasize the bond of love between a child and his pet as well as responsible pet ownership and stewardship.

There's a funny exchange between Ward and June in the middle of the episode in which they are discussing the dog situation while June is knitting a tiny sweater. All of a sudden Ward notices this and becomes alarmed. June reassures him she is knitting it for the dog.

Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Report Card (1961) Season 4, Episode 27

Eddie's most despicable stunt

[9/10 · 4 May 2024]

Beaver is having trouble with math. Wally attempts to help him, and so does Ward, but Beaver is just having difficulty with basic concepts. About ten minutes of the episode is dedicated to seeing him struggle, just so it hits home.

Beaver has to leave school early the day report cards are passed out to go to the dentist, so Gilbert brings Beaver's report card over to his house. Wally is upstairs when Gilbert gets to Beaver's house, so Eddie and Lumpy end up with the report card. Eddie being Eddie, he decides to look at the grades. Grade inflation being what it has been over the past 65 years, Beaver's grades are not so bad with the exception of his math grade which is a D-. Eddie decides to play a trick on Beaver and change the grade to a B+ and leaves the report card on Ward's desk.

Beaver's parents are thrilled with the math grade and decide to get Beaver a present for doing so well. Beaver doesn't gloat because by his estimation his grade should not be so high, but he doesn't want to rock the boat, which is the same advice brother Wally gives him. But then June and Miss Lander end up speaking about something else entirely and the truth comes out about Beaver's actual math grade. So June and Ward are convinced Beaver is the one who has changed the grade and are going to punish him even more than they normally would if he does not admit it. He does not, and goes upstairs to await punishment over something he did not do.

Wally shows himself to be quite the big brother here. He's the only one who believes Beaver AND he solves the mystery of who changed the grade AND he goes over to Eddie's house and stands over him while he calls the Cleavers and confesses all. No doubt Wally was threatening to throttle Eddie if he did not come through.

What Eddie did was despicable. He didn't give a thought to what would happen to Beaver when the truth inevitably came out. He was only interested in being the wise guy of the moment. Eddie claimed Lumpy egged him on, but in fact he did not. But it is likely Eddie would not have changed the grade without an audience . We see from an adjacent episode that an audience is all that makes life bearable for Eddie.

Ward and June admit they have to apologize to Beaver, but this apology is not shown to the audience because no doubt it would be hard to craft a sufficient apology for falsely accusing Beaver as they did. I wonder - Did they not wonder or even ask how the report card got on Ward's desk if nobody in the family was around to put it there? Only good thinking by Wally saved them from committing an injustice.

Leave It to Beaver: Eddie Spends the Night (1961) Season 4, Episode 26

Wil the real Eddie Haskell please stand up

[9/10 · 4 May 2024]

Wally invites Eddie Haskell over to spend the night. The rest of the household is not looking forward to this, but as Wally says, he has stayed over at Eddie's three or four times, and he feels like he owes Eddie a reciprocal invitation.

When Wally and Eddie play chess later that evening, the two argue, mainly because Eddie "accidentally" overturns the board because Wally was winning. Eddie gets disinvited after he, Wally, and Beaver all get into an argument, and Eddie goes back home. But that's not the end of things.

This episode shows the vulnerable side of Eddie. He doesn't like to be alone, and it's not because he's afraid of ghosts. Eddie actually knows he's a wise guy and that's hard to live with when he's by himself, apparently.

Throughout the series, Eddie says a lot about his "old man" doing this and that - hitting him, disregarding his feelings, etc, a description that doesn't come across when you see Mr. Haskell in person. But then Fred Rutherford was portrayed as a total fake - Praising his son Clarence/Lumpy when around other people and being harsh with him when in private, so who knows what the truth of the situation with Eddie's father really was.

Thunder in the Desert (1938)

Nice bit of hour long hokum

[5/10 · 4 May 2024]

I was curious about a couple of the co-stars. Don Barclay, who I'd never heard of, was an accomplished comedian and dialectician. He played a rather comedic sidekick to Bob Steele in this outing, and was the weak link in the chain for the film. Still, he had plenty of talent; it's just that this sort of character is a thing of the past. On the other hand, the baddie all dressed in black, Ed Brady, playing a character simply known as Reno, was a slick baddie - again, someone I'd never heard of. Well, Ed Brady made films beginning at least as far back as 1911, and the IMDb has him in at least 357 films! These guys really did work for a living!!

Louise Stanley had almost nothing to do. In the end - a ridiculous ending, may I add - it looks like she and Bob Steele are going to be possibly married: ridiculous, because she had been engaged to the guy who turned out to be the real baddie of the piece; so, how did this other love come about? Oh, well, it was a thirties "B" Western, and it played, as I already said, fine for the hour I watched. It's not something that really lends itself to repeat viewings.

Leave It to Beaver: My Brother's Girl (1958) Season 1, Episode 27

Mary Ellen Rogers enters the chat

[8/10 · 3 May 2024]

This episode marks the first appearance of Mary Ellen Rogers, played by the same actress over five seasons although mentioned many times in episodes where she was not appearing.

The eighth grade is having a dance to try to get the boys and the girls together. Today there is so much teenage pregnancy that trying to get them together would never be something you'd try to do. But I digress. June is on the committee that is organizing the dance, so Wally is pretty much being forced to go. But he has a date all lined up - Eddie Haskell. The whole thing - the giggling conversations among the girls, the conversations among the boys, the parents calling other parents trying to arrange dates - is just so innocent 50s style. But underneath the surface a scheme is brewing.

Mary Ellen Rogers has set her cap for Wally, and she is planning to get him by using his little brother, Beaver. Remember that this is the old "grammar school" arrangement, where the first through the eight grades are in the same building. So Mary Ellen eats with Beaver every day, flatters him, invites him over to play with her dad's electric trains, all with a plan up her sleeve while Beaver seems to be having a bit of a crush on her. Complications ensue, and strangely enough, they are June Cleaver approved complications!

I wonder if Mary Ellen would have gone to all of this trouble if she knew it would take her twenty years to actually land Wally? To see what I mean by that statement, you'll need to watch the LITB movie made in 1983 entitled "Still The Beaver". It's out of copyright and available on youtube.

Leave It to Beaver: Wally's Girl Trouble (1957) Season 1, Episode 10

A tale of two viewpoints...

[8/10 · 2 May 2024]

... that illustrates the difference in Wally's and Beaver's ages.

The boys ordinarily hate dancing school eating up half their Saturdays, but when the boys come home this particular weekend Wally seems to be on cloud nine and says dancing school was great. Ward says he thinks it's just responsibility due to his frequent talks with Wally, but June is more insightful. She says she never saw responsibility cause someone to hum a tune like Wally was humming. From her face you can tell she knows it's a girl, and she'd be right. Wally has met Penny Jamison, a new girl in town, at dancing school, and he is over the moon.

But Beaver doesn't understand this new relationship. At Beaver's age, girls are still the enemy, and this girl is getting between himself and Wally. But ultimately, Beaver cares about Wally's happiness. So when Wally and Penny argue and break up over the Beaver, the Beaver feels he must make amends on Wally's behalf. Complications and hilarity ensue.

Dancing school is an institution that comes up more than a few times on LITB, and apparently at one time it was a common teacher of social graces. How could June know that in a few years changing styles would bring all of her efforts to nought?

Leave It to Beaver: New Neighbors (1957) Season 1, Episode 5

Enter stage left, Eddie Haskell

[7/10 · 30 April 2024]

This is a minor but otherwise enjoyable little episode of LITB that's made better by the first appearance of the character of Eddie Haskell as a friend of Wally's.

The Donaldsons are a new couple moving in next door. June sends Beaver over to the Donaldsons with a bouquet of flowers as a housewarming gift, and Mrs. Donaldson kisses Beaver on the cheek in return. Eddie and Wally see everything from the window, and Eddie starts kidding the Beaver about the danger of kissing married women, that being an angry jealous husband if he finds out. This gets Beaver's imagination going and it doesn't help that his introduction to Mr. Donaldson is when the muscle bound fellow pops up from behind the hedges with a huge pair of clippers in his hands. Complications ensue.

The dynamic between Eddie and Wally changes in future episodes, because in the first couple of episodes where Eddie appears, Wally seems to listen to and agree with Eddie. Later, as the true manipulating and braggart personality of Eddie's character emerges, Wally is shown to have more of a "Oh, get out of here Eddie before I pop ya one!" kind of attitude. The show couldn't have the scholarly athletic Wally, the all-American teen, take somebody like Eddie Haskell seriously!

The Ballad of Narayama (1983)

A universal story of human obsolescence...

[8/10 · 28 April 2024]

... in this Japanese period drama from Shochiku and writer-director Keisuke Kinoshita. In a poor farming village, old woman Orin (Kinuyo Tanaka) is feeling the pressure, both from her ingrate grandson, and her own conscience and adherence to tradition, to commit obasute, wherein elderly people travel to the top of nearby Narayama mountain and wait to die from starvation or exposure. Orin is the strongest, most productive member of the family, but youth trumps utility, and Orin prepares to make her final journey.

Using widescreen and color film, director Kinoshita uniquely melds the cinematic with the theatrical, as the story is told in near kabuki fashion, with a singing narrator and traditional Japanese musical instrumentation. The sets are stylized and deliberately artificial, with realistic settings in the foreground, and miniature or painted backdrops behind them. There is also repeated use of monochromatic lighting, from red filters to green filters, to accentuate the mood of the scene.

The performances are equally stylized in the kabuki manner, and as such may be off-putting to Western audiences unused to the style. I thought the film was tremendous, an artistically challenging production with a very striking audio and visual presentation, and a moving, universal story touching on aging and obsolescence forming the bedrock. Recommended.

Highway Patrol: Framed Cop (1959) Season 4, Episode 21

A rare episode where a regular character is the center of attention

[8/10 · 28 April 2024]

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 (and thus get his car keys stolen and copied) 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) Season 1, Episode 4

Christmas in October

[8/10 · 28 April 2024]

Beaver has lost his lunch money three times recently and gets "yelled at" by his dad, Ward, although Ward would deny that. Then Beaver 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 to cut his own hair. 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 stuck together and did not blame each other for their joint predicament, always role models for siblings working together, even if not for the best or smartest purpose.

Leave It to Beaver: Voodoo Magic (1958) Season 1, Episode 13

Eddie Haskell, attorney at law, and the power of suggestion

[9/10 · 28 April 2024]

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) Season 6, Episode 16

A good tense mystery

[8/10 · 28 April 2024]

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.