This movie reunites most of the members of the Cleaver clan, Wally, June, and of course, the Beaver. Their father Ward has passed away. Wally's married to Mary Ellen and a successful lawyer ... Read allThis movie reunites most of the members of the Cleaver clan, Wally, June, and of course, the Beaver. Their father Ward has passed away. Wally's married to Mary Ellen and a successful lawyer and has everything to make his life complete except for a child. The Beaver is married but... Read allThis movie reunites most of the members of the Cleaver clan, Wally, June, and of course, the Beaver. Their father Ward has passed away. Wally's married to Mary Ellen and a successful lawyer and has everything to make his life complete except for a child. The Beaver is married but unfortunately is still the same which is why his wife threw him out. With nowhere else to... Read all
- Larry Mondello
- (as Rusty Stevens)
- Miss Canfield
- (as Diana Brewster)
- Tooey Brown
- (as Luke Fafara)
- Ward Cleaver
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
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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 to call his own since he is driving a company car. He takes a bus 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 issues 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.
While I believe that the movie was a wholesome update, I feel that the absence of Hugh Beaumont (who passed away a year earlier) detracts from the 'luster' of the movie somewhat.
Nevertheless, Barbara Billingsley as the matriarch June Bronson Cleaver, does a good job of holding the family together.
And they didn't. Indeed, he's still whining, still clueless. And as has been noted, towards the end of the original series, Beaver was already on the road to maturity.
If I remember correctly, in the last episode Ward says to June, "We've either raised them right or we haven't." The answer to this was a resounding "You failed" from the producers.
This one is not the greatest TV movie of all time by any means, but as an "update" or "reunion", it's decent. At least the main characters (Beaver, Wally, Eddie, et. Al) were middle-aged as opposed to the usual seniors-trying-to-recreate-30-again of most of these types of shows (Return to Mayberry being a glaring example). These characters now had kids and faced the problems their parents had faced 20 years earlier. Maybe because of that, the show worked reasonably well. I enjoyed it.
Did you know
- TriviaAs they were preparing to shoot Still the Beaver, the creators were trying to locate Rusty Stevens to reprise "Larry Mondello." They hired a detective to locate him. The detective found the right house and knocked on the door. Rusty's wife answered and the detective asked her if it was the residence of the former child star. She replied that he had the wrong house. Later, she told Rusty and he responded that the detective had the right house; apparently, he didn't tell his wife about his past life as Larry Mondello! Unfortunately for other cast members whom they wanted to reprise their roles, they were not so lucky.
- GoofsWhen Beaver and Whitey are reminiscing about the time Beaver fell into a bowl of soup on a billboard (in the original series episode "In the Soup"), Beaver states that he was stuck in the billboard overnight. That is not true. He was rescued from the billboard later that same evening.
- Quotes
Eddie Haskell: [to his son after he is caught graffiting] When I get done with you, you'll be stamping license plates for go-carts!
- ConnectionsFollowed by Leave It to Beaver (1997)