New ‘Beaver’ Looks A Lot Like Old One

Pearls encircling her practical neck, golden tresses swept up into a prim aureole, crisply laundered housedress hugging the contours of her implausibly happy homemaker’s body, Mayfield’s June Cleaver appears before us as a true domestic goddess, mothering and vacuuming her way through the latest version of “Leave It to Beaver.”

Not so much a human being as a ‘50s vision or an Eisenhower-era icon, the revived but largely unreconstructed June is like the embodiment of the original Beaver sitcom, gliding through and above the new production, offering inspiration.

June’s function in the plot is marginal at best. Like a suburban-Anytown Greek chorus, she frequently comments on the activities of the adoring males in her clan, but seldom does she interfere.

Beaver, her 8-year-old, wants a bicycle so much that he is willing to join the Mayfield Mighty Mites football team in order to “suck up” to his father. Dad, meanwhile, or Ward, as he is known to June, is so proud of the Beav for joining the team that he fails to notice just how much his son dislikes football.

Then there’s Wally, Beaver’s good-guy older brother, going to his first boy-girl party and playing spin-the-bottle. So entranced is he by the party’s young hostess that he’s willing to cross his friend, the dangerously untrustworthy Eddie Haskell, who also has taken a shine to her.

“Man, I wish I were that straw,” Eddie muses, watching the pretty young girl do her best to take in an ice-cream soda. Ah, youth!

Do we really need a “Leave It to Beaver” movie? I seriously doubt it. After all, we have both the original sitcom and its ‘80s revival, “The New Leave It to Beaver.”

But at least the new version is a reasonably benign kiddie flick.It moves along briskly and lightly, leaving little trace and doing no serious damage to boomer memories. (Notwithstanding, that is, the occasions when Eddie refers to Beaver as Beavis and June warns Eddie to “cut the crap.”)

Director Andy Cadiff (TV’s “Home Improvement”) and screenwriters Brian Levant (director of “The New Leave It to Beaver” and the big-screen “Flintstones”) and Lon Diamond (also “Flintstones”) seem to respect the original series and aren’t much into revisionism. They’ve even recruited Barbara Billingsley, the original June Cleaver, for a walk-on as “Aunt Martha” and Ken Osmond, the original (and peerlessly Machiavellian) Eddie Haskell, to play Eddie Sr.

“Boys,” he advises, “women are all a bunch of bloodsuckers, out to get you any way they can.”

Surely he could not be thinking of June. As played by Janine Turner (Maggie on TV’s “Northern Exposure”), she is the small-screen heart of this film and its eternal emblem.

“Ward,” she says, utterly straight-faced, “I’m worried about the Beaver.”

Christopher McDonald (“Unforgettable”), who plays Ward, doesn’t really look like the late Hugh Beaumont. But his resonant voice and deliberate mannerisms uncannily suggest the original Mr. C. “June, you’re vacuuming in pearls,” he exclaims. “You know what that does to me.”

Erik von Detten, the new Wally, does look and sound a lot like the old one. And Adam Zolotin makes a game (if inevitably futile) attempt to imitate the inimitable Eddie.

The cast also includes a collection of other actors, some in new roles and some as old friends. Among them are Erika Christensen as Wally’s heartthrob, Grace Phillips as schoolteacher Miss (not Ms.) Landers and E.J. De La Pena as chubby Larry Mondello.

And, oh yes, a likable moppet named Cameron Finley - as the Beaver.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “Leave It To Beaver” Location:Newport, Spokane Valley Mall and Coeur d’Alene cinemas Credits: Directed by Andy Cadiff, starring Christopher McDonald, Janine Turner, Cameron Finley, Erik von Detten, Adam Zolotin, Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond, Erika Christensen Running time: 1:29 Rating: PG