Movie Type: Family-Oriented Comedy, Domestic Comedy
Themes: Mischievous Children
Main Cast: Christopher McDonald, Janine Turner, Cameron Finley, Erik Von Detten, Adam Zolotin
Release Year: 1997
Country: US
Run Time: 88 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
The Cleaver Family makes the jump from the small black and white screen to color and Panavision in this updated version of the classic TV sit-com. Eight-year-old Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver (Cameron Finley) is a good natured kid with a habit of getting in trouble; he's not bad, mind you, just a bit absent-minded. Beaver lives with his 12-year-old brother Wally (Erik Von Detten), his father Ward (Christopher McDonald), and his mother June (Janine Turner) in a small town in Ohio. Beaver wants a new bicycle more than anything, but his father wishes that he had more of an interest in team sports; someone suggests to Beaver that if he joined the school's football team, Ward might be impressed enough to buy him the bike. Beaver signs up, but his skills on the gridiron fall somewhere between slim and none, and the experience proves more than a bit embarrassing for both Beaver and Ward. Before long, Beaver has quit the team, but he tries to hide this fact from his father. Beaver does get his bike -- but he doesn't get to do much with it before it's stolen by a bigger kid in the neighborhood. Meanwhile, Wally's best friend, the mildly sleazy Eddie Haskell (Adam Zolotin), has fallen for a cute girl at school, Karen (Erika Christensen), and wants Wally to help him impress her; however, Karen seems to like Wally more than Eddie. This puts Wally in dutch with his best friend, and Wally feels even worse when he and Karen begin to quarrel. Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell on the original TV series, plays Eddie's father here, and Barbara Billingsley, the original June Cleaver, appears as Aunt Martha. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Peg McClellan - Art Director, Rita Smith - Associate Producer, Joanna Colbert - Casting, Kelly Van Horn - Co-producer, Jean-Pierre Dorleac - Costume Designer, Liz Ryan - First Assistant Director, Andy Cadiff - Director, Alan Heim - Editor, David Helpern - Executive Producer, Lynn Arost - Executive Producer, Randy Edelman - Composer (Music Score), Perry Andelin Blake - Production Designer, Thomas del Ruth - Cinematographer, Robert Simonds - Producer, Thomas Brandau - Sound/Sound Designer, Brian Levant - Screenwriter, Lon Diamond - Screenwriter
Leave It to Beaver is a 1997 film that is a remake of the TV series of the same name. There are many in-jokes related to the original series within the movie.
Beaver (Cameron Finley) gets his heart set on a bike in the store window. He doesen't know how to get his parents to buy it for him. However, Eddie Haskell (Adam Zolotin) tells Beaver that if he sucks up to his father (Christopher McDonald), by signing up for football, he will be sure to get his bike on his upcoming birthday. Beaver signs up for football despite his small size, and he is tackled and thrown to the ground many times during practices. On the first day of school five days later, Ward and June (Janine Turner) tell Wally to drop Beaver off and pick him up at school for a few days because Beaver has never ridden his bike to school before. At school Beaver sits behind a very pretty girl named Susan Acustis (Brenda Song) and has a very kind teacher named Miss Landers (Grace Phillips). After school Eddie asks Wally to come in the soda shop to see him flirt with Karen. Eddie does not want Beaver to follow them, so Wally leaves Beaver alone with the bikes telling him he will be back in a second.
Beaver is polishing his bike when a punk teenager (Glenn Walker Harris Jr.) comes over and admires the bike and asks Beaver if he can show him some cool bike tricks. Beaver agrees and the boy shows him some tricks before riding off with the bike. Inside the shop it becomes apparent that Karen likes Wally, not Eddie. When Wally and Eddie come out of the shop and hear that Beaver's bike got stolen they look for it but can't find it. During dinner that night, the boys try to cover up the fact that the bike was stolen, but to no avail. When Ward hears he is very upset not just at Beaver, but at Wally, because Wally wasn't watching Beaver. In the boys bedroom, Wally and Beaver get into a fight which sends the new computer flying out the window. Wally grabs the wire and tries to pull the computer in and does, but the wire to the monitor breaks, falls out the window, and crashes into many pieces.
Beaver decides to skip football practice and study instead, and Wally starts spending more time with Karen now instead of Beaver. When he is caught by Ward for skipping practice, Beaver is told that he can quit the team if he wants, but he doesn't. During the last game, Beaver gets a catch and runs it for a touchdown. By the concession stands, he finds the punk with his bike and takes it back. Ward reads Beaver a bedtime story.
