Jim Backus

A marine scientist volunteers to have his family live in a prototype underwater home to prove it's practical. Marine scientist Fred Miller designs the world's first underwater home, but when the business magnate funding his work threatens to end the project, Miller volunteers to live in it with his own family to prove it's practical. The underwater clan includes his water-phobic wife and his daughter and son, who are part of a rock and roll band. They bring along the lead singer and drummer. Along the way, they have to contend with a competing engineer who promises to mine the ocean floor for the businessman. A record producer likes their music and books them on TV, leading the kids to try to escape to the surface.

The film takes place in the small town of Thornton, c. 1958. The film opens to funeral parlor owner Ed Quigley (Jonathan Kidd) reporting to the police that someone had broken into his parlor and stolen a child's coffin. Police chief Jim Tyloe (Jim Backus) is not particularly concerned, and refuses to search for fingerprints. Tyloe knows that Quigley is a gambling addict, and accuses the man of trying to pull off an insurance scam to pay off his gambling debts. Tyloe steps away, and starts threatening local physician Dr. Rodney Barrett (William Prince). The two men have been enemies since Tyloe dated Alice Weatherby, and Barrett seduced her and convinced her to marry him. Since then, there have several strange deaths in town, and the locals blame Barrett about them. Back in 1955, Alice died in childbirth, while Barrett was out drinking. Barrett's sister-in-law Nancy Wetherby (Christine White) died a few days before, and Barrett again failed to help her. The two women were the wealthiest heiresses in town, and the town has not forgiven Barrett about their deaths. Barrett heads to his office, where he learns that only a single patient still trusts him enough to visit. Dialogue reveals that Barrett's loyal nurse Polly Baron (Jacqueline Scott) has been trying to convince him that they should move out of town. She has an obvious crush on her boss, and is looking out for his best interests. But Barrett is making preparations to marry young widow Sylvia Stevenson (Susan Morrow), and has no intention to leave town. The doctor heads home with Polly, where he lives with his three-year-old daughter Marge Barrett, and loyal nanny Miss Kushins (Ellen Corby). He learns that Sylvia took care of Marge earlier in the day, and dropped her off. Kushins remembers seeing Marge playing with her teddy bear earlier, but the girl has since disappeared. Nobody can find Marge. Then Polly receives a mysterious phone call. The caller informs her that he has kidnapped Marge, and has buried her alive. Polly faints. Barrett decides not to report the kidnapping to the police, as he figures Tyloe would refuse to help him. He also asks Kushins to not report the kidnapping to his wealthy father-in-law Jode Wetherby (Philip Tonge), who is suffering from a heart condition. Barrett and Polly search for clues in the local graveyard, since the caller implied that Marge is in the company of the dead. The two are discovered by the graveyard's caretaker (Howard Hoffman) who threatens them with a firearm. Mr. Wetherby arrives and disarms the caretaker, but accidentally kills the man in the process. As the search for Marge's whereabouts continues, an extended flashback explains what happened to Nancy Wetherby. Nancy was born blind, and wanted to live a fast and exciting life. She loved fast cars, casual sexual encounters with men, and traveling abroad. She spend years in Europe. Following her return, she had affairs with both Jim Tyloe and her chauffeur Nick (Robert Colbert). She turned down a marriage proposal from Tyloe, and shortly later found out that she was pregnant. She did not want to become a mother or wife, and Barrett refused to help her with an abortion. She died suddenly days later, possibly due to a suicide. She did not receive the needed medical attention. Back to the present, Barrett, Wetherby, and Polly break into the funeral parlor and desperately search the coffins for clues. Barrett uses physical threats to interrogate Ed Quigley, who claims that he knows nothing about the kidnapping. The group is discovered by Tyloe, who forces them to help out with preparations for Nancy's funeral. She is to be buried at midnight. Barrett and Polly go for another search in the graveyard. They visit Alice Weatherby's grave, and have an argument about Barrett's responsibility in her death. A flashback to 1955 explains what happened to Alice (Dorothy Morris). Barrett kept his pregnant wife isolated at home, while he was drinking with his girlfriend Sylvia Stevenson in her residence. As Alice prepared to give birth, she needed her husband and personal physician to help her out. Polly desperately tried to locate him, but Sylvia denied her phone calls for help. Alice died in childbirth, giving birth to Marge. The next day, Tyloe informed Barrett about the birth and the death. Then he beat up the drunken doctor in revenge. The flashback ends. The funeral of Nancy takes place at midnight, with only close family and friends in attendance. While Barrett digs in the ground, he discoverers a child's coffin. He opens it and seemingly finds Marge's decayed corpse. Weatherby stares at the apparent corpse of his granddaughter, and dies of shock. Barrett loudly mourns, but then Barrett is shot by Quigley. Quigley explains that the "corpse" is a mannequin, and that he was pressured by Barrett to help him in his plot. The child's coffin was not stolen but used in a fake kidnapping plot. Tyloe then allows the seriously wounded Barrett to return to his office, where the doctor explains to Polly the details of his scheme. Barrett was after the Weatherby inheritance for years, and had a hand in the deaths of both Alice and Nancy in order to eliminate the heiresses. He set up the entire kidnapping plot to scare Jode Wetherby to death, and to receive the inheritance. The mysterious phone call was a prerecorded message, and came from within his office. Barrett succumbs to his wounds before explaining where his daughter Marge is. Polly has the idea to search within the doctor's office. She discovers Marge (Linda Guderman) sleeping safely in a secret room. Polly rescues the little girl, and the film ends.

After Texas heiress Ellie Andrews defies her father, A. A. Andrews, to marry fortune-hunter Jacques Ballarino, Andrews has Ellie kidnapped before the marriage can be consummated and locks her away on his San Diego yacht while he arranges an annulment. To thwart her father, Ellie jumps overboard, and travelling incognito, boards a Greyhound bus bound for Houston, where her groom awaits. Also on the bus is Peter Warne, an irreverent, fast-talking reporter who has just been fired. Ellie is assigned to the seat next to Peter, and when they stop for a dinner break, a thief steals the suitcase containing all her money, leaving Ellie with only six dollars to her name. The bus continues onto Tucson, and when it stops for breakfast, Ellie naively asks the driver to wait for her. Returning late, Ellie finds the bus gone and a bemused Peter waiting at the station with the ticket she left behind. Disclosing that he knows Ellie is the missing heiress, Peter holds up a copy of the local newspaper with her picture plastered all over the front page. When Ellie offers to buy his silence, Peter, offended, sends a telegram to Joe Gordon, his former editor in Houston, offering an exclusive story about his cross-country adventure with the heiress. They then board the night bus to Houston, where Ellie is accosted by the garrulous, lecherous George Shapely. To rescue Ellie from Shapely's verbal advances, Peter tells him that they are married. When the bus is forced to stop for the night because the road has been washed out by a storm, Peter and Ellie take refuge at an auto court, where Peter registers as husband and wife. Once in their room, Peter strings a blanket between their beds and dubs it the "Walls of Jericho." Ellie accuses Peter of trying to take advantage of her, but Peter replies that all he wants is a story. Meanwhile, back in Texas, Andrews offers a $20,000 reward for Ellie. The next morning, an attraction begins to smolder between Peter and Ellie when he cooks her breakfast and she confides that she has never been alone with a man. When Andrews' detectives come to the auto court in search of Ellie, Ellie combs her hair over her face, affects a crude accent and feigns a marital spat with Peter, sending the embarrassed detectives scurrying. Ellie and Peter then break out in a congratulatory dance and are about to kiss when Peter sees a newspaper story trumpeting the reward. Concerned, Peter insists upon leaving the bus and taking the back roads. Broke and hungry, Ellie proves her mettle by using her womanly wiles to hitch a ride with Danker, a passing motorist who offers them a ride in his old jalopy. When they stop at the diner, however, Danker speeds off with Peter's suitcase. Peter chases after Danker, then swaps his wrist watch for the old clunker and drives back to fetch Ellie. After Ballarino refuses his father-in-law's demand for an annulment, Andrews releases a statement that he will not interfere with his daughter's marriage if she will just return home. Upon reading the story in the paper, Ellie, who is falling in love with Peter, tries to delay their arrival in Houston by convincing Peter to spend one last night on the road. That evening, after Peter strings up the Walls of Jericho, Ellie crosses over to Peter's side and confesses that she loves him. Stunned, Peter tells Ellie to go back to bed, and once she falls asleep, he barters his hat for a tank of gas to drive to Houston. There, Peter goes to Gordon's office and offers to sell his story for $2,000 so that he an afford to propose to Ellie and "tear down the Walls of Jericho." Back at the motel, the proprietors awaken, and noticing that Peter's car is missing, think that he has skipped out on the rent. Barging into Peter's room, they find Ellie alone and throw her out into the night. Believing that Peter has deserted her, Ellie contacts her father about coming home. Peter is motoring back to Ellie when Andrews, accompanied by a police escort, sweeps past to collect his daughter. While stopped at a railroad crossing, Peter spots Ellie in Andrews' car and tries to follow, but his jalopy breaks down. When Peter sheepishly returns to Gordon's office to return his advance, the editor assigns him to cover Ellie's lavish wedding that is to be held at the Andrews estate. On the day of her wedding, Ellie tells her father that she is in love with Peter, prompting him to show her a letter that Peter has sent, asking for reimbursement of his expenses. When Ellie reads the letter, she assumes that Peter is after the reward. Soon after, Peter arrives at the estate and presents Andrews with an itemized bill for $35.75. When an incredulous Andrews asks why Peter has decided to forgo the reward, Peter finally admits that he is in love with Ellie. As Andrews escorts his daughter to meet her groom, he tells Ellie that Peter has refused the reward and declared his love for her. Just as the ceremony begins, Peter walks out, and Ellie, noticing his absence, runs after him, flags him down and jumps into his jalopy. Later, while on their honeymoon, Peter tears down the Walls of Jericho for good.

Shortly after moving to Los Angeles with his parents, 17-year-old Jim Stark (James Dean) enrolls at Dawson High School. In the opening scene, Jim is brought into the police station for public drunkenness. When his mother, father and grandmother arrive at the police station to retrieve him, conflicts in Jim's family situation are introduced as he explains to the arresting officer. His parents are often fighting. His weak-willed father (Jim Backus) often tries to defend Jim, but Jim's picky and domineering mother always wins the arguments for his father cannot find the courage to stand up to his wife. Jim feels betrayed both by this fighting and his father's lack of moral strength, causing feelings of unrest and displacement. This shows up later in the film when he repeatedly asks his father, "What do you do when you have to be a man?" The next day, while trying to conform with fellow students at the school, he becomes involved in a dispute with a local bully named Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen). While Jim tries to deal with Buzz, he becomes friends with a shy 15-year-old boy, John, who is nicknamed Plato (Sal Mineo), who was also at the police station the night of the opening scene for shooting and killing puppies. Plato idolizes Jim as a father-figure much to Jim's concern. Plato tells Jim that his parents divorced several years ago and are never in Los Angeles. His mother lives away in her hometown and never visits, calls or writes, while his father (a wealthy business executive) is always traveling and avoids comming home, leaving only his housekeeper to look after Plato. Plato experiences many of the same problems as Jim, such as searching for meaning in life and dealing with his absent and selfish parents who "don't understand." In the school hallway, Jim meets Judy (Natalie Wood), whom he also recognizes from the police station the previous night, where she was brought in for being out alone after dark, who originally acts unimpressed by Jim, saying in a sarcastic tone, "I bet you're a real yo-yo." She is apparently the property of Buzz. Judy too has an unhappy homelife when it shows her before going to school when she deals with her unattenative and sexist father who gives all his attention to Judy's younger brother as well as ignors both Judy and his wife for he feels that women are ment only to serve him, and nothing more. That afternoon, Jim goes on a field trip with his science class to the Griffith Observatory. At the Planetarium, he watches a dramatic presentation of the violent death of the universe. After the show, he watches Buzz and his thugs slash a tire of his car for no reason, and then Buzz challenges him to a knife fight, while the gang taunts Jim as a "chicken." Jim reluctantly takes part in the fight and wins, subduing Buzz by holding his switchblade up to his neck before discarding both knifes off a railing. Both Jim and Buzz get slight injuries during the knife fight. Not to be outdone, Buzz and his thugs challenge Jim to a "Chickie Run" with Buzz and Jim racing stolen cars towards an abyss. The one who first jumps out of the car loses and is deemed a "chicken" (coward). That evening, the "game" is held with Judy and several students in attendance to watch. But the race ends in tragedy for Buzz when a strap on the sleeve of his leather jacket becomes looped over a handle on the car door, preventing him from jumping out before the car goes over the cliff. Jim runs home and tries to tell his parents what happened, but quickly becomes frustrated by their failure to understand him and storms out of the house. Jim goes to the police to find the sergeant who took his statement the previous night to tell him about the accident involving Buzz's death, but learns that the police officer is not there. Jim refuses to speak to any policeman and will speak only to the sergeant and he leaves. But Jim is spotted leaving the station by three of Buzz's friends, Crunch (Frank Mazzola), Goon (Dennis Hopper), and another one of Buzz's gang members whom is not named. Mistakenly thinking that Jim told the police about the "Chickie Run", they decide to hunt Jim down to "silence him"... permenently. Jim meets up with Judy and they go to an abandoned mansion to hide out. Plato finds them there (he was the one who told Jim about the house). There they act out a "fantasy family," with Jim as father, Judy as mother and Plato as child. However, Crunch, Goon, and the other boy soon discover them, and terrorize Plato who finally brandishes his mother's handgun that he took from the house, shooting Crunch, and at Jim, and a police officer who investigates, in a clearly unstable state. Plato runs and hides in the Observatory, which is soon besieged by the police. Jim and Judy follow him inside, and Jim convinces Plato to lend him the gun, from which he silently removes the ammunition magazine. When Plato steps out of the observatory, he becomes agitated again at the sight of the police and charges forward, brandishing his weapon. He is fatally shot by a police officer as Jim yells to the police, too late, that he had already removed the bullets. Plato was wearing Jim's jacket at the time, and as a result, Jim's parents (brought to the scene by police) think at first that Jim was shot. Mr. Stark then runs to comfort Jim, who is distraught by Plato's death. Mr. Stark promises to be a stronger father, one that his son can depend on. Thus reconciled, Jim introduces Judy to his parents and they drive off together as dawn starts to break.

Melvin, a photographer for "Look" magazine, meets Judy and wants to marry her. Her father is against that and as a last resort, Melvin promises to get Judy's photo on the cover of the next issue, a task easier said than done. Melvin Hoover, a budding photographer for "Look" magazine, accidentally bumps into a young actress named Judy LeRoy in the park. They start to talk and Melvin soon offers to do a photo spread of her, but his boss has no intention of using the photos. Melvin wants to marry Judy, but her father would rather she marry dull, dependable Harry Black. As a last resort, Melvin promises to get Judy's photo on the cover of the next issue of "Look"--a task easier said than done. —Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>