The Beverly Hillbillies

1962

Seasons & Episodes

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7.3| TV-G| en| More Info
Released: 26 September 1962 Ended
Producted By: Filmways Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Jed Clampett's swamp is loaded with oil. When a wildcatter discovers the huge pool, Jed sells his land to the O.K. Oil Company and at the urging of cousin Pearl, moves his family to a 35-room mansion in Beverly Hills, California.

Genre

Comedy, Family

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Director

Production Companies

Filmways Pictures

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The Beverly Hillbillies Audience Reviews

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Console best movie i've ever seen.
Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
dwk-16755 My family was exceedingly fond of Granny as well as Jed. My grandfather who wouldn't watch TV except, except news, made a point of catching The Beverly Hillbillies every chance he got. As a southern man born in 1912, the TV was something he had NO use for really. The antics of granny and the creative uses for the swanky things in the mansion made my grandfather laugh til his bald head turned bright red. The billiard table as a dining table with "reaching poles" and special pockets for chicken bones was a favorite. We always enjoyed seeing the California elites being perplexed by old fashioned southern/mountain hospitality. While mostly pure farce, I could see a lot of the Tenn. mountain folk I knew as a child from visiting some family in the Clampets. They do things oddly, but they pretty much had the basics covered...even if they were as odd to me as I was to them as a city girl. The Clampets accurately depict the can do, friendly attitude of the southern mountain folk of the day...before technology withered their traditions.
johnno-17 In order to like this show, you need to believe that the four Clampett hicks are so stupid, they can live in Southern Cal suburban culture for 9 years - 9 years! - and not learn a single thing about that culture. And that the two 'young-uns' are completely sexless, despite being many years beyond puberty. Or that anyone with half a brain would be amiable towards the diseased Clampetts simply out of nostalgia for white-trash 'down-home' cooking and banjo playing.Watch "Deliverance" and grow-up.If you think this show is funny because you believe you are smarter than they are - you aren't.Evidence suggesting that there may be no intelligent life on this planet. Nothing believable or even remotely humorous here - move along.
daviddaphneredding The show was corny but funny, or funny but corny, wherever anyone would want to place the emphasis. But the big question concerned how it lasted as long as it did, all the way from 1962 to 1971. Of course, the basic storyline was not atypical: there are times when people by serendipity strike it rich and resulantly end up in an area, both metaphorically and physically, definitely out of their element. Ostensibly, such was the case with these hillbillies. They apparently had never heard the term "swimming pool", which was to them a "cement pond", and they never did know "where that music was coming from" anytime the doobell rang. Now, really! the cast was well-chosen: Buddy Ebsen was capable of playing any type of role, and thus was most likely the most versatile actor Hollywood ever knew, Donna Douglas was a very pretty Elly Mae, Max Baer, Jr. was excellent in his role as the stupid Jethro so much so that it's hard to believe that he earned a degree in philosophy, (which would beg the question "Who? Him?"), and Irene Ryan, in real life, was not as stupid as she acted. The show did, again, have recommendable qualities. But how could a show replete with so many corny lines-some too ridiculous to be funny- last as long as it did? I will always wonder.
John T. Ryan WE'VE OFTEN HEARD the old adage that; ".....there are only so many basic plots!...." an axiom that we might well take to the bank. After all, life is a limited experience; at least when one considers our short run or visit to this planet Earth. As far as its application to drama, comedy or farce goes, it appears to have been perfectly tailored to the Theatre.WITH REGARD TO today's honored guest and 'victim', THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES(CBS TV/Filmways,1962-71) it is readily apparent from the get go that the series had taken some commonly held notions of pitting 'simple Country Folk' against the highly 'Cultured', Urbane denizens of our long-standing institutions of Government, the Arts and the World of High Finance; with the Country Bumpkins usually getting the best of the encounter.IN A NUTSHELL, the basis for the series, as told in the opening song, is that poor, West Virginian mountain man, Jed Clampett, accidentally strikes oil on his property by firing a shot from his Kentucky Long Rifle into the ground. This causes a gusher and "next thing you know, old Jed's a millionaire." MOVING TO A MORE proper location for a man of such means, namely Beverly Hills, California, Mr. Clampett takes with him 3 of his kinfolk; Granny (Irene Ryan), niece Ellie May Clampett (Donna Douglas) and nephew Jethro Beaudine (Max Baer, Jr.). The move to sunny California put them into an environment in which they would have an uninterrupted cultural conflict with a world of prim & proper stuffed shirts; not to mention all of the Corporate "Suits" at the Bank.POISED IN THEIR Wall Street inspired sanctuaries were the two main characters who would supply all of the conflicts needed. Veteran Character Raymond Baily's portrayal of Banker Mr. Milburn Drysdale and the eternal "Plain Jane", Nancy Culp as the humorless, all business secretary, Miss Jane Hathaway give the Clampett Clan all they can handle.EVEN THE SELECTION of their names would seem to sort of reflect and reinforce what these characters stand for; with 'Drysdale' being a sort of no humor bu$ine$$ guy. He's literally a "dry", humorless financier and Miss "Hathaway" bears a surname that has been associated for whatever reason, with the Upper Class Bluebloods ever since the Landing at Plymouth Rock.AND SO THE Clampetts and their antagonists would get into weekly conflicts involving with the Establishment folks. Conflicts that were very fundamental and commonplace; having been previously experienced by such as Will Rogers, Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) in MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN and Al Capp's LIL ABNER Comic Strip. (Donna Douglas' Ellie May and Max Baer's Jethro could easily have been removed intact and portrayed Lil Abner & Daisy Mae in a LIL ABNER film or play!)IN THE FINAL analysis, the working of what we can only call "Obvious Humor" here is rendered as funny and fresh by the skillful handling by a talented cast and gifted direction of the episodes. (We noticed that the recent installment we saw on cable was done by Actor/Director Richard Whorf. Do you remember him, Schultz? He portrayed Sam Harris to James Cagney's George M. Cohan in YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (Warner Brothers. 1942).