The 500-Pound Jerk (1973)

The 500-Pound Jerk tells the story of Tennessee hillbilly muscleman Hughie Rae Feather (played by former NFL star Alex Karras), whose local reputation for lifting weights brings him to the attention of struggling ad executive Gil Davenport (James Franciscus). Davenport trains Feather to compete in the 1972 Olympics, not only managing his training but every aspect of his personal life as well. But things get complicated when the strongman falls in love with a beautiful Russian gymnast named Natalya (played by Claudia Butenuth), creating an international incident. First broadcast a few months after the actual 1972 Olympics, the movie features stock footage of the real Olympic games, in which real life Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut captured the hearts of the world. Howard Cossell has a cameo role, and Hope Lange plays Davenport's long-suffering girlfriend, a news reporter covering the Olympics.

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General Electric Theater - "Love is a Lion's Roar" (1961)

Although their most famous star pairing was in "Youngblood Hawke," they once were slated to co-star in a series together. According to IMDB, in 1959 Norman Lear (the TV genius behind "All in the Family") produced a pilot for a situation comedy called "Band of Gold" in which James Franciscus and Suzanne Pleshette played a different couple each week. The program was considered too "experimental" and was never broadcast, but the pilot for it, "Love is a Lion's Roar," appeared on General Electric Theater in 1961. "Lion's Roar" was a "light-hearted romantic comedy about a petite French dancer who is determined to marry a handsome New York bachelor," who is equally determined not to be married.

The Great Sex War (1969)

Very little is known about this movie except that it was a comedy alternatively titled Make Love Not War, that it featured James Franciscus in the lead role, and co-starred Joan Marshall, George Raft, and Cantinflas. According to some sources, it was never released.

Father Knows Best - "Bud, the Willing Worker (1959) and Hennesey - "The Annapolis Man" (1960)

In his early career, James Franciscus largely played dramatic roles, especially in police and western TV shows. However, he was also a good comedic actor, as shown in two sitcom appearances he made early in his career. His comic acting ability showed up from time to time in his movies, for example, the slight comic relief scenes in Cat O’ Nine Tails. He was also the original choice for the father in The Brady Bunch; originally the male family was going to be blond and the female family led by Florence Henderson was to be brunette (the producers became enamored of Robert Reed for the father role and changed the hair color and casting around this choice).

In an episode from the final season of Father Knows Best, "Bud, the Willing Worker", Bud Anderson (the son in Robert Young and Jane Wyatt's TV family) wants to buy a boat and needs a job. His sister Betty, who has a new love interest in service station owner Bill Sheppard (Franciscus), offers to help Bud out by talking to Bill. Father Jim Anderson (Robert Young) doesn’t like this idea, because he wants Bud to acquire the job on his own, and agrees to match Bud dollar for dollar on his boat purchase if he gets the job with no "family connections". To try to get the job, Bud offers his services to Bill for free, and finds that while he works his tail off at the service station on a "trial basis", it doesn’t seem like he’s ever going to actually get hired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hennesey was a TV program, part comedy, part drama, that aired in the early 1960s, about a Navy doctor stationed onshore in California during peacetime. Played by former child actor Jackie Cooper, who had himself served as a pilot in the Naval Reserve, Lt. Charles 'Chick' Hennesey was a World War II Army vet who had attended medical school and signed up as a Navy doctor.

In "The Annapolis Man", Dr. Hennesey is ordered to find an enlisted man smart enough to be presented as a candidate for officer training at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Franciscus plays a sailor named Bobby Williams who is a perfect candidate as he has a genius IQ. However, the young sailor refuses to take the examination. By accident, Dr. Hennesey discovers that the glasses Bobby Williams wears contain miniature hearing aids, designed to cover up for the sailor's defective hearing, caused by a case of the mumps when he was a teen. Cooper's superior orders the sailor discharged, but Hennesey and his assistant arrange surgery for the sailor that may correct his hearing loss.