Love at Stake
Love at Stake is a 1987 American comedy film, directed by John C. Moffitt, based on a screenplay by Lanier Laney and Terry Sweeny, it stars Patrick Cassidy and Kelly Preston, with Barbara Carrera, Bud Cort, Dave Thomas, Stuart Pankin. Joyce Brothers makes a cameo appearance as herself; the film is an obvious spoof of the infamous Salem witch trials, moving in the Mel Brooks comedy vein in Blazing Saddles, moving in the anarchic comedy films genre, popularized in that time by the Monty Python films and from the Zucker and Zucker films. The film was distributed by Tri-Star Pictures. Filming took place in Ontario. In 1692, Miles Campbell, recent graduate of Harvard Divinity School, arrives in Salem, Massachusetts to become the local parson's assistant, he meets with his childhood sweetheart, baker Sara Lee, plans to marry her. Meanwhile, greedy Judge Samuel John arrives to meet with idiotic Mayor Upton to discuss plans for a Mall for Salem. To acquire the necessary real estate they hatch a scheme to accuse certain villagers of witchcraft.
When the accused are tried and burned, their land can be confiscated. The plan is succeeding, as the villagers, egged on by the parson's shrewish mother, enthusiastically accept the Judge's message. Saucy Faith Stewart arrives from London for Thanksgiving with her cousins. Faith accuses Sara of witchcraft. Miles must prove Sara's innocence. Patrick Cassidy as Miles Campbell Kelly Preston as Sara Lee Georgia Brown as Widow Chastity Barbara Carrera as Faith Stewart Bud Cort as Parson Babcock Annie Golden as Abigail Baxter, Faith's cousin David Graf as Nathaniel Baxter, her husband Audrie J. Neenan as Mrs. Babcock, the parson's mother Stuart Pankin as Judge Samuel John Dave Thomas as Mayor Upton Anne Ramsey as Old Witch Mary Hawkins as Mrs. Priscilla Upton Jackie Mahon as Belinda Upton, the mayor's daughter Norma MacMillan as Aunt Deliverance Jones, Sara's aunt Joyce Brothers as Herself Colleen Karney as Adulteress Juul Haalmeyer as Executioner Julian Richings as Town Crier Danny Higham as Newsboy Marshall Perlmuter as Mr. Newberry Anna Ferguson as Mrs. Newberry Catharine Gallant as Constance Van Buren Jayne Eastwood as Annabelle Porter Nick Ramus as Chief Wannatoka Love at Stake on IMDb Love at Stake at AllMovie Love at Stake at Rotten Tomatoes Aisle Seat review The Unknown Movies review The Serious Comedy Site review
Casper the Friendly Ghost
Casper the Friendly Ghost is the protagonist of the Famous Studios theatrical animated cartoon series of the same name. He is a personable ghost. Casper was created in the late 1930s by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo, the former devising the idea for the character and the latter providing illustrations. Intended as the basis for a 1939 children's storybook, there was at first little interest in their idea; when Reit was away on military service during the Second World War before the book was released, Oriolo sold the rights to the book to Paramount Pictures' Famous Studios animation division. The Friendly Ghost, the first Noveltoon to feature Casper, was released by Paramount in 1945 with a few differences from the book. In the cartoon adaptation, Casper is a cute ghost-child with a New York accent who inhabits a haunted house along with a community of adult ghosts who delight in scaring the living. Casper, however, is a nonconformist among ghosts: he would prefer to make friends with people, he goes out into the world, hoping to find friends.
However, the animals that he meets take one horrified look at him, scream: "A Ghost!" and run off in the other direction. Distraught, Casper unsuccessfully attempts to commit suicide by lying down on a railway track before an oncoming train, before he meets two children named Bonnie and Johnny who become his friends; the children's mother widowed and impoverished, at first is frightened of Casper, but welcomes him into the family after he unintentionally frightens off a greedy landlord, unwilling to own a "haunted" house, tears up the mortgage and gives her the house outright. The short ends with the mother kissing Bonnie and Casper as she sends them off to school, with Casper wearing clothing as if he were a living child. Casper appeared in two more subsequent cartoons, There's Good Boos To-Night and A Haunting We Will Go. There's Good Boos To-Night differs wildly from Casper cartoons: although the theme of Casper trying to find a friend and failing in these attempts before succeeding occurs in cartoons, the tone of this short turns remarkably dark when a hunter and his dogs appear, chasing the little fox cub named Ferdie that Casper has befriended.
Although Casper scares the hunter and dogs away, Casper discovers Ferdie dead after a harrowing chase scene. However, Ferdie returns as a ghost to join his friend Casper in the afterlife; these were adapted into Noveltoons before Paramount started a Casper the Friendly Ghost series in 1950, ran the theatrical releases until the summer of 1959. Nearly every entry in the series was the same: Casper escapes from the afterlife of a regular ghost because he finds that scaring people can be tiresome year after year, tries to find friends but inadvertently scares everyone, finds a friend, whom he saves from some sort of fate, leading to his acceptance by those scared of him. In 1955, composer Winston Sharples composed an instrumental theme for Casper's cartoons. Casper went on to become one of the most famous properties from Famous Studios. Casper was first published in comics form in 1949 by St. John Publications. After Harvey bought the rights to Casper and many other Famous properties in 1959, they began broadcasting the post-September 1950 theatrical Famous shorts on a television show sponsored by Mattel Toys titled Matty's Funday Funnies on ABC in 1959 which introduced the Barbie doll to the public.
The other Famous produced Casper cartoons had been acquired by television distributor U. M. & M. TV Corporation in 1956. U. M. & M. retitled just "A Haunting We Will Go", but credited "Featuring Casper The Friendly Ghost" as "Featuring Casper's Friendly Ghost". New cartoons were created for The New Casper Cartoon Show in 1963 on ABC; the original Casper cartoons were syndicated under the title Harveytoons in 1963 and ran continually until the mid-90s. Casper has remained popular in reruns and merchandising, Hanna-Barbera produced two holiday specials, Casper's First Christmas and Casper's Halloween Special, the Saturday morning cartoon series Casper and the Angels in the autumn of 1979, all on NBC. Featured on the NBC version was a big ghost named Hairy Scary. None of Casper's original co-stars appeared in the show; the Famous Studios version of Casper was scheduled to appear as a cameo in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral" from the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Numerous Casper cartoons were released on home video by Universal Studios, which adapted the friendly ghost into a live-action feature film titled Casper in 1995, where he and his wicked uncles, the Ghostly Trio, were rendered via computer animation, which created the first CGI lead character in a film.
The film constructed a back-story for the character and is the only time in the series that the question of his death has been addressed. According to the film, Casper was a twelve-year-old boy living in Whipstaff Manor with his inventor father J. T. McFadden until he died from pneumonia after playing out in the cold until it
Land of the Giants
Land of the Giants is an hour-long American science fiction television program lasting two seasons beginning on September 22, 1968, ending on March 22, 1970. The show was produced by Irwin Allen. Land of the Giants was the fourth of Allen's science fiction TV series; the show was released by 20th Century Fox Television. The series was filmed in color and ran for 51 episodes; the show starred special guest star Kurt Kasznar. Five novels based on the television series, including three written by acclaimed science fiction author Murray Leinster, were published in 1968 and 1969. Set fifteen years in the future year 1983, the series tells the tale of the crew and passengers of a sub-orbital transport ship named Spindrift. In the pilot episode, the Spindrift is en route from Los Angeles to London, on an ultra fast sub-orbital flight. Just beyond Earth's boundary with space, the Spindrift encounters a magnetic space storm, is dragged through a space warp to a mysterious planet where everything is twelve times larger than on Earth, whose inhabitants the Earthlings nickname "the Giants."
The Spindrift crash-lands, the damage renders it inoperable. Little is known about the home planet of the Giants; this is because the Spindrift crew seldom leave the area where their spaceship crashes in the opening episode. Only two other giant societies are seen, in the episodes "The Land of the Lost" and "The Secret City of Limbo." No name is established for the mysterious planet, but the inhabitants seem to know of Earth and Mars, referring to them by name in one episode. Where the planet is located is never made clear. In the episode "On a Clear Night You Can See Earth," Captain Steve Burton claims to have seen Earth through a set of infrared goggles invented by the giants, implying that the two planets are near enough to see one from the other; the only established method by which Earth people may reach the giants' planet is high-altitude flight, passing through what one giant calls a "dimension lock". Although various episodes establish that at least six other flights have landed on the planet, no episode confirms anyone returning to Earth.
The first mention of other visitors from Earth was in episode 2, "Ghost Town," in which another ship was said to have crashed long ago without any survivors. In episode 4, "Underground," another Earth ship is described as crashing three years again with no survivors. Several episodes show only to be killed later; the episode "Brainwash" has a crew of little people surviving long enough to build a radio station that can communicate with Earth. They are killed shortly after that; the episodes "Golden Cage" and "The Lost Ones" show there have been a few survivors of other crashes. Only the Spindrift crew seems to have survived for long with its party intact. One continent, or hemisphere, is dominated by an authoritarian government which tolerates full freedoms within a capitalist system, but it does not tolerate any effort to effect political change. What the political situation is on other continents is not known, although at least one overseas land has a despotic ruler; the Air Traffic Control tells those who venture out to sea that they should turn back, that nothing beyond that sea has been explored nor is there current contact.
Culturally, the Giant society resembles the contemporary United States of 1968. The Earth people find themselves able to cope, their efforts to get around are facilitated by the ubiquity of large drains leading directly from interior rooms to the pavement, in an outside wall of most buildings; the Giant government has offered a reward for the capture of the small Earth people. In spite of the authoritarianism, there are several dissident movements at work that either help other dissenters or are working to unseat the ruling party; the government has established the SID, Special Investigations Department, to deal with assorted dissidents but it takes the lead in dealing with the Earth people. The Giant technology resembles mid-20th century Earth, but inconsistently: more advanced in some episodes and behind in others; the little people's objectives are: survival, by obtaining food and avoiding capture by the Giants or attacks from animals, such as cats and dogs. They manage to survive by the help of sympathizers and stealth, making the most of their small size, plus their ingenuity in using their technology where it's superior to that of the Giants.
They do not achieve the second objective, as the primary systems of the craft are damaged, although in some episodes Burton implies it is only a lack of fuel which prevents the ship lifting off. The secondary systems are insufficient to enable them to achieve the sub-orbital flight required, they are unable to use Giant technology, as it is less advanced. They cannot trust the Giants, who in another episode ("Targe
Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is an American author and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. She is a prominent member of the Kennedy family and the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Caroline Kennedy was five days away from her sixth birthday when her father was assassinated on November 22, 1963; the following year, her mother, brother John F. Kennedy Jr. settled on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where she attended school. Kennedy graduated from Radcliffe College and worked at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she met her future husband, exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg, she went on to receive a J. D. degree from Columbia Law School. Most of Kennedy's professional life has spanned law and politics, as well as education reform and charitable work, she has acted as a spokesperson for her family's legacy and co-authored two books with Ellen Aldermanon on civil liberties. Early in the primary race for the 2008 presidential election and her uncle Ted endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President.
After Obama selected United States Senator Hillary Clinton to serve as Secretary of State, Kennedy expressed interest in being appointed to Clinton's vacant Senate seat from New York, but she withdrew from consideration, citing "personal reasons." Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand replaced Clinton as the junior New York Senator. In 2013, President Obama appointed Kennedy as the United States Ambassador to Japan. Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born on November 27, 1957, at Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan to John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy. Caroline is named after Lee Radziwill. A year before Caroline's birth, her parents had a stillborn daughter named Arabella. Caroline had a younger brother, John Jr., born just before her third birthday in 1960. Her infant brother, died two days after his premature birth in 1963. Caroline lived with her parents in Georgetown, Washington, D. C. during the first three years of her life. When Caroline was three years old, the family moved to the White House after her father was sworn in as President of the United States.
Caroline attended kindergarten in classes that were organized by her mother, she was photographed riding her pony "Macaroni" around the White House grounds. One such photo in a news article inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write his Top Ten hit song, "Sweet Caroline", which he revealed when he performed it for Caroline's 50th birthday; as a small child, Caroline received numerous gifts from dignitaries, including a puppy from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and a Yucatán pony from Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Historians described Caroline's childhood personality as "a trifle remote and a bit shy at times" yet "remarkably unspoiled." "She's too young to realize all these luxuries", her paternal grandmother, Rose Kennedy, said of her. "She thinks it's natural for children to go off in their own airplanes. But she is with her cousins, some of them dance and swim better than she, they do not allow her to take special precedence. Little children accept things". On the day of JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963, nanny Maud Shaw took Caroline and John Jr. away from the White House to the home of their maternal grandmother, Janet Lee Auchincloss, who insisted that Shaw be the one to tell Caroline about her father's death.
That evening and John Jr. were brought back to the White House, while Caroline was in her bed, Shaw broke the news to her. Shaw soon found out. On December 6, Jacqueline and John Jr. moved out of the White House and back to Georgetown. Their new home soon became a popular tourist attraction, they left Georgetown the following year and moved to a penthouse apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. In 1967, Caroline christened the U. S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy in a publicized ceremony in Newport News, Virginia. Over that summer, Jacqueline took the children on a six-week "sentimental journey" to Ireland, where they met President Éamon de Valera and visited the Kennedy ancestral home at Dunganstown. In the midst of the trip and John were surrounded by a large number of press photographers while playing in a pond; the incident caused their mother to telephone Ireland's Department of External Affairs and request the issuing of a statement that she and the children wanted to be left in peace.
As a result of the request, further attempts by press photographers to photograph the threesome ended with arrests by local police and the photographers being jailed. Uncle Robert F. Kennedy became a major presence in the lives of Caroline and John following their father's assassination, Caroline saw him as a surrogate father; when Bobby was assassinated in June 1968, Jacqueline sought a means of protecting them, stating: "If they're killing Kennedys my children are targets... I want to get out of this country". Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis several months and she and the children moved to Skorpios, his Greek island; the next year, 11-year-old Caroline attended the funeral of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.. Her cousin, asked her about her feelings towards her mother's new husband and she replied, "I don't like him". In 1
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. With an estimated population of 5.016 million as of 2018, it is Canada's third-most populous province. The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, which gave rise to the City of Victoria, at first the capital of the separate Colony of Vancouver Island. Subsequently, on the mainland, the Colony of British Columbia was founded by Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Moody was Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works for the Colony and the first Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia: he was hand-picked by the Colonial Office in London to transform British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west", "to found a second England on the shores of the Pacific". Moody selected the site for and founded the original capital of British Columbia, New Westminster, established the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park, designed the first version of the Coat of arms of British Columbia.
Port Moody is named after him. In 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, Victoria became the united colony's capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the sixth province of Canada, its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu. The capital of British Columbia remains Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for Queen Victoria, who ruled during the creation of the original colonies; the largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, the second-largest in the Pacific Northwest. In October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371; the province is governed by the British Columbia New Democratic Party, led by John Horgan, in a minority government with the confidence and supply of the Green Party of British Columbia. Horgan became premier as a result of a no-confidence motion on June 29, 2017. British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871.
First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties, the question of Aboriginal Title, long ignored, has become a legal and political question of frequent debate as a result of recent court actions. Notably, the Tsilhqot'in Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Tsilhqot'in Nation v British Columbia; the province's name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia, i.e. "the Mainland", became a British colony in 1858. It refers to the Columbia District, the British name for the territory drained by the Columbia River, in southeastern British Columbia, the namesake of the pre-Oregon Treaty Columbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company. Queen Victoria chose British Columbia to distinguish what was the British sector of the Columbia District from the United States, which became the Oregon Territory on August 8, 1848, as a result of the treaty.
The Columbia in the name British Columbia is derived from the name of the Columbia Rediviva, an American ship which lent its name to the Columbia River and the wider region. British Columbia is bordered to the west by the Pacific Ocean and the American state of Alaska, to the north by Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories, to the east by the province of Alberta, to the south by the American states of Washington and Montana; the southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, although its history is tied with lands as far south as California. British Columbia's land area is 944,735 square kilometres. British Columbia's rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres, includes deep, mountainous fjords and about 6,000 islands, most of which are uninhabited, it is the only province in Canada. British Columbia's capital is Victoria, located at the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of Vancouver Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is populated.
Much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by temperate rainforest. The province's most populous city is Vancouver, at the confluence of the Fraser River and Georgia Strait, in the mainland's southwest corner. By land area, Abbotsford is the largest city. Vanderhoof is near the geographic centre of the province; the Coast Mountains and the Inside Passage's many inlets provide some of British Columbia's renowned and spectacular scenery, which forms the backdrop and context for a growing outdoor adventure and ecotourism industry. 75% of the province is mountainous. The province's mainland away from the coastal regions is somewhat moderated by the Pacific Ocean. Terrain ranges from dry inland forests and semi-arid valleys, to the range and canyon districts of the Central and Southern Interior, to boreal forest and subarctic prairie in the Northern Interior. High mountain regions both north and south subalpine climate; the Okanagan area, extending from Vernon to Osoyoos at the United States border, is one of several wine and cider-produci
Alison Arngrim
Alison Margaret Arngrim is a Canadian-American actress and author. Beginning her television career at the age of twelve, Arngrim is a Young Artist Award–Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award honoree, best known for her portrayal of Nellie Oleson on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1981. Arngrim's father, Thor Arngrim, was a Canadian-born Hollywood manager, her mother, Norma MacMillan of Vancouver, British Columbia, was an actress who provided the voices for characters as Casper on Casper the Friendly Ghost, as Gumby on Gumby, as Davey on Davey and Goliath, Sweet Polly Purebred on Underdog, as well as other animated children's programs. Her brother, Stefan was a child actor best known for his role as Barry Lockridge on the Irwin Allen science fiction television series, Land of the Giants. Arngrim has claimed. After beginning a career as a child model and actress in television commercials, Arngrim rose to fame as a child star in 1974, portraying the role of Nellie Oleson on the NBC television series Little House on the Prairie.
She auditioned for the role of Laura Ingalls and Mary Ingalls, but was instead cast in the role of antagonist Nellie Oleson. Arngrim would play the role of Nellie for seven seasons and her portrayal became a cultural reference and camp archetype for the spoiled "bad girl" throughout the 1970s. Years in one of her stand-up routines, Arngrim described playing Nellie on Little House on The Prairie as "like having PMS for seven years." In 2002, she was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award for her work as a child actress on Little House. At the 2006 TV Land Awards, Arngrim tied with Danielle Spencer as the "Character Most in Need of a Time-out" for her role as Nellie. In addition to her role on Little House, Arngrim recorded the comedy record album, Heeere's Amy, in which she portrayed first daughter Amy Carter, her mother, who voiced the Kennedy children on the comedy albums of Vaughn Meader guest starred on the album. After leaving Little House, Arngrim appeared in guest-starring roles on such television series as The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.
She was a frequent panelist on the short-lived NBC game show Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour. In addition to performing, Arngrim devotes her time to charitable organizations. One of her inspirations for her charity work is the memory of her friend and fellow actor Steve Tracy, who played the role of Nellie Oleson's husband, Percival Dalton, on Little House on the Prairie. Tracy died from complications of AIDS in 1986, after which Arngrim set her sights on becoming an activist for AIDS awareness including the organization ACT UP and working at AIDS hotline, she focuses on other issues, such as child abuse, speaking for and lobbying with the group PROTECT. In 2004, Arngrim revealed on Larry King Live. In 2010, Arngrim authored an autobiography titled Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated. In the book she, for the first time, publicly identified her childhood abuser, though the book is light-hearted and received critical praise for her ability to mix humor and personal tragedy.
She performed a stage version, which premiered at Club Fez in New York. She performed this one-person show at Parliament House, a gay resort in Orlando, Florida. Arngrim was married to a writer, Donald Spencer, in the late 1980s. On November 6, 1993, she married her second husband, musician Robert Paul Schoonover, whom she met while volunteering at AIDS Project Los Angeles, where he was director of the Southern California AIDS Hotline. Arngrim and Schoonover live in Los Angeles. Arngrim keeps in contact with her childhood friend Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, she appears at Little House on the Prairie reunion events and autograph shows. Arngrim gives a "Nastie Nellie Oleson Tour" around Los Angeles; the tour consists of Hollywood discussions about growing up as a child actor. 2002 – Young Artist Award: Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award for 2006 – TV Land Award: for "Character Most Desperately in Need of a Timeout" 1981 – Young Artist Award: for Best Young Comedienne 2008 – TV Land Award: for "Siblings That Make You Grateful for Your Own Crazy Family" Arngrim, Alison.
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated. New York City: It Books. ISBN 978-0-06-196214-1. Dye, David. Child and Youth Actors: Filmography of Their Entire Careers, 1914-1985. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 1988, p. 7. Alison Arngrim on IMDb Official Website in Europe
Stefan Arngrim
Stefan Arngrim, sometimes credited as Stephan Arngrim, is a Canadian actor and musician. He is best known for his role as Barry Lockridge on the Irwin Allen television series Land of the Giants which aired from 1968 to 1970. Arngrim was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of actress Norma MacMillan and Thor Arngrim, he is the elder brother of actress Alison Arngrim, who has alleged that he molested her throughout her childhood. Arngrim co-wrote two songs with Warren Zevon on the album Transverse City. Dye, David. Child and Youth Actors: Filmography of Their Entire Careers, 1914-1985. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. 1988, p. 7. Stefan Arngrim's official site Stefan Arngrim on IMDb
