Susan Saint James

This documentary on women's figure skating, narrated by Susan Saint James, looks at the women who defined ice skating, from the beginnings of the sport to present-day participants. From female skating pioneers Fritzi Burger and JoJo Starbuck to interviews with Olympic gold medal winners Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming, find out everything essential to the sport and the people who succeed at skating. Discover what it is like to be a professional ice skater and what accomplishments, misfortunes, and obstacles these skaters face each and every day, both physically and emotionally. ~ Cecilia Cygnar, All Movie Guide

Like most of the Rabbit Ears Videos, Gingerbread Christmas is based on a popular children's story. Also like most Rabbit Ears production, it isn't really an animated cartoon, but a series of cleverly assembled and lovingly rendered still pictures. The scene is the village of Goodwill, during the Yuletide season. A gingerbread boy and girl embark upon a journey to spread some of Goodwill's goodwill to the happiness-challenged community of Gloomsbury. Gingerbread Christmas was originally released almost simultaneously to video stores and the Showtime cable-TV outlet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

I Take These Men is a variation on the 1941 Ginger Rogers theatrical feature Tom, Dick, and Harry. While being feted at a surprise 15th wedding anniversary party, Carol Sherwood (Susan St. James) startles the well-wishers by asking her dull dentist husband, Stuart (James Sherwood), for a divorce. As the party nervously continues, Carol fantasizes what her life might have been like had she married one of her three guests: pompous real-estate mogul Craig Wyler (Adam West), nerdish professor David Koenig (John Rubinstein), or good-natured truck driver Phil Zakarian (Brian Dennehy) -- who happens to be the husband of her best friend, Elaine (Dee Wallace). Just in case the viewer doesn't find all this funny, the producers have helpfully added a laugh track. I Take These Men was unveiled by CBS on January 5, 1983. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Kid From Nowhere is built around the talents of Ricky Wittman, a remarkable young actor afflicted with Down's Syndrome who appeared in several TV programs during the early 1980s. Judy Farrell's script traces the efforts of a California mother (Susan Saint James) to curb the sudden energy outbursts of her retarded son. The boy is entered in a school athletic program, attaining confidence and achievement through his participation the Special Olympics. Director Beau Bridges has a supporting role as the boy's coach. Kid From Nowhere offers no easy solutions, but it does point out the importance of stressing self-value when dealing with children of special needs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This 1981 episode of Saturday Night Live is hosted by Susan St. James and features musical guests the Kinks and Rickie Lee Jones. ~ Skyler Miller, All Movie Guide

Jane Curtin and Susan Saint James share star-billing with Jessica Lange in this uninspired comedy about three women who need a cash infusion. (Curtin and Saint James would later co-star in the popular sitcom Kate and Allie.) Jane (Saint James) is divorced and financially pressed to raise her children in the manner to which they were accustomed. Elaine's (Curtin) husband left with all their assets except for the house and car, and Louise's (Lange) antique store is going to go bust unless she gets rid of the red ink. After the three women share their angst, they hit on a scheme of robbing cash from the local shopping mall, a place they know quite well. That familiarity, it turns out, cannot guarantee success. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

George Hamilton confounded his detractors by turning in a first-rate comic performance in Love at First Bite. Hamilton plays Count Dracula, who is evicted from his Transylvanian domicile when the Communist government decides to nationalize his castle. With faithful toady Renfield (Arte Johnson) at his side, Dracula heads for the Big Apple, where he finds the vampire pickings radically different from those on his home turf: for example, ol' Drac suffers the mother of all hangovers when his sinks his fangs into the neck of a wino. Klutzy Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James) falls in love with Dracula, not fully aware of his colorful background. But Saint James' stuffy fiance Dr. Jeff Rosenberg (Richard Benjamin), a descendant of Dracula's perennial foe Professor Van Helsing, knows what Dracula's up to and does his best to thwart the vampire's plan. This proves very difficult, since such time-honored remedies as the stake through the heart are frowned upon by the New York City authorities. So successful was Love at First Bite that George Hamilton was encouraged to have a satiric go at another literary icon in 1982's Zorro, the Gay Blade. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An Anglo-American co-production, S.O.S. Titanic is a costly, 150-minute reenactment of the infamous sea disaster of 1912. Heading the cast is David Janssen as millionaire John Jacob Astor, who went down with the Titanic, and Cloris Leachman as raucous Denver dowager Molly Brown, who didn't (for the record, Leachman had previously played Brown on a 1957 episode of the TV anthology Telephone Time). Third-billed is Susan Saint James as fictional passenger Leigh Goodwin, who carries most of the dramatic load. Written by Hallmark Hall of Fame veteran James Costigan, the made-for-television S.O.S. Titanic premiered September 23, 1979. In subsequent network and syndicated showings, the film was pared down to 102 minutes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Expectant mother Susan Saint James goes into labor and is carted off to a somewhat forbidding hospital. When she awakens, she is told that her baby has died. The grieving Saint James reluctantly resumes her life as a schoolteacher. But not long afterward, she is haunted by bizarre dreams, indicating that her child is in fact alive. Someone knows the whole truth: is it her helpful husband Michael Parks, jovial doctor William Conrad, slyly smiling nurse Dolores Dorn, or sinister Cathleen Nesbitt? The made-for-television Night Cries first spooked its way into American living rooms on January 29, 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A musician discovers that there's no such thing as bad publicity when a murder charge makes him a star in this comedy-drama. Bobby Ogden (Peter Fonda) is an ex-con trying to go straight and build a career as a country and western singer. Bobby gets the opportunity to show off some of his tunes to Nashville star Garland Dupree (James Callahan), but Garland takes Bobby's best song, "Outlaw Blues," and puts his own name to it. Suddenly Bobby's tune is a hit, with the struggling writer getting no credit (and no royalties). An understandably angry Bobby confronts Garland, and when Garland is found shot dead shortly afterward, Bobby becomes the prime suspect. Bobby is innocent, but hardly anyone believes this outside of Garland's back-up singer Tina Waters (Susan St. James). Bobby and Tina hit the road together, and the wanted man becomes an underground hero as Bobby climbs both the Billboard charts and the "Most Wanted" list. Peter Fonda does his own singing in Outlaw Blues, and he croons half a dozen tunes, including three written for the film by Hoyt Axton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide