Cassie Yates Movies

In the first episode of a three-part story arc, Drew (Drew Carey's thinks it's a laugh and a half when he concludes a memo limiting personal phone calls at the store with a xeroxed cartoon, showing a confused caterpillar having carnal relations with a crinkle-cut french fry. Everybody else thinks the cartoon is funny too--everyone, that is, except uptight would-be feminist Nora O'Dougherty (Jane Morris), who threatens to sue Drew for creating a "hostile workplace." Meanwhile, Kate's (Christa Miller) obsessive ex-boyfriend Barry (John Schafer) is forgotten but not gone. Kelly Perine makes his first series appearance as Chuck the security guard. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When police fail to protect her daughter from a possibly murderous stalker, a determined mother struggles to find legal means to save her. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Haunted is a Fox Network TV-movie purportedly based on eyewitness testimony. The story goes that in the mid-1980s, the Smurl family of Pittston, Pennsylvania began noticing something askew in their four-bedroom Victorian home. Apparently there are agents of Satan at work, bedeviling the family and smashing the crockery. None of the Smurls believes in ghosts--"until," as the ad copy for this film proclaims, "they have no choice." Since this film was shown on Fox, the "standards and practices" people were a wee more lax than they would have been on another network; hence the "Parental Discretion Advised" tag on the film's original telecast. The Haunted is some distance removed from believability, but stars Sally Kirkland and Jeffrey DeMunn seem to be having a high old time playing scared. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is summoned to the island retreat of her friend Henry Reynard (Gene Barry), a millionaire lumberman. Someone has threatened Henry's life, and he is convinced that the "someone" is a relative anxious to get his or her hands on the old man's millions. Upon her arrival, Jessica is told that Henry has already been killed--but as she soon finds out, appearances (and first impressions) can be very deceiving! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The 60-minute comedy Ask Max stars Jeff B. Cohen in the title role. A 12-year-old genius, poor Max is a washout socially. To impress his girl friend, he sells the design of his latest invention-a jumping bike-to a major toy company. The upshot of this is that Max is appointed a company vice-president (but he still hasn't quite won over that girl!) Cassie Yates, Ray Walston, and Glynn Turman costar, while Karem Abdul Jabbar makes a guest appearance. Ask Max originated as the November 2, 1986 installment of TV's Disney Sunday Movie. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first of a series of made-for-TV films shot two decades after the original Perry Mason television series ended in 1966, Mason (Raymond Burr), now an Appellate Court Judge, must step down from the bench in order to defend his longtime secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) against murder charges. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

See if you can predict the ending of this one. John Ritter and Cassie Yates are the next-door neighbors of Penny Marshall and Bert Convy. Ritter and Marshall can't stand each other. But presto! Ritters' wife Yates runs off with Marshall's husband Convy. The two spurned spouses meet to bemoan their individual fates. Love Thy Neighbor is a TV-movie comedy with a TV-movie cast and a TV-movie denouement. The only surprise is the absence of a laugh track. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This remake of the 1948 Preston Sturges classic stars Dudley Moore as the symphony conductor who imagines ways to get back at the wife he believes is unfaithful to him. Moore plays Claude Eastman, the conductor of a prestigious sympathy, who suspects that his actress wife Daniella (Nastassja Kinski) is fooling around behind his back with the orchestra's handsome soloist, Maxmillian Stein (Armand Assante). The tip comes courtesy of Norman Robbins (Albert Brooks), Daniella's brother. As Claude is conducting a symphony, an elaborate plot plays out in his head -- he will murder his unfaithful wife to get revenge on her. The plot is simpler and more straightforward than the original version, in which the conductor harbored three separate elaborate fantasies. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide

In this made-for-television romantic comedy, a book editor (Tim Matheson) falls for a co-worker (Kate Jackson) and has difficulty balancing his career with his love life. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The Gift of Life is a non-sensational study of surrogate pregnancy. Susan Dey stars as Joleen Sutton, a woman with a husband and two kids who agrees to be artificially inseminated on behalf of another woman. Since the surrogate mother concept is somewhat cloudy on a legal basis, Joleen faces conflict from her own family and friends, as well as the state attorney general. Her husband (Paul Le Mat) is particularly troubled by the situation, even though the money Joleen will earn for her pregnancy will help him keep his struggling gas station. But as the baby's birth date approaches, Joleen isn't so certain she wants to give up the child. Admirable in its refusal to take sides in the surrogate-mother controversy, The Gift of Life was telecast around the same time as another TV movie with a similar plotline, Tomorrow's Child. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This TV movie adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was a labor of love for producer-star Robert Blake, who utilized the screenplay from the 1939 Hollywood version as his guide--a screenplay personally presented to Blake by the original film's director, Lewis Milestone. Blake and Randy Quaid play George and Lennie, a pair of itinerant workers who share a dream of saving up enough money for their own ranch. George is smart, resourceful and slight-statured; Lennie has the mind of a child and the strength of Hercules. The two lifelong friends are hired on as hands at a large Salinas Valley spread. Their "best laid schemes" for a place of their own dissolve into a tragic denouement, sparked by the boss' pugnacious son Curley (Ted Neeley) and Curley's bored, faithless wife Mae (Cassie Yates). The 1939 Of Mice and Men is regarded as a masterpiece, though it suffers from the censorship restrictions of the time; curiously, this 1981 film, adapted for television by E. Nick Alexander, makes no attempt to restore the "chancy" elements that had been excised from the earlier film. Of Mice and Men was first telecast on November 29, 1981; a third filmization of the Steinbeck work, starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich, was released theatrically in 1993. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on Hal W. Painter's autobiography, Mark, I Love You stars Kevin Dobson as Painter. Recently and suddenly widowed, Painter is so emotionally distraught that he permits his in-laws (James Whitmore and Peggy McCay) to gain custody of his son Mark (Justin Dana). Now that he has recovered, found a good job, and entered into a serious relationship with a young woman (Cassie Yates), Painter wants his son back. But his in-laws refuse, and the whole unfortunate affair ends up with an emotional court battle. While it could have been dismissed as yet another TV-movie variation of Kramer vs. Kramer, Mark, I Love You stands up admirably on its own merits. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide