Love at Stake

Love at Stake
August 1, 1987
Hemdale Film
Comedy, Historical, Fantasy, Romance
VHS
C+

This comedy about the Puritans is indeed sometimes funny, but unfortunately many of the jokes are repeated and thus lose their efficacy.  Also, too much of the humor is sexual or otherwise crude, when there's more potential for political and other satire.  (And making fun of Nixon is doubly anachronistic, for 1692 and 1987.)  Yes, some of the R-rated jokes are funny, too, but when Dr. Joyce Brothers (yes, you read that right) analyzes the Puritans as being sexually repressed, it would have more sting if we didn't see most of them (even the parson's bitchy old mother) as lecherous at some point.  Even the parson (played by a by-then middle-aged Bud Cort) is having an affair.  And Barbara Carrera, as the scene-stealing actual witch in the midst of the falsely accused, is incredibly sensuous.  The other two notable cast members are Stuart Pankin and SCTV's Dave Thomas as the judge and mayor who are out to profit from the burnings.  (The "romance" tag is for the bland main couple who are victims of the machinations.)  The film is notable for using a "fire" song that Nice Girls Don't Explode missed: "A Hunk a Hunk of Burning Love."  I almost went with a B-, but I will admit that the marshmallow-roasting at the witch-burnings (which aren't in any case historically accurate for the Salem witch trials, where I believe hanging was the preferred execution) took the tasteless humor too far.

Stanley Coles had been part of "Young Lonely Hearts Club Band" in Sgt. Pepper and he's a guard here.