The Last Child | |
---|---|
Genre | Drama Science Fiction Thriller |
Written by | Peter S. Fischer |
Directed by | John Llewellyn Moxey |
Starring | Michael Cole Van Heflin Harry Guardino Janet Margolin |
Music by | Laurence Rosenthal |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Executive producer | Aaron Spelling |
Producer | William Allyn |
Production location | Paramount Studios |
Cinematography | Archie R. Dalzell |
Editor | Art Seid |
Running time | 73 minutes |
Production company | Aaron Spelling Productions |
Distributor | ABC |
Release | |
Original network | ABC |
Picture format | Color |
Audio format | Mono |
Original release | October 5, 1971 |
The Last Child is a 1971 American TV film. It was the last film of Van Heflin. [1]
In the future, overpopulation has meant that people are allowed to have only one child and are denied all medical care (save for palliative care) when they turn 65.
Reviewing the film in the present day for the SF Weekly, David-Elijah Nahmod wrote:
When The Last Child was first broadcast on ABC in October 1971, star Michael Cole was enjoying a brief brush with stardom on the hit cop show The Mod Squad . The actor proved his acting chops with this intense drama set in the “not too distant future”.
Many issues come up during the film’s 71 minute running time — The Last Child remains potent and topical even today.
The film's primary question is a woman's right to autonomy over her body. Women today are once again being forced to fight for the right to decide for themselves whether or not to practice birth control or whether or not to have an abortion. The Last Child underscores many of those battles by reversing the question: what if a woman was forced to have an abortion against her will? At what point does a woman get to choose for herself without interference from others? At what point is the government overstepping its boundaries and interfering in a person's personal life?
Cole and Janet Margolin star as Alan and Karen, a couple still mourning the loss of their baby the year before. Karen is pregnant again, but in the grossly overpopulated futuristic society they live in, only one child per couple is allowed.
The fact that Karen’s baby died is of little consequence to the population control police, headed by a sociopathic Ed Asner. Asner was, at the time, achieving TV immortality for his delightful portrayal of the grumpy-if-kindhearted Mr. Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show . He offers a deliciously over-the-top, against-type performance as The Last Child’s villain. [2]
Mary Tyler Moore was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), which "helped define a new vision of American womanhood" and "appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence". Moore won seven Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Ordinary People. Moore is also known for her supporting role in the musical film Thoroughly Modern Millie. Moore was an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism and diabetes prevention.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress and namesake Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977. Moore portrayed Mary Richards, an unmarried, independent woman focused on her career as associate producer of a news show at the fictional local station WJM in Minneapolis. Ed Asner co-starred as Mary's boss Lou Grant, alongside Gavin MacLeod, Ted Knight, Georgia Engel, and Betty White, with Valerie Harper as friend and neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern, and Cloris Leachman as friend Phyllis Lindstrom.
Lou Grant is a fictional character played by Ed Asner in two television series produced by MTM Enterprises for CBS. The first was The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), a half-hour light-hearted situation comedy in which the character was the news director at fictional television station WJM-TV in Minneapolis. A spinoff series, entitled Lou Grant (1977–1982), was an hour-long serious dramatic series that frequently engaged in social commentary, featuring the same character as city editor of the fictional Los Angeles Tribune. Although spin-offs are common on American television, Lou Grant remains one of a very few characters played by the same actor to have a leading role on both a popular comedy and a popular dramatic series.
Eddie Asner was an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant, making him one of the few television actors to portray the same character in both a comedy and a drama. Asner is the most honored male performer in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, having won seven – five for portraying Lou Grant. His other Emmys were for performances in two television miniseries: Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), for which he won the Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a television series award, and Roots (1977), for which he won the Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a television series award.
Erica Kane is a fictional character from the American ABC Daytime soap opera All My Children. The character was portrayed by actress Susan Lucci from her debut on January 16, 1970, until the last broadcast television episode on September 23, 2011. Lucci was expected to guest star on Prospect Park's continuation of All My Children in 2013, but the appearance never came to fruition due to the show's second cancellation.
Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin Jr. was an American theatre, radio and film actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man. Heflin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Johnny Eager (1942). He also had memorable roles in Westerns such as Shane (1953), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), and Gunman's Walk (1958).
Rosalind Theresa Cash was an American actress. Her best-known film role is in the 1971 science-fiction film The Omega Man. Cash also had another notable role as Mary Mae Ward in ABC's General Hospital, a role she portrayed from 1994 until her death in 1995.
Lou Grant is an American drama television series starring Ed Asner in the title role as a newspaper editor that aired on CBS from September 20, 1977, to September 13, 1982. The third spin-off of the sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant was created by James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, and Gene Reynolds.
David and Lisa is a 1962 American drama film directed by Frank Perry. It is based on the second story in the two-in-one novellas Jordi/Lisa and David by Theodore Isaac Rubin; the screenplay, written by Frank Perry's wife Eleanor Perry, tells the story of a bright young man suffering from a mental illness which, among other symptoms, has instilled in him a fear of being touched. This lands him in a residential treatment center, where he meets Lisa, a similarly ill young woman who displays a split personality.
A Woman Rebels is a 1936 American historical drama film adapted from the 1930 novel Portrait of a Rebel by Netta Syrett and starring Katharine Hepburn as Pamela Thistlewaite, who rebels against the social mores of Victorian England. The film was directed by Mark Sandrich; it was the film debut of Van Heflin, and the second last film of David Manners.
Lesley Sharp is an English stage, film and television actress whose roles on British television include Clocking Off (2000–2001), Bob & Rose (2001) and Afterlife (2005–2006). She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the 1997 film The Full Monty. Her other film appearances include Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1986), Naked (1993), Priest (1994), From Hell (2001) and Vera Drake (2004). Between 2011 and 2016, she starred as DC Janet Scott in the ITV drama Scott & Bailey.
Stuart Margolin is an American film, theater, and television actor and director who won two Emmy Awards for playing Evelyn "Angel" Martin on the 1970s television series The Rockford Files. In 1973, he played in Gunsmoke as an outlaw. The next year he played an important role, giving Charles Bronson his first gun in Death Wish. In 1981, Stuart portrayed the character of Philo Sandeen in a recurring role; a Native American tracker, on the 1981–82 series, Bret Maverick.
Michael Cole is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Pete Cochran on the television crime drama The Mod Squad (1968–1973).
The 34th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television for 1976, were held on January 29, 1977.
The 33rd Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television for 1975, were held on January 24, 1976. Nashville received 11 nominations; the most for a single film. As of 2022, the film still holds that record.
Just Between Friends is a 1986 American drama film about two women whose friendship is tested by tragedy. The film was written, produced and directed by Allan Burns, and it stars Mary Tyler Moore, Christine Lahti, Ted Danson and Sam Waterston.
Silver Star is an American superhero comic book series created, written, and drawn by Jack Kirby, first published by Pacific Comics in 1983. Featuring a title character who becomes super-powered due to genetic mutation, the series continued Kirby's run of creator-owned work. Reprints of the original series and new stories based on it have subsequently been published by other comic book companies.
Pregnancy is a potential result of rape. It has been studied in the context of war, particularly as a tool for genocide, as well as other unrelated contexts, such as rape by a stranger, statutory rape, incest, and underage pregnancy. The current scientific consensus is that rape is at least as likely to lead to pregnancy as consensual sexual intercourse, with some studies suggesting rape may actually result in higher rates of pregnancy than consensual intercourse.
A six-week abortion ban or early abortion ban, called a "heartbeat bill" or "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a form of abortion restriction legislation in the United States. These bans make abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age, which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected. Medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and intentionally misleading because a conceptus is not called a fetus until after ten weeks of pregnancy, before which the proper term is an embryo, as well as that at six weeks the embryo has no heart, which at that stage is only a group of cells which will become a heart. Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.