With Halloween coming up fast, there seems to be a marathon of seasonally related movies at the Nestor household. My wife is partial to 'Halloweentown' and 'Hocus Pocus'. I tend towards the classic, 'Bride of Frankenstein' or 'Doctor X'. Halloween is, after all, supposed to be a holiday for kids. Maybe it was too many years working as a bouncer; Halloween was a pain in the ass. I'm always reminded of the Simpson's episode about 'Inappropriate Grown Up Halloween'.
Then there is the curious fact that, after decades at the top of the movie critic's heap, Orson Welles' classic 'Citizen Kane' was knocked from the number one spot. The movie that replaced it, 'Vertigo', is in my opinion, not the best Alfred Hitchcock movie, let alone the best movie of all time. I can see why critics would like it; the obsessive plot line mirrors their cinema fetish. Hell, I don't even consider 'Vertigo' as the best movie James Stewart and Kim Novak starred in together in 1958!
That movie would be 'Bell Book & Candle', my hands down favorite Hollywood Halloween film. It is funny, touching, has a great cast, and Kim Novak was never better. Gathering together plot elements floating around for a few years earlier, it not only has witches and warlocks, but they are beatniks living in Greenwich Village. What more could you ask for.
The idea of a witch in the 20th Century probably started with Thorne Smith, a popular author in the 1920s, most famous for the Topper series, featuring comical ghosts in a modern setting. His novel 'the Passionate Witch' was published in 1942 posthumously, immediately made into a movie, 'I Married a Witch', with Veronica Lake, directed by Rene Claire. Fritz Leiber did a better job with 'Conjure Wife', both funny and frightening at the same time. In both cases the plot idea is the same; the man has no clue that women commonly practice black magic in their daily lives. 'Conjure Wife' was the inspiration for at least three different movies.
'Bell Book & Candle', while not one of them, was based on a Broadway play by John Van Druten. the film adaptation by Daniel Taradash opens the action up excellently. Hollywood must have seen it as a hot property; at various times, David O. Selznick, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jennifer Jones, and Rex Harrison, among others, were attached to it. Eventually winding up at Columbia, mogul Harry Cohn insisted on contract star Kim Novak. Boy, did he get it right.
Novak was one of the blonde bombshells of the 1950s. Refusing to change her name, she always tried to remain intelligent, getting good parts, while being in the studio system. For a woman during that time, this was no easy task. Columbia wanted another phenomenon like Marilyn Monroe. Instead they had a woman who reserved a part of herself, always slightly aloof, mysterious. Major directors such as Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock complained that, while on the set, Kim looked great, in the editing room there was always something missing.
Kim played smart roles in a string of classic films, from 'Man with the Golden Arm', to 'Picnic' through 'Kiss Me, Stupid', only working when she wanted. For a major actress of her period who is still alive, she only has 33 appearances on the Internet Movie Database.
James Stewart also proved to be a major asset. The only reason that he was in the movie is that Harry Cohn was owed a favor for lending Kim Novak in 'Vertigo'. Stewart was one of the classic leading men of the Golden Age. After World War Two, he had been the first to set up an independent film company, producing mostly Westerns, playing desperate men, all very profitable. A smart business, this very independence made him even more in demand by the studios. James Stewart was aware of his age, feeling foolish romancing actresses considerably younger. This would be his last romantic lead.
'Bell Book & Candle' also benefits from a tremendous supporting cast, especially Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs. For most of his early career. Lemmon mostly played comedy, although he was the master of turning comedy into tragedy or visa versa. Here, he plays it very broad, a bongo playing warlock who steals every scene that he is in. As time progresses, Jack played more dramatic parts; we tend to forget what an accomplished comedian he was.
Ernie Kovacs was known mostly for television; his material on the relatively new medium is today considered revolutionary. On film, he was more of a supporting man, playing a variety of 'kooky' roles or the occasional comic villain. Before he died in a car accident in 1962, he worked frequently with both Jack Lemmon and director Robert Quine, part of an informal stock company, Here, he plays an anthropologist, the straight man to Lemmon's trickster, and plays it well.
Robert Quine, the director, started as a fairly undistinguished actor, appearing mostly in Andy Hardy crap. Stepping behind the camera, he showed a knack for light comedy, what we would call today a 'rom com'. He was very good working with leading ladies, doing a couple of pictures with Judy Holiday, later with Doris Day in one of her best pictures, 'It Happened to Jane', also with Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs.
Elsa Lanchester, veteran of 'Bride of Frankenstein', and Hermione Gingold round out the cast of fellow witches. Poor Janice Rule get s the thankless part of James Stewart's fiancé; once Kim Novak sets her eyes on him, Janice's life is pure misery to the end. That is part of the joy in this movie, a certain immorality unusual during the straight laced 1950s. Beatnik witches and warlocks having entirely too much fun in lower Manhattan was pretty far out for the times.
There is crazy jazz while Kim sells African art in her little gallery. The movie was very modern for its time, a move away from big orchestras and Stork Club settings. Kim Novak, as well as Elsa Lancaster and Jack Lemmon, make very convincing beatniks, their eccentricities hiding behind a bohemian lifestyle. All the witches can practice magic, so long as they suppress certain human - and perhaps more feminine - emotions.
The heart of the plot is the love affair between Kim Novak and James Stewart. It is the exact opposite of 'Vertigo'; she sees him, seduces with her magic powers, turns his fiancé's life into a nightmare, and seems to win the day. It is only when he discovers, through publishing a book written by Ernie Kovacs with the (disapproved of by the other witches) help of Jack Lemmon, that modern day magic does exist, that clouds form on the horizon.. There's a lot going on here, layers of meaning, complexity of emotions.
This entire film wouldn't work without Kim Novak. She is the hip young woman, listening to cool jazz, buying and selling primitive art, living in a pad in the Village. Her slight removal makes her seem not-of-this-world; she makes a bitchin' witch. This movie catches her at the absolute height of her sexual allure; she had plenty to spare.
If I seem to be playing coy with the facts I am. I sincerely hope that the reader will search this little gem of a movie out. It was very influential; 'Bewitched' didn't hide the fact that it ripped off this plot, running for multiple seasons on television throughout the 1960s. Check out this one instead, a surprisingly sophisticated entertainment with genuine plot twists and a very touching ending.
Kim Novak and Richard Quine had a long term relationship during this period. they made two more movies together, including the excellent 'Notorious Landlady', reunited with Jack Lemmon. During 'Strangers When We Meet', about an architect building a house for his mistress while he was secretly planning to leave his wife, Quine was doing the very same thing. The actual house was the house he was building for Kim, and he did divorce his wife that year. Unfortunately, the couple broke up, Kim never moving in to his dream home.
Quine's career stalled, with only 'How To Murder Your Wife', a fantastic if misogynistic comedy also starring Jack Lemmon, showing his fabulous talent in romantic comedy. Relegated to mostly television work in the 1970s, Richard Quine committed suicide in 1989. A pity; he had a string of excellent comedies lasting ten years.
The greatest mystery to me about my favorite Halloween movie of all time can never be answered. Despite being the perfect film for the spookiest day of the year, a film about magic living on around us while we remain unaware, Columbia decided that it would be their big Christmas release that year. It did well in the box office, but what were they thinking? Christmas? Really?
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