Gillian Holroyd is the owner of a rare ethnological art store in Greenwich Village, New York City, and secretly a witch. Bored with her routine life, she takes an interest in her new neighbor, publisher Shep Henderson. On Christmas Eve, Shep arrives home to discover Gillian's aunt, Queenie, inside his apartment. Offended at being ushered out, Queenie – also a witch – casts a hex on Shep's telephone. He visits Gillian to use her phone, and they discuss the best-selling book Magic in Mexico and his desire to meet the author, Sidney Redlitch. As Shep leaves, Queenie invites them both to the Zodiac Club. Having perused his letters, Queenie reports that Shep is engaged, but encourages Gillian to use her magic to pursue him anyway.
That night, Shep brings his fiancée Merle Kittridge to the Zodiac Club, meeting Gillian, Queenie and Gillian's brother Nicky, a bongo drum-playing warlock. Recognizing Merle as an old college enemy, Gillian torments her with the club band until Merle flees, followed by Shep. Returning to Gillian's apartment, the Holroyds exchange Christmas gifts; Nicky gives Gillian an enchanted liquid, with which they attempt to summon Redlitch. Queenie and Nicky depart when Shep arrives, and he reveals that he and Merle are eloping later that day. Gillian uses her Siamese cat and familiar, Pyewacket, to cast a love spell on Shep, who becomes immediately enamored of her.
After spending all night out on the town with Gillian, the infatuated Shep breaks up with Merle. Redlitch arrives at Shep's office, having been magically compelled to meet him, and explains that he is researching witches in New York City for his next book. The oblivious Shep introduces him to the Holroyds, and Nicky later reveals his powers to Redlitch, offering him access to the witch community in exchange for half the book's profits. Revelling in her romance with Shep, Gillian is torn when he proposes to her; although witches lose their magic if they fall in love, she agrees to marry him.
Gillian and Nicky quarrel about his exposing their world to Redlitch, and about her preparing to renounce magic and marry Shep. Using her powers to make Shep lose all interest in publishing Nicky and Redlitch's book, Gillian confesses that she is a witch and their relationship is the result of her spell. Shep refuses to believe her, but runs into Queenie, who confirms Gillian's version of events. Believing she enchanted him purely to spite Merle, Shep leaves Gillian heartbroken. He goes to Nicky, who brings him to Bianca De Pass, a very powerful witch, who brews a potion for him to drink, breaking Gillian's spell over him.
Shep confronts Gillian and cruelly presents her with a broom. She threatens to curse Merle, but Pyewacket runs away, and Shep is unable to convince Merle that he was bewitched. Queenie finds Pyewacket, but the cat rejects Gillian, who is now able to cry – proof she has fallen in love and is no longer a witch. Weeks later, Mrs. De Pass has become Redlitch's new collaborator, and Queenie confides to Nicky that she is worried about Gillian. Pyewacket is sent to Shep's office, and he returns the cat to Gillian at her transformed store. She explains that Pyewacket is no longer her cat; Shep realizes from Gillian's tears that she truly loves him, and they reconcile with a passionate kiss. Watching through the window, Queenie is delighted and Nicky is disgusted. Suddenly the streetlights all shut off and the culprit is revealed — Pyewacket, sitting atop a street lamp.
David O. Selznick purchased the rights to Van Druten's play in 1953,[lower-alpha 1] planning to cast his wife, Jennifer Jones, in the part of Gil. At the urging of Daniel Taradash and Julian Blaustein,[3][4]Columbia purchased the property from Selznick in 1956.[5]
Taradash, who had adapted From Here to Eternity (1953) for Columbia with great success, augmented the story slightly by incorporating characters who are only names in the play (notably Mrs. De Pass, and Shep's fiancée Merle) and expanding the action to locations beyond Gil's apartment.[6]
For the lead roles, Taradash and Blaustein hoped to get Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer, who had starred in the play, but Columbia chief Harry Cohn decided on Kim Novak for the female lead.[7] Novak was on loan to Paramount making Vertigo and the scheduling conflict put Harrison out of consideration as well.[3] Taradash and Blaustein also suggested Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as the leads and Alexander Mackendrick to direct; Kelly got married and ended her career at its height, however, and there were creative differences between the studio and both Grant and Mackendrick.[3] Since the arrangement with Paramount for Novak's appearance in Vertigo included reciprocity, Cohn advanced James Stewart for the role of Shep.[4]Bell, Book and Candle is generally recognized as Stewart's final romantic leading role.[8]
Early in 1957, producers also launched a somewhat promotional search for Siamese cats to play Pyewacket.[9] According to one release, as many as 12 cats were needed to perform the number of stunts in the film.[10] The primary cat used for the role in close-ups was owned by animal trainer Frank Inn, who reportedly gave the cat to Novak when he saw she'd formed a close bond with him. Pyewacket's name was derived from testimony given in a 17th-century witch trial in England, and referred to a witch's familiar.
Production began on February 3, 1958, and was completed on April 7.[11]
Music
The film was scored by George Duning, another Columbia veteran who earned praise for his work on From Here to Eternity. The main theme melds bongos and violins, evoking elements of the plot;[12] heard during the opening credits, a few staves of "Jingle Bells" are incorporated to set the Christmas tone of the initial action. Each witch, including Pyewacket the cat, is identified by a musical signature. Duning used creative means such as recording sounds and replaying them at high speed to achieve an eerie background effect for the score.[12]
The soundtrack was released in January 1959 by Colpix (CT-506).[13][lower-alpha 2] Most of the recording took place in Munich with Duning conducting the Graunke Symphony Orchestra. The segments featuring the Brothers Candoli, who appear in the film playing at the Zodiac Club, were recorded in Hollywood at Columbia; on these tracks, John Williams can be heard on piano.[15]
Philippe Clay makes a cameo appearance in the film performing "Le Noyé Assassiné" at the Zodiac Club, but this performance is not included on the soundtrack album. However, Harkit Records in England (harkitrecords.com) have reissued the soundtrack album as HRKCD 8099 which does include the Phillippe Clay track.
Home media
The film was released on DVD on March 28, 2000. The DVD includes vintage advertising, talent files and the original theatrical trailer. It also includes audio and subtitle tracks for English and Spanish, bonus trailers, the open matte full-frame and anamorphic widescreen (102 min.) theatrical cut.[16] It was released on blu-ray for the first time as a limited edition of 3000 copies by Twilight Time with an audio track featuring an isolated score on April 10, 2012. Bonus features include the trailer in HD as well as two SD retrospectives by Kim Novak.[17] It was released again on blu-ray by Sony on January 28, 2020 without the isolated score audio track from the previous release. It does carry over the other features from the previous release while also adding another retrospective from Novak, all presented in HD.[18]
Release and reception
Bell, Book and Candle was considered a "blockbuster" by Columbia and prior to its release it was promoted accordingly.[19] Novak appeared with Pyewacket on the November 24 cover of Life, along with a write-up that highlighted a tie-in with Life photographer Eliot Elisofon who was the color consultant on the film.[20] There were favorable write-ups in other major magazines and a production number on The Steve Allen Show featured the theme music.[21][lower-alpha 3]
On November 11, 1958, the film made its world premiere in Los Angeles at the Warner Beverly Theatre. It played an exclusive engagement there until its New York premiere on December 25.[23]
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times found the premise "silly and banal" and the screenplay lacking in "any consistent witchery or bounce," but he praised the movie's camera work, set design, and use of color as "sleek and pictorially entrancing."[24]
Bewitched creator Sol Saks admitted that he drew on Bell as well as the earlier witch-themed I Married a Witch (1942).[26][27] Screenwriter Paul Wayne said: "He was pretty honest about the fact it wasn't a particularly original idea."[27]
In 2006, The Walt Disney Company planned a remake of the film, with Alicia Keys scheduled to play Gillian Holroyd.[29] The deal was organized by Disney studio executives Dick Cook and Nina Jacobson. Keys was going to produce it with her manager Jeff Robinson as the first project for their company Big Pita, Little Pita; Keys would have also been the musical supervisor and organized the soundtrack. Robinson had chosen Keys for the remake after watching the original film; she agreed to the project to avoid "from falling into predictable roles". She explained: "I never wanted to play myself, not in the first role or even the second. I want to do the unexpected."[30] Keys said that the remake would be more "contemporary" and "really delve into the characters more".[31] According to Kurt Loder of Rotten Tomatoes, the remake was never made and Keys dropped out of the role.[32]
Vertigo is a 1958 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson, who has retired because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia accompanied by vertigo, a false sense of rotational movement. Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife, Madeleine, who is behaving strangely.
Picnic is a 1955 American Technicolor romantic comedy-drama film filmed in CinemaScope. It was adapted for the screen by Daniel Taradash from William Inge's 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. Joshua Logan, director of the original Broadway stage production, directed the film version, which stars William Holden, Kim Novak, and Rosalind Russell, with Susan Strasberg and Cliff Robertson in supporting roles. Picnic was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two.
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was a British actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.
Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak is an American retired film and television actress and painter. Her contributions to cinema have been honored with two Golden Globe Awards, an Honorary Golden Bear, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery was an American actress whose career spanned five decades in film, stage, and television. She portrayed the good witch Samantha Stephens on the popular television series Bewitched, which earned her five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations.
Bewitched is an American fantasy sitcom television series that originally aired for eight seasons on ABC from September 17, 1964, to March 25, 1972. It is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man and vows to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. The show was popular, finishing as the second-rated show in America during its debut season, staying in the top ten for its first three seasons, and ranking in eleventh place for both seasons four and five. The show continues to be seen throughout the world in syndication and on recorded media.
Richard Quine was an American director, actor, and singer.
Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric character. Her signature drawling, deep voice was a result of nodules on her vocal cords she developed in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Bewitched is a 2005 American fantasy romantic comedy film co-written, produced, and directed by Nora Ephron, and starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell alongside an ensemble cast featuring Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Jason Schwartzman, Kristin Chenoweth, Heather Burns, Jim Turner, Stephen Colbert, David Alan Grier, Michael Badalucco, Carole Shelley, and Steve Carell. The film follows an actor (Ferrell) who discovers, during the remake of Bewitched, that his co-star (Kidman) is an actual witch.
Pyewacket was one of the supposed familiar spirits of an alleged witch accused by the claimed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins in March 1644 in the town of Manningtree, Essex, England. Hopkins claimed he spied on the witches as they held their meeting close by his house, and heard them mention the name of a local woman. She was arrested and deprived of sleep for four nights, at the end of which she confessed and called out the names of her familiars, describing the forms in which they should appear. They were:
Häxan is a 1922 silent horror essay film written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Consisting partly of documentary-style storytelling as well as dramatized narrative sequences, the film purports to chart the historical roots and superstitions surrounding witchcraft, beginning in the Middle Ages through the 20th century. Based partly on Christensen's own study of the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century German guide for inquisitors, Häxan proposes that such witch-hunts may have stemmed from misunderstandings of mental or neurological disorders, triggering mass hysteria.
Maitland McDonagh is an American film critic, writer-editor and podcaster. She is the author of Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (1991) and other books and articles on horror and exploitation films, as well as about erotic fiction and erotic cinema. In 2022, McDonagh was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame. She is the founder of the small press 120 Days Books, which became an imprint of Riverdale Avenue Books.
Mary Janice Rule was an American actress and psychotherapist, earning her PhD while still acting, then acting occasionally while working in her new profession.
Jeanne Eagels is a 1957 American biographical film loosely based on the life of stage star Jeanne Eagels. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, the film was produced and directed by George Sidney from a screenplay by John Fante, Daniel Fuchs and Sonya Levien, based on a story by Fuchs.
Pal Joey is a 1957 American musical comedy film directed by George Sidney, loosely adapted from the Rodgers and Hart musical play of the same name, and starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak.
Daniel Taradash was an American screenwriter.
The Notorious Landlady is a 1962 American comedy mystery film starring Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, and Fred Astaire. The film was directed by Richard Quine, with a script by Blake Edwards and Larry Gelbart.
Storm Center is a 1956 American film noir drama directed by Daniel Taradash. The screenplay by Taradash and Elick Moll focuses on what were at the time two very controversial subjects—Communism and book banning—and took a strong stance against censorship. The film stars Bette Davis, and was the first overtly anti-McCarthyism film to be produced in Hollywood.
Bell, Book and Candle is a 1950 Broadway play by John Van Druten. The original production was directed by John Van Druten with scenic and lighting design by George C. Jenkins, costumes by Anna Hill Johnstone with additional costumes exclusively designed for actress Lilli Palmer by Valentina. The play opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on November 14, 1950 and ran for 233 performances before closing on June 2, 1951.
References
↑ "1959: Probable Domestic Take". Variety. January 6, 1960. p. 34.
↑ "Bell, Book and Candle". Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
↑ Thomas, Tony (1978). "Back cover". Bell, Book and Candle LP (Media notes). George Duning. Citadel Records. Retrieved September 14, 2015.[permanent dead link]
↑ For the Los Angeles premiere see "'Book' Opens Big". Motion Picture Daily. Vol.84, no.93. November 13, 1958. p.3. Retrieved September 14, 2015– via Internet Archive. For the New York premiere see "'Candle' Here Dec. 25". Motion Picture Daily. Vol.84, no.112. December 11, 1958. p.3. Retrieved September 14, 2015– via Internet Archive.
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