Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #53 - Bell, Book, and Candle (1958) - A middle-aged Jimmy Stewart may seem a strange choice for a romantic lead, but he was, like Cary Grant, still the go-to star for such films in the 1950s. For his two most romantic roles of this era his co-star and object of his affections was the lovely Kim Novak — in Vertigo and Bell, Book, and Candle, both released in 1958 — in May and November, respectively. While Vertigo is a mystery about obsessive, voyeuristic love told only the way Alfred Hitchcock could tell it, Bell, Book, and Candle is a light-hearted comedic romance about a witch who falls for her upstairs neighbor — it was one of the inspirations for the long-running television show Bewitched. Stewart and Novak have great chemistry here, as they did in their previous film. Jack Lemmon, Elsa Lanchester, Hermione Gingold, and Ernie Kovacs are all fun in supporting roles. One wonders if Jack Lemmon's trick with the street lamps of Greenwich Village might have inspired author J.K. Rowling almost forty years later ...
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| Novak poses with her familiar, Pyewacket |
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| It's also an Xmas movie! |
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| Kim Novak wears bewitching costumes by Jean Louis |
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