favorite movie #53: bell, book, and candle

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 ...

Novak poses with her familiar, Pyewacket

It's also an Xmas movie!

Kim Novak wears bewitching costumes by Jean Louis

it may be time to watch this movie again

Frederic March and Veronica Lake are adorable in I Married a Witch, the inspiration for one of my favorite childhood TV shows, Bewitched. It was based on a really funny and slightly racy novel, too, that my parents had, and that I read as a teen, called The Passionate Witch, by Thorne Smith. Apparently Smith, the author of Topper and The Night Life of the Gods, died before the novel was completed and it was finished by Norman H. Matson.

Veronica Lake

The book cover that caught my eye on my parents' bookshelf

grannie endora

When I was a kid my favorite television show was Bewitched. Mostly because I wanted to be as cute and hip as Samantha, and be able to twitch my nose and make magical things happen. But there was also something else about the show that I liked. Endora. She was the ultimate nosy mother-in-law, and the bane of Darrin (Derwood, Darwin)'s existence. But she also represented a different kind of grandmother image. And I needed that.

A disapproving Endora (Agnes Moorehead) considers her daughter Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery).

Endora loves her granddaughter Tabitha (Erin Moran).

My dad's mom, my Italian grandmother, was everything we are brought up to expect a grandmother should be. She was a great babysitter when my parents needed her, and an even greater cook. She may not have baked cookies, but she made amazing southern Italian dishes — from caponata to pasta and beyond. She also made delicious coffee cakes.

Grandma and me. She also made the dress I'm wearing.

Glamorous Gran'mere, on vacation in Hawaii.

But my mother's mother, "Gran'mere," as we were encouraged to call her, was a different kind of grandmother entirely. She was exotic and glamorous. She was a world traveler who we would only get to see when she made it to our neck of the woods in New Jersey. She was also very loving, much like the eccentric Endora was to little Tabitha on Bewitched. Could a grannie dress in such a fancy way and still be your grannie? Thanks to a pop culture sitcom, I felt that she could.

Neither Endora nor my Gran'mere Mariette ever baked any chocolate chip cookies that I know of. But I bet if either Tabitha or I wanted some, Endora would have produced them with an elegant wave of her hand, and my grandmother would have surely taken us out, dressed to the nines, for some delicious dessert.

i'm perfecting my nose twitch

It has been raining for days, and although the weatherman says that it should all blow over by tomorrow, I am willing to use any means necessary to see the sun shine again.

Bewitched, from for the loot, honey, for the loot

bewitched, bothered, and bewildered

Why are there so many Dunkin' Donuts in New England? It seems every corner has one—Starbucks syndrome!

We have been passing them by—not exactly avoiding them—and tonight decided that we would finally indulge—but after some Salem sightseeing—horrors! The D.D. was closed at 9 p.m.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow...

mom and pop (culture)

Mother's Day made me think about all the mom pop culture icons we have had through the years, mostly from television. I was too young for Mrs. Cleaver (and found the show a bore when I saw it on Nick at Nite) and too old for Claire Huxtable (and found her perfection a tad annoying.) When I think about the TV moms from my childhood, Samantha Stevens was the coolest. Mrs. Brady was cute, but what about Alice? Shirley Partridge was OK, but who was paying any attention to her, really, in that show? So a beautiful witch was my first pop icon role model. I'm still working on the nose twitch, but so far my magical solution to housework has been to hire a maid service every two weeks.



There is one TV mom I have always connected with, and seems to me both entertaining, and also realistic (if you ignore the last season or so.) Roseanne and her trademark mix of wisecracking and a fierce loyalty to her family is something I can connect to. Re-watching the Connors go through hard times would be especially resonant in today's tough financial climate. Roseanne always worked hard, sometimes at two jobs, and didn't have a Mrs. Trumbull to step in, like Lucy Ricardo. In fact, she was probably more Ethel to sister Jackie's Lucy. As a single mom who has to work hard in order to pay the bills and hopefully get in some playtime with her kid (which is no mean feat), I relate to her character's struggles. And cracking wise more often than not is another trait I share.



I'll never forget the episode when Roseanne takes older daughter Becky to the doctor to get birth control. She is completely freaking out inwardly, but manages to maintain her cool in front of her kid. Especially difficult for her personality type. I only hope I can manage the same.

Darlene: Hawks generally don't pass out on the couch after eating a quart of ice cream (after Roseanne has been "watching her like a hawk")

Roseanne: no matter what we do we're gonna screw our kids up! Let me have Darlene and you can have Becky.
Dan: what about D.J?
Roseanne: we'll flip for it

Roseanne: If I ever get off this sofa I will be unstoppable.

bewitched

"The internets" is an amazing place. I recently discovered through ancestry.com that one of my ancestors was one of the first women executed at what would come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, Sarah Averill Wildes. I wonder what my maternal grandmother would think. She did extensive family research many years ago to prove a connection to a Revolution-era ancestor in order to become a member of the Colonial Dames. But this bit of history goes back farther than that. Sarah, at age 65, was hanged on July 19, 1692.

I remember having to read something about the trials in English class and being pretty bored with all the"Goody this" and "Goody that" characters. It must have been The Crucible, unless it was another popular fictional account. As interesting as the subject matter was, the Salem witch trials came most alive for me in two fantasy shows from my childhood.

In a two- or three-part episode of Bewitched, Samantha goes back to Salem. I always loved that show and Elizabeth Montgomery, but especially liked how they took what had been a fun, fluffy, fantasy and special-effects show and combined it with some real history.
In one of my favorite episodes of The Avengers, "Murdersville," Mrs. Peel goes to visit a friend in his new home and runs into a village full of twisted, crooked individuals. In an extended scene she is hunted and then imprisoned in a chastity belt, and then later placed in the dunking stool, which is a torture device that was also used to ferret out "witches." What human beings will do to one another is astounding. And in the name of religion, too. This scene of public humiliation and torture to a modern, athletic, kick-ass woman brought the horror of how a crowd can be deadly and how a strong woman can be perceived as very threatening.

I have some more research to do, but various accounts of Sarah and her fate suggest that she may have been difficult to get along with, and her disputes with a neighbor woman over something as mundane as the borrowing of a scythe may have contributed to the accusation and her execution. It's difficult being a strong woman in any era, but terrifying to contemplate how a weak-minded herd could result in this sad chapter of history.