| Major Cast | |
|---|---|
| James Stewart | as Shepherd 'Shep' Henderson |
| Kim Novak | as Gillian 'Gil' Holroyd |
| Jack Lemmon | as Nicky Holroyd |
| Ernie Kovacs | as Sidney Redlitch |
| Hermione Gingold | as Bianca de Passe |
| Elsa Lanchester | as Aunt Queenie Holroyd |
| Janice Rule | as Merle Kittridge |
| Philippe Clay | as French Singer at the Zodiac Club |
| Bek Nelson | as Tina, Shep's Secretary |
| Howard McNear | as Andy White, Shep's partner |
| The Brothers Candoli | as Musicians at the Zodiac Club |
| MPAA Rating: | Unrated |
| Distributor: | Columbia Pictures |
| Production Company: | Julian Blaustein Productions Ltd. |
| Release Date (US): | 12/25/1958 |
| Domestic Box Office (Wikipedia): | $2,500,000 |
Gillian Holroyd has a shop selling African folk art on the ground floor of a Manhattan apartment building. An upstairs tenant is publisher Shep Henderson, engaged to marry Merle Kittredge the following day, Christmas Day. But Gillian has taken a shine to Shep, and when she meets Merle at the Zodiac Club, she realizes she and Merle were college classmates — a relationship that ended badly for Merle, with some justification. Thus motivated, Gillian resolves to take Shep for herself. This she accomplishes by magic with the help of her familiar, a Siamese cat named Pyewacket. Gillian, you see, is a witch: one of the more accomplished witches living in Manhattan.
One of the first things she accomplishes in the film is to hex Sidney Redlitch, author of Magic in Mexico, drawing him up from that country. He appears in Shep's office and announces he has another book in the works: Magic in Manhattan. Witches, he asserts, are all over the city; they even have their own clubs — like the Zodiac. He can recognize them on sight, he maintains. When Shep arranges for him to meet Gillian (still unaware himself of her true nature), her brother Nicky and her aunt Queenie, Sidney stands revealed as a charlatan.
But he could still expose the three. Gillian directs Nicky to misdirect Sidney. Instead, eager for a piece of the publishing contract, he clues Sidney in about everything. Gillian is angry to learn of this, and a feud ignites. In rebellious fury she promises to marry Shep. This is a no-no for witches; they lose their power if they fall in love — a change signified by gaining the ability to blush and cry. Later she abandons her cover and tries to explain the truth to Shep, but he does not believe her. Until, that is, she demonstrates her power over him once more. Then, shaken to the core, he seeks another witch recommended by Nicky in hopes of breaking Gillian's spell.
Meanwhile, Gillian has her own troubles. She essays to cast a spell on Merle, but Pyewacket runs away. He turns up at Shep's upper-floor office, and Shep brings him back. But it is too late; the bond is broken, as Gillian's power has broken. Her immunity to love, it appears, is not so ironclad as she had been taught to believe. Love's cost, however, is exactly what she was told. In the final, tender scene she and Shep reunite, bonded by human tears.
It lies in the eyes.
Bell, Book and Candle is a passable romantic comedy. Jimmy Stewart was a very competent and reliable actor, and here he does a good job as the successful publisher suddenly out of his depth. But the star of this film is Kim Novak, deftly portraying the seductress isolated from true humanity by her powers then humbled when those powers depart. The supporting cast do a fair job of providing the comedic aspects of the tale, but to me they often seem to distract from rather than contribute to the ensemble.
Critics felt that Jimmy Stewart, 50 at the time, was miscast in this role as a suave New York businessman, and he reportedly agreed.1 It was the last time Stewart played a romantic lead. After this film he would concentrate more on roles that portrayed him as an everyman or as a father figure.
The film reprises a Broadway play that opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on November 14, 1950 and closed on June 2, 1951 after 233 performances. The opening-night cast consisted of Rex Harrison as Shepherd Henderson, Lilli Palmer as Gillian Holroyd, Jean Adair as Miss Queeny Holroyd, Larry Gates as Sidney Redlitch and Scott McKay as Nicky Holroyd. There were no other characters in the play.
The title "Bell, Book and Candle" is a reference to excommunication, which is performed with a bell, a book, and a candle. The ritual opens with "Ring the bell, open the book, light the candle," and closes with "Ring the bell, close the book, quench the candle."
Gillian's cat is named Pyewacket. This name has become a popular one for cats because of this movie, but few know its origin: Pyewacket was one of the familiar spirits of a witch detected by the "witchfinder general" Matthew Hopkins in March 1644 in the town of Maningtree, Essex, UK. He 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. Arrested and deprived of sleep for four nights, she confessed and named her familiars, describing their forms. For the film, Pyewacket was really Kim Novak's pet cat with the same name.
My Rating:
6 out of 10
Capsule review: Engaging performances by the two leads, especially by Kim Novak, make this worth watching. You'll find a good deal of humor in it, but don't expect a truly memorable film.
| IMDB Rating: 6.9 | Raters: 7,072 |
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