Novak is a witch who casts a spell on a book publisher (Stewart) to make him fall in love with her. He is most unhappy when he finds out what happened.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: UN
Release Date: 28-MAR-2000
Media Type: DVDStaid, secure publisher James Stewart leads a quiet life until he meets his bewitching downstairs neighbor, Kim Novak. John Van Druten’s lighthearted Broadway comedy becomes a lush if lightweight romantic vehicle for Stewart and Novak, who would reunite for Hitchcock’s Vertigo the next year. Novak is at her best as a Greenwich witch halfway between the worlds of magic and mortals, looking after her dotty aunt (Elsa Lanchester) and mischievous warlock brother (Jack Lemmon) as they keep their skills in practice. Novak’s specialty is making men fall for her, but it’s a one-way street: when a witch falls in love, she loses her powers. Director Richard Quine gives the witches an almost beatnik sensibility, a real Greenwich Village subculture hanging out in underground clubs and smart curio shops. Elegantly photographed in rich, glowing colors by James Wong Howe, Bell, Book and Candle is a fantasy world in New York set to a funky bongo-laced jazz score by George Duning. Quine’s gliding camera is somewhat marred by abrupt editing, but his handling of actors is superb, in particular Novak, whose mysterious beauty masks inner turmoil and romantic yearnings. Ernie Kovacs appears as a wry author whose specialty is the supernatural, and Hermione Gingold is suitably florid as a witch elder with a penchant for theatricality. For once in his life Stewart is actually upstaged by the slyly comic performances around him. –Sean Axmaker
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March 6, 2010
#1
This was a really bad movie. Jimmy Stewart made many great, classic films, but this wasn’t one of them. He and Jack Lemon and the other cast members gave nice performances, but even their considerable talents couldn’t uplift this movie. The movie gives you no reason to suspend your disbelief over the plot. Likewise, it gives you no reason to like or even care about most of the characters. You don’t dislike them so much as you just don’t care. The end of the movie is better than the rest of it, but it doesn’t make up for the time you waste watching the film. There is a very good reason why this movie, which foreshadows in many ways the neo-pagan counter-culture of the 60′s, is little known — it is very bad!
March 6, 2010
#2
I dislike saying anything negative about a Jimmy Stewart movie, but…
This was one of the worst written, poorly edited, and badly acted movies I’ve seen in a long time. The story was choppy, incomplete and unbelievable (even for a movie about witches and warlocks!). It was so painful to watch that I stopped it less than 1/2 way through and came back to it the next day, hoping that a good night sleep would make it more palatable. It didn’t.
March 6, 2010
#3
This was a vehicle on Broadway for Rex Harrison & Lili Palmer. Rex could read the label on an aspirin bottle & make it hilarious. Jimmy Stewart’s a bit more humor-deprived. This movie is so 1950s Hollywood stiff & stuffy, the number of 4 & 5 star reviews here only prove how much we’ve regressed to that sad repressed era.
Can’t believe the guy who thinks Chuck Jones copped Daffy Duck’s mannerisms from Jack Lemmon. Jeez, man, get a life. Daffy’s been around since the 1930s, OK?
March 7, 2010
#4
To start off, I’m a huge Jack Lemmon fan. So far, have seen 21 of the roughly 60 films he has been in. He was the reason why I watched this movie. That was mistake one. Jack Lemmon really isn’t in this film that much. He is here and there and doesn’t add much to the chemistry (who does in this movie?) and is wasted talent.
The movie itself has a decent idea behind it, but really does betray itself in the end. I’d rather not go into details and spoil the plot, but as I noted, the end of the movie was intellectually unsatisfying.
The movie isn’t really funny, isn’t really dramatic, isn’t really anything, but boring and pandering. Ultimately, there is too much star power in this movie to be this bad a movie. A waste of time.
March 7, 2010
#5
While watching, try substituting the word “gay” for “witch” and you’ll wonder if maybe the script was written by some clever queen who was just ROTFL after typing each line. “They” hang out in Greenwich Village. Jack Lemmon, uh, queries ; ) expert Ernie Kovaks: “Can you spot one by what they look like?” Kim Novak is going to “try to give it up and get married.” (Possibly by always wearing Technicolor Red to avoid green on Thursdays– a dead give-away according to experts during that era.) What a hoot!