Review of Bell, Book and Candle (1958) by Michael A — 19 Sep 2013

Witches have been a popular thing among Hollywood, most recently being the highly successful franchise that was Harry Potter. In the 1960's there was the memorable TV series Bewitched, about a witch who falls in love with a regular human being. The film that likely led to that show is the film I'm about to review, the romantic comedy Bell, Book, and Candle, starring Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, and Jack Lemmon. While it's an interesting concept, I feel that the film should have been a lot better.

Kim Novak plays Gillian Holroyd, a witch who hides her identity by owning an art gallery. She falls for publisher Sheperd Henderson (Jimmy Stewart), but it's considered wrong for a witch to fall for a mortal man. Gillian manages to make him love her by casting a spell on him and causing him to dump his fiancée (Janice Rule) in order for the romance to fully work. When Sheperd intends to publish a book about witches, the romance might go a bit too far.

The film also features Jack Lemmon as Novak's witch brother Nicky, Elsa "The Bride" Lanchester as Novak's witch aunt Queenie, Hermione Gingold as a witch mentor, and Ernie Kovacs as the writer who wants to make the witch book.

To begin, the casting is good. Kim Novak is clearly the true star of the show. Like in Vertigo, Novak is attractive, creepy in several moments, and is still very likable. Jimmy Stewart was decent in his role, unlike in Vertigo, I felt he was a little too old for the part. In the Broadway play it was based on, Rex Harrison did the role. He likely would have been more suitable in the film. Stewart wasn't bad, he just wasn't the amazing actor we all know him in (those roles go to films as Vertigo, Rear Window, Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith, etc.). Jack Lemmon, while the screen presence is good, fails to truly communicate in his humor, which is weird cause he perfected comedy in Some Like it Hot and The Great Race, but he was OK; he just wasn't truly funny here. Ernie Kovaks was memorable here as the writer. While only appearing briefly, Hermione Gingold was a scene stealer in all her scenes, and provided the funniest sequence where she tries to counteract the spell. Elsa Lanchester was fine as the aunt, though her witch laugh can be annoying. And before he played America's favorite barber, Howard McNear has a delightful cameo in the publishing company.

What lacked the most about the film is that it wasn't very funny. Lemmon got me laughing in a couple of places, but I wasn't truly entertained. Novak's cat Polywacket was the true scene stealer, and got me laughing the hardest, which is kind of disappointing for such a comic actor as Lemmon was. The romance wasn't the greatest either. While Stewart and Novak excelled in Vertigo, here, Stewart was, like I said earlier, a little too old for the role, and it was hard considering that Novak was half his age. I know I'm a little hypocritical cause some of the greatest screen romantic chemistries had older actors (Bogart and Bacall, Key Largo, Stewart and Grace Kelly, Rear Window, and John Wayne and Angie Dickenson, Rio Bravo, just to name a few), but the age difference here just didn't connect for me. Stewart realized that mistake after doing the film, which was why for the rest of his life, he mainly played married man roles. The romance was completely horrible, it's just that I thought the age difference was more noticed here than it was in Vertigo, which is even weirder cause both film were released in the same year a few months apart.

The score was another epic disappointment. While some of the moments were completely haunting, I wasn't fully immersed in the atmosphere, which was why Bernard Herrmann should have scored the film. I would have given it a higher score.

To put it short, Bell, Book, and Candle is a decent film about witches, and the premise was very interesting, but the film lacked its true potential, some of the comedy didn't fully connect, the score wasn't convincing, and Stewart and Novak's age difference in the romantic scenes were truly a creepy and cheesy distraction. It was an OK film, but it could have been a lot more entertaining, especially considering that the Bewitched show was more entertaining than this.