Bell, Book and Candle

Kim Novak as Gillian

In the late 1950s, during the Christmas holiday season, Greenwich Village witch Gillian Holroyd, a free spirit with a penchant for going barefoot, is bored, a little depressed and dissatisfied with her routine life. Gillian seems to be curious about her new neighbor, a publisher named Shep Henderson, who lives above her rare African art store and ground floor apartment. When Shep arrives home and unlocks his door, he discovers Gillian's aunt, Queenie, in his living room rummaging through his desk. Queenie lives in the building and is also curious about the recently moved-in neighbor and studies his belongings to know more about him. She explains her intrusion by telling Shep that she came in to shut a window he left open because it was snowing outside. Perplexed how she got inside and annoyed to find Queenie in his apartment, he becomes terse with her and tells her he needs to make personal phone calls, strongly hinting for her to leave. Annoyed with his rudeness, Queenie puts a hex on the telephone and leaves the apartment. When Shep lifts the handset to make a call, he hears garbled voices on the other end. It becomes clear that Queenie possesses magical powers. Consequently, Shep shows up at Gillian's store and asks her if he could use her phone to report the troubled line.

That night at The Zodiac Club, Gillian, Queenie, and Gillian's warlock bongo-playing brother Nicky meet Shep and his fiancé Merle Kittridge who both drop in. Gillian recognizes Merle as an old college enemy of hers and torments her with encircling trumpet players. She learns that Shep is planning to marry her the next day so later that night back at her apartment, when Shep drops in by himself on his way home, Gillian takes revenge by using her Siamese cat and familiar, Pyewacket, to cast a love spell on Shep, who becomes immediately enamoured with Gillian. She will use him more as a pseudo boyfriend and close companion, as witches, according to the film's plot, cannot (or unusually rarely) fall in love.

Shep then is compelled the next morning, after staying up all night talking and canoodling Gillian out on the town, to visit Merle at her apartment to break up suddenly with her on the day of the marriage. She is left confused and astonished, with him saying that he doesn't love her anymore.

Sidney Redlitch, the author of the best-selling book Magic in Mexico, arrives in Shep's office (thanks to a little magic) after Gillian discovers Shep's interest in meeting him and publishing his next book. Redlitch is researching a book on witches in New York, and unknown to Gillian he acquires an "inside" collaborator in Gillian's brother Nicky when Nicky offers his inside knowledge on witches in exchange for a portion of the proceeds.

Gillian eventually realises that with Shep's total obsession for her and proposal of marriage, she must make a choice, as, in the film's plotline, witches who fall in love lose their supernatural powers. She discovers her brother is collaborating on the witches book and is furious, feeling that Shep (the publisher) will find out about her and her family through the book and will realise that his love was only the result of her spell.

Gillian uses her magic to make Shep lose all interest in publishing Nicky and Redlitch's book, making his reading of it a drudgery, him thinking the whole story is ridiculous and hopeless as a commercial proposition. Gillian comes to Shep's office and confesses her identity as a witch to Shep, feeling she needs to be honest with him. Still in love with her, he simply doesn't believe her story, but in a chance encounter on the street outside his apartment later with Queenie, she inadvertently confirms the version of events and Shep becomes angry, believing Gillian enchanted him just to spite Merle. Shep confronts Gillian and the two quarrel, with Shep leaving her heartbroken after he has confirmation that his infatuation was indeed a spell. Gillian threatens to cast various spells on Merle, such as making her fall in love with the first man who walks into her apartment plus give her uncontrollable compulsions to travel all over the world. Pyewacket however refuses to be involved in Gillian's attempts to cast a spell on Merle and runs away.

Meanwhile, Shep, through the recommendation of Nicky, turns to another witch, Bianca De Pass, who can break the original spell by making a horrid looking and smelling potion in her ramshackle house and making him drink it whilst he is verbally taunted by her giant parrot. He does so in the hopes he can get back to his previous existence. He then visits Merle to explain that Gillian is a witch and his behaviour has been the result of her spell. Merle does not believe him and is not interested in any further friendship with him. He thinks Gillian may have cast a curse on Merle and warns her, unaware that Pyewacket ran away and no curse was cast.

Months later, with Gillian moping and realising that she had indeed fallen in love with Shep for real, she is too proud to confront him. Pyewacket turns up at Shep's office, climbing through his open window to find him too in an irritable mood, also unhappy about his life in general. Capturing Pyewacket in his wastepaper basket, he returns him to Gillian's store and discovers she has lost her magic powers because she can now cry (witches apparently cannot cry unless they are in love and have lost their powers). We learn that Pyewacket is now Queenie's cat and it's implied she must have sent Pyewacket to Shep's office to help resolve the love-struck pair's situation. When Shep realizes Gillian's love is true, he too realizes he loves her for real and the two reconcile.

David O. Selznick purchased the rights to Van Druten's play in 1953,[lower-alpha 1] planning to cast his wife, Jennifer Jones, in the part of Gil. At the urging of Daniel Taradash and Julian Blaustein,[4][5] Columbia purchased the property from Selznick in 1956.[6]

Taradash, who had adapted From Here to Eternity (1953) for Columbia with great success, augmented the story slightly by incorporating characters who are only names in the play (notably Mrs. De Pass, and Shep's fiancée Merle) and expanding the action to locations beyond Gil's apartment.[7]

For the lead roles, Taradash and Blaustein hoped to get Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer, who had starred in the play, but Columbia chief Harry Cohn decided on Kim Novak for the female lead.[8] Novak was on loan to Paramount making Vertigo and the scheduling conflict put Harrison out of consideration as well.[4] Taradash and Blaustein also suggested Cary Grant and Grace Kelly as the leads and Alexander Mackendrick to direct; Kelly got married, however, and there were creative differences between the studio and both Grant and Mackendrick.[4] Since the arrangement with Paramount for Novak's appearance in Vertigo included reciprocity, Cohn advanced James Stewart for the role of Shep.[5] Bell, Book and Candle is generally recognized as Stewart's final romantic leading role.[9]

Early in 1957, producers also launched a somewhat promotional search for Siamese cats to play Pyewacket.[10] According to one release, as many as 12 cats were needed to perform the number of stunts in the film.[11]

Production began on February 3, 1958, and was completed on April 7.[12]

The film was released on DVD on March 28, 2000. The DVD includes vintage advertising, talent files and the original theatrical trailer. It also includes audio and subtitle tracks for English and Spanish, bonus trailers, the open matte full-frame theatrical cut and a matted widescreen-only extended cut with four minutes of footage not seen in theaters.[17] The theatrical cut of the film (102 minutes) is included on the DVD along with the extended version, which is 106 minutes long.

Bell, Book and Candle was considered a "blockbuster" by Columbia and prior to its release it was promoted accordingly.[18] Novak appeared with Pyewacket on the November 25 cover of Life, along with a write-up that highlighted a tie-in with Life photographer Eliot Elisofon who was the color consultant on the film.[19] There were favorable write-ups in other major magazines and a production number on The Steve Allen Show featured the theme music.[20][lower-alpha 3]

On November 11, 1958, the movie made its world premiere in Los Angeles at the Warner Beverly Theatre. It played an exclusive engagement there until its New York premiere on December 25.[22]

Alicia Keys (pictured in 2013) was scheduled to star in a Disney remake of Bell, Book and Candle.

Bewitched creator Sol Saks admitted that he drew on Bell as well as the earlier witch-themed I Married a Witch (1942).[24][25] Screenwriter Paul Wayne said: "He was pretty honest about the fact it wasn't a particularly original idea."[25]

In 1976, Bell, Book and Candle was pitched as a television sitcom fantasy series.[15] A 30-minute pilot episode, starring Yvette Mimieux and Michael Murphy, aired on NBC on September 8, 1976.[15][26] The supporting cast included: Doris Roberts (Aunt Enid), John Pleshette (Nicky Holroyd), Bridget Hanley (Lois), Susan Sullivan (Rosemary), Edward Andrews (Bishop Fairbarn), and Dori Whitaker (Melissa). The pilot was directed by Hy Averback and written by Richard DeRoy. Bruce Lansbury was the executive producer.[26] The show was not picked up.[15]

In 2006, The Walt Disney Company planned a remake of the film, with Alicia Keys scheduled to play Gillian Holroyd.[27] The deal was organized by Disney studio executives Dick Cook and Nina Jacobson. Keys was going to produce it with her manager Jeff Robinson as the first project for their company Big Pita, Little Pita; Keys would have also been the musical supervisor and organized the soundtrack. Robinson had chosen Keys for the remake after watching the original film; she agreed to the project to avoid "from falling into predictable roles". She explained: “I never wanted to play myself, not in the first role or even the second. I want to do the unexpected.”[28] Keys said that the remake would be more "contemporary" and "really delve into the characters more".[29] According to Kurt Loder of Rotten Tomatoes, the remake was never made and Keys dropped out of the role.[30]

Informational notes

Citations

• Bell Book and Candle at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Bell, Book and Candle on IMDb
• Bell, Book and Candle at the TCM Movie Database
• Bell, Book and Candle at AllMovie
• Bell, Book and Candle at Rotten Tomatoes