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John Van Druten's "Bell, Book and Candle" is a delightful and unexpected fantasy about a coven of modern-day witches living in New York City; it was obviously an attractive movie property. It had a stellar part for Gillian Holroyd, for her erstwhile book publisher enforced-sweetheart, Shepherd Henderson and her madcap family and circle, including Shep's bewildered fiancée, the hateful Merle Kittredge, against whose chances with Shep Gillian begins her magical spell-casting. It even had Pyewacket, a Siamese cat-familiar with well-timed miaows, Sidney Redlitch, a fake witch expert with atrocious pretensions and bad manners. In short, it seemed to its producer, perhaps, box-office magic. And so it proved to be. So many things were right about its production, it only had one element not perfect; but I found the rest to be amusing, charming and very consistently-entertaining. To begin with, the screenplay by Daniel Taradash kept the best qualities of the fine theatrical play but opened out its scenes to include Greenwich Village and other areas of New York's scene. The technical production was beautiful, with cinematography by the legendary James Wong Howe, a fine score by George Duning, more-than-clever sets by Louis Diage and gowns by Jean Louis. In the attractive cast were Wolfe Barzell, Howard McNear, Janice Rule as Merle, Ernie Kovacs as Redlitch, Jack Lemmon as Gillia's mischievous brother, wonderful comediennes Elsa Lanchester and Hermione Gingold as fellow witches and lovely Kim Novak in one of her most touching parts as Gillian. Jimmy Stewart was the imperfect element in my judgment; he did well with the comedic portions of his part, but he was never convincing as a New York book publisher, and a bit too-old for the part of Henderson anyhow. But director Richard Quine used subtle lighting, pace changes, and unusually-composed shots to indicate the oddness of the witch portions of the film, keeping the other portions very luminous but straightforward in their presentation. The plot's main crisis in the film comes to pass when in reality Gillian falls for Henderson, who does not believe in witches at all. She started out merely to alienate him from his fiancée, her stuck-up college rival. Later, when Henderson tries to walk out, he keeps coming back to her--and realizes he is under a spell, as she has apologetically tried to explain to him. ..Meanwhile, Sidney Redlich has been summoned by witching spell to come to New York to sell his book to Henderson. Of course he knows nothing at all of magic, but is quite puzzled and interested to find out why he had come anywhere at all; but Gillian's brother enlightens him. All comes out right in the end in this romantic satire as Gillian proves her love to Henderson by losing her powers--which is what happens to witches when they truly love a mortal. Of course, he never really wanted to resist her anyhow. The film has sprightly dialogue, charm, and a little "magic" of its own in the fey charm of the witches and the torments Gillian must undergo in her battle with herself, and to win the man she loves. A lovely ending to this beautifully-photographed and unusual romance makes its amazing realism, though a fantasy, just about complete in my view. Memorably delightful.


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