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BELL_BOOK_AND_CANDLE

                                             June 16, 2022
                                             July 30, 2022


"Bell, Book and Candle" (1958) is a movie I've
always liked quite a bit, for many and various
reasons.

There's a common pattern in old Hollywood
movies where at the close of the story, the main
characters sigh happily at the thought of their
adventures being over, and they settle down to be
normal and boring.

        There are remarkably
        few exceptions to this.

           In another favorite of
           mine, "To Have and Have
           Not" (1944), (the first
           Bogart and Bacall movie)    This is distinctly unlike the
           the ending has the male     close of "Casablanca" (1942) from
           and female leads both       two years before, where the real
           going off together to       men go off to fight and Ingrid
           continue the fight.         Bergman is consigned to doing
                                       support work for the diplomat.


    At first "Bell Book and Candle" looks
    like a movie that is going to finish in
    the usual manner: the powerful witch        She also stops dressing
    (Kim Novak) breaks the rules and falls      in black, and stops
    in love and hence loses her powers...       dealing in African art,
                                                switching to running a
                                                sea shell shop.

                                                    GOTH_TRANSFORM
        This stuff would give anyone even
        lightly touched by feminism some pause.

        This premise of the movie has this built-in to
        the nature of the universe, it's simply a fact of
        nature that it's time for Rosie to park that
        riveting gun and get back in the kitchen.
              
           But just when you're confronted with a    
           sinking feeling at this happy-happy    
           ending ("Who's to say what magic is?"),    
           the camera cuts away from the loving    
           couple, and out there in the night are    
           two recalcitrant witches-- one gestures     The two witches:
           dismissively and goes off in the night    
           casting spells as a prank (dimming the      Queenie (Elsa Lanchester)
           street lights)-- and the last word is       Nicky (Jack Lemmon)
           given to the Siamese Cat, the familiar 
           Pyewacket.                              
                                                       Pyewacket, I suspect,
                                                       was a composite, played
                                                       by multiple Siamese.
    The doors remain open,
    there are other strange
    modes of existence...
                                MAGIC

    Out in the wilds of
    Greenwich Village.


                    BELL_BOOK_AND_VILLAGE

                    BELL_BOOK_AND_GOTH





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