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BELL_BOOK_RENEWED
November 29, 2022
December 12, 2022
June 12, 2023
With a showing of "Bell, Book and Candle" coming up
at the New Parkway Theater, I began to think about BELL_BOOK_AND_CANDLE
what I might say about it by way of introduction:
"Bell Book and Candle" was a big budget,
A picture featuring the stars of 'Vertigo'
(released only 6 months before): Jimmy Stewart
and Kim Novak, with the additon of an excellent In effect, this was a
collection of supporting actors: Jack Lemon, package deal between
Elsa Lancaster and the incomparable Ernie studios, Novak was loaned
Kovacs, a master of dead-pan, absurdist humor to do "Vertigo" only if
from the early years of Television. Stewart would do "Bell,
Book and Candle".
This is essentially a supernatural romantic
comedy, and while it's by no means the first, (Thus spake
it's an early and influential one (from these wikipedia.)
roots spring the television show "Bewitched").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_(film)
This is also a good movie about New York at
Christmas time, with some snowy views from the
Flat Iron Building, and a glimpse of the 59th
Street bridge, and while the Greenwich Village
streets are all sets they capture the mood of the
Village reasonably well-- though with nowhere The 59th Street
near enough parked cars cluttering the curbside. Bridge provides some
characterization by
The view of Greenwich Village bohemia that we see geography: it's the
here is more than a little dated for a movie that upper-east side, vs
came out in 1958, (inevitably so, it was based on the Village.
a broadway show from 1950). Many elements we see
on screen are echoes of things dating back to the
pre-WWI era: the Zodiac club with a doorman
engaging in dress-up play-acting. Anna Alice
Chapin wrote about this scene in her 1917 book, a ACT_ONE
time when a big hit was the theme cafe/restaurant
"The Pirate's Den".
Many aspects of the Village are just hinted at,
leaving glaring absences, spaces intentionally
left blank because they had to be in a movie of
this era.
This was a year after Kerouac's "On the Road" was
published, two years after Ginsberg's "Howl" (and a
year before the Dobbie Gillis show on televison): BEAT
there was a rapidly developing beatnik stereotype
out there, but while bongo drums are front and
center in this movie the Greenwich Village of the
beats is not to be found.
The actual Greenwich Village was home to the first
integrated night club in the city, but while you'll
see african art and Jazz bands in this movie, you'll
have to look hard to spot any black people.
There was a queer underground in the
Village-- which later bubbled over with the
Stonewall riot in 1969, the beginning of
Gay Liberation-- but you'll see none of
this here... though there is a reference to The Kinsey Report: 1948.
the Kinsey Report, a study of human Two years before the play.
sexuality that showed people there was more
going on in the world than dreamt of in the The joke that Kinsey might've
Saturday Evening Post. been fed a line by the locals
is appreciated. He interviewed
And here, we have a heroine that's the likes of Herbert Hunke.
independent, educated, elegant and
mysterious, trapped in a plot that BEAT
charges toward a return to normality
and the most unhappy happy ending in
the history of the movies.
Fundamentally this is a movie
about the weird vs the
straights, a duel between bongo
drums and christmas carols, The person who actually did
where anything you might think do the intro at the New
of as characterizing a bohemian Parkway sees "Bell, Book and
underground whether art, Candle" as a prime example
politics, sexuality or drugs-- of "queer coded cinema":
has all been condensed down
into one symbol: witchcraft, The author, Joseph Van
magic. Druten, was gay, and this was
arguably a way for him to
This has the effect of freeing us write about the closeted
from the details and focusing in underground of the late-40s.
on the essence of this division--
this is a story about normality Myself, I think
vs. difference in raw form where the very fact that
you can see what you like it's coded allows
underneath the surface... it to be decoded
in multiple ways.
Because you know...
"Who's to say
what magic is?"
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