Witch way to a white christmas

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 7, 2002

It isn't on anybody's Top 10 list and it's hardly mentioned in biographies of its principal stars, but there's no better movie to watch during the holidays than Bell, Book and Candle (Columbia Tristar Home Video, $19.95). A romantic comedy about a beautiful witch who falls in love with a book publisher -- publishers were vaguely glamorous in the 1950s -- the film stars Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. It is set in snowy New York at a time when men wore hats, women wore heels and people socialized over martinis in smoky jazz clubs that always seemed below street level.

Novak plays Gillian Holroyd, a witch in a rut who on Christmas Eve finds herself pining for someone different -- different, that is, from her wayward warlock brother Nicky (Jack Lemmon) and her dizzy Aunt Queenie (Elsa Lanchester). She never imagines she'll get her wish in the guise of Shep Henderson (Stewart), the publisher who has just moved into the apartment upstairs.

Trouble is, Shep is engaged to Merle Kittridge (Janice Rule) and, besides, he's hoping to begin work on a book by Sidney Rutlidge (Ernie Kovacs), the dipsomaniacal writer who cranks out spurious exposes on witchcraft. With the help of her familiar, Pyewacket (one of filmdom's most fabulous felines), Gillian casts a spell on Rutlidge, only to fall under the spell of Shep herself. The splendid cast also includes Hermione Gingold as Mrs. de Pass, the doyenne of the coven who must work her magic on Shep when he realizes that witches can't fall in love -- or can they?

Directed by Richard Quine, based on the play by John van Druten (the Broadway show featured Lilli Palmer and Rex Harrison), Bell, Book and Candle evokes a world that no longer exists -- witches and warlocks still abound, but New York in the fifties is long gone, along with its simpler charms and understated sophistication. That Bell, Book and Candle takes place during Christmas makes it a perfect present for the movie buff on your gift list and a healthy antidote for anyone suffering from Pottermania.