BELL BOOK AND CANDLE

Kim Novak with Pyewacket

BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (1958). Director: Richard Quine.

Shepherd Henderson (James Stewart) lives in Manhattan above an esoteric shop run by the beautiful Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak). Gillian is a witch, and she decides to use a potion to draw Shep away from his fiancee, Merle (Janice Rule), whom she knew in college and didn't like. Before you know it, Shep is breaking it off with Merle on the day of their marriage and declaring his love for Gillian, even though she believes witches can't feel true love. When Gillian's brother, Nicky (Jack Lemmon), learns the truth, he and author Sidney Redlitch (Ernie Kovacs) -- who is working on a book about witches with Nicky -- ask head witch Mrs de Passe (Hermione Gingold of Gigi) to intercede. Once the spell is removed, will Shep and Gillian discover that their feelings for one another are actually real?

Battling siblings: Novak and Lemmon

Based on a play by James Van Druten, Bell Book and Candle should be an exercise in charming whimsy, but instead it's a leaden bit of foolishness. There are intriguing elements to the picture -- including the notion that, like gay people (not to compare the two!), witches can hide in plain sight -- but the film never recovers from the fact that Gillian at times comes off like a psycho -- her revenge upon Merle while in college is definite overkill. The whole business with witches and warlocks being some kind of secret society isn't handled very well in any case. One would think the performances of the cast would help put this over, but no one -- not even Stewart -- distinguishes himself; Elsa Lanchester [Murder By Death] as Novak's aunt offers her usual dithery portrayal and nothing more. Kim Novak affects a curious speech pattern that sort of fits her role. I must say I was impressed with Gillian's cat, Pyewacket, who slinks through the picture with aplomb.

Bewitched and befuddled: Stewart

Even considering that he's under a spell, Shep discards his fiance in an abrupt and cruel fashion (admittedly he should never have gotten engaged to her in the first place). With its premise of a witch with powers falling in love with an "outsider" or ordinary human, Bell Book and Candle is the obvious progenitor of the TV show Bewitched, which debuted six years later. The contributions of George Duning and James Wong Howe are wasted on this comparative piffle. I think the biggest problem is that this was made the same year as Hitchcock's masterpiece Vertigo, and considering it has the same two stars, Bell very, very much suffers in comparison.

Verdict: I Married a Witch this isn't! **1/4. 

GIGI

Louis Jourdan and Leslie Caron

GIGI (1958). Director: Vincente Minelli.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a young French girl (of about sixteen?) who is being raised by her grandmother, Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold). She is also taught lessons in deportment by her Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans), as it seems the girl is being groomed to be the courtesan to some wealthy man to avoid a life of comparative poverty. Gigi's mother is not in the picture.

The title tune: "What miracle has made you the way you are?

Gigi and her grandmother have been befriended by wealthy sugar manufacturer and playboy Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), who thinks Gigi is just a charming child until ... Could Gaston be the man who will wind up keeping Gigi, but will the independent-minded Gigi even go for this arrangement? Gigi first came to life in a 1944 novella by the French writer Colette. It was made into a film in 1949 in France, and then turned into a 1951 Broadway play starring Audrey Hepburn. Lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe turned it into a musical film in 1958 (not bringing it to Broadway until 1973),

"I Remember It Well"

Leslie Caron made the perfect choice to play the lead role. (Hepburn was a little too old at that time and certainly not French.) One could argue that the storyline is slight, an inferior variation on Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, and there are other things you could quibble about, but it has a pleasant score and is extremely well-acted by Caron and everyone else. This, of course, includes Maurice Chevalier [Love Me Tonight], who plays Gaston's uncle, and gets to sing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore," as well as the amusing and sentimental number "I Remember It Well," a duet with Gingold. Arguably the two most memorable songs are the bouncy "The Night They Invented Champagne" and the soaring title tune sung by Gaston. Eva Gabor [The Mad Magician] and Jacques Bergerac [Twist of Fate] are fun as Gaston's lover Liane, and her skating instructor, with whom she has the audacity to have a romantic rendezvous.

Despite the satisfying ending are there perhaps undertones of misogyny behind the ever-so-polite and genteel goings-on? One doesn't think too much of the grandmother and aunt who expect Gigi to be, in some ways, little better than a prostitute. And Gaston, a wealthy man in Paris who sings about being eternally bored, is not very sympathetic. Rich and living in Paris -- and bored! What the f--k is his problem?  Like many early CinemaScope movies there is a scarcity of close-ups that might pull the viewer more into the action and the movie is only on occasion cinematic. And what on earth was Minelli thinking in the second scene at Maxim's where he allows an anxious extra -- a lady at the next table -- to repeatedly distract the audience's attention away from Gaston and Gigi? Still Gigi is entertaining and classy, and if you can ignore its hokier aspects you may find it charming. It won the Best Picture Oscar.

Verdict: A sugary confection. ***1/2. 

MUNSTER, GO HOME!

Al Lewis camps it up with John Carradine

MUNSTER, GO HOME! (1966). Director: Earl Bellamy.

"See what sandpaper skin and a touch of malnutrition can do for the complexion?"

The Munsters TV series, NBC's answer to ABC's The Addams Family, but more watchable, aired for two seasons from 1964 - 66. Its swan song was this theatrical feature which was released in 1966. In the movie, Herman Munster (Fred Gwynnne) learns that an uncle has died, making him the new Lord Munster, and heir to a British estate. Herman's English relatives, who reside in the estate, aren't too thrilled with this development. In fact, Freddie Munster (Terry-Thomas) tries to kill them off while they're still sailing across the ocean. Freddie's fellow conspirators include his mother, Lady Effigie (Hermione Gingold), and sister, Grace (Jeanne Arnold), the butler, Cruikshank (John Carradine), and a mysterious figure known only as the Griffin. Gwynne, Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, and Al Lewis as Grandpa are excellent in their roles, and they get good support from classy veterans Gingold, Terry-Thomas, Arnold, and Carradine. Butch Patrick and Debbie Watson are also notable as the Munster children, Eddie and Marilyn, with Robert Pine effective as an affected fellow who falls for Marilyn but whose family strenuously objects to the Munsters from any coast. It all leads to Herman becoming a contestant in a race that is frenetic but not especially funny. There are a few amusing moments throughout the movie, and kids may find more chuckles than the rest of us, but this basically proves that when it comes to TV sitcoms, no matter how cute and charming, less is definitely more.

Verdict: For Munster fanatics. **1/2.