Featured Audience Ratings

• Universal D

  
  Interesting idea ("there be witches among us!") given a weak treatment. Stewart and Novak, together again after Vertigo earlier in the same year, cannot overcome the 25 years of age difference between them this time given a script without substance. Lemmon refuses to let… More
  Interesting idea ("there be witches among us!") given a weak treatment. Stewart and Novak, together again after Vertigo earlier in the same year, cannot overcome the 25 years of age difference between them this time given a script without substance. Lemmon refuses to let the material overcome him though, and the cat, one Pywacket by name, seems to fare well. Eventually developed into the old teevee series, Bewitched.

• AJ V

  
  This movie is so fun, and was probably the inspiration for the show Bewitched. It has a great cast too. The movie is pretty good, but it could've been better.

• jay n

  
  Enchanting comedy with a nice sense of whimsy. Jimmy and Kim are well matched and the supporting cast is perfect. The casting director was spot on the day they cast Elsa Lanchester, Hermione Gingold and Jack Lemmon, with his mischievious grin, as witches and warlock. Kim Novak was at… More
  Enchanting comedy with a nice sense of whimsy. Jimmy and Kim are well matched and the supporting cast is perfect. The casting director was spot on the day they cast Elsa Lanchester, Hermione Gingold and Jack Lemmon, with his mischievious grin, as witches and warlock. Kim Novak was at the peak of her beauty here and her clothes not only compliment her character she looks amazing in them.

• Devon B

  
  A light romantic comedy with supernatural undertones starring the two leads from Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo"? "Bell, Book and Candle" comes off like a light-hearted "Rosemary's Baby" or an adult version of Harry Potter. Jimmy Stewart stars as… More
  A light romantic comedy with supernatural undertones starring the two leads from Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo"? "Bell, Book and Candle" comes off like a light-hearted "Rosemary's Baby" or an adult version of Harry Potter. Jimmy Stewart stars as Shep, a book publisher living in a building full of witches (only he doesn't know they're witches). The pretty blonde witch, Gil (Kim Novak) decides she wants to use Shep as her personal love slave, and decides to seduce him away from his fiance (a girl who vexed her back in their school days). They all meet at christmas down in a cellar nightclub that's actually a haven for witches and warlocks. She casts a love spell on him and soon he's breaking off his engagement and pursuing the witch. Ernie Kovaks comes up from mexico as a novelist who specializes in books about witchcraft, and he explains that witches can't cry or blush, unless they fall in love, but then they lose all their power. It's a silly enough plot, but I read somewhere online that the nightclub and the witches and warlocks are all supposed to represent the homosexual community scene of Greenwich village in the late 50s. Whether this was the intention of the filmmakers or not, I don't know. There is, however, a lack of comedy here. There's just not alot of comedy here. It's a pleasant enough film though, and certainly enjoyable for what it is.

• xGary X

  
  Enjoyable old fashioned fantasy that reunites the stars of Vertigo in a far more light hearted way. Probably the inspiration for TV show Bewitched, it has similar wicca based laughs with great support from the legend that is Jack Lemmon.

• Byron B

  
  I recently worked on a professional stage production of this work. It is nice to see the story loosened from its one room confines on stage. Some of the dialog has been shifted also to give star Jimmy Stewart, as Shep, top billing even above Kim Novak, as Gil, who should be the center… More
  I recently worked on a professional stage production of this work. It is nice to see the story loosened from its one room confines on stage. Some of the dialog has been shifted also to give star Jimmy Stewart, as Shep, top billing even above Kim Novak, as Gil, who should be the center of attention. Novak's acting style works, I suppose, as the "inhuman" modern day witch. I've often found her to have odd mannerisms anyways. Stewart and Novak had just starred in Vertigo together. It was released the same year. With Stewart definitely going grey, the 25 year age difference was hard to get past in this picture. Elsa Lanchester, as Aunt Queenie, is another actress who I haven't seen often, but who's acting style strikes me as too over the top. Shep's co-publisher and his secretary are characters that you never actually meet in the stage play and still they don't leave much of an impression here. Hermione Gingold lavishes the part of Mrs. de Passe, another character who we only hear about in the play, with all sorts of eccentricities. Janice Rule, as Gil's rival Merle, also does a great job bringing to life a character who is only talked about in the pages of the play. I really liked Jack Lemmon, as Gil's impish brother Nicky, even though his role is scaled back in this production. And Ernie Kovacs, as the always drunk author and researcher of witchcraft Sidney Redlitch, surprised me with his keen and often non-verbal sense of humor. The many cats who play Pyewacket were well trained. The magic in this pre-Bewitched story is not really all that magical, however. And it seems that this is not some of James Wong Howe's best work. He shoots some real locations around New York and too often scans the knickknacks in Gil's shop, since the romance and comedy are a little poor.

• Sunil J

  
  Kim Novak really is magical in this movie. Funny and very cute.

• Moe E

  
  A stoic, older Jimmy Stewart is bewitched by a very sultry Kim Novak.

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