Bell, Book And Candle (1958)

One of two 1958 movies in which James Stewart finds himself bewitched by Kim Novak, Bell, Book And Candle may be the less-mentioned of the two (the other being Vertigo, of course), but I am sure that those who love this film would sneer at anyone labelling it as a lesser work. In fact, I am now one of those people who love the film, and I know that I would sneer at anyone labelling it as a lesser work. The only label you should put on this is one that says "absolute treat".

Novak plays Gillian Holroyd, a woman who owns a small store in New York. She takes an interest in her upstairs neighbour, a publisher named Shep Henderson (James Stewart), and decides to make a move on him, despite the fact that he is engages to Merle Kittridge (Janice Rule). Shep is helpless to resist the charms of Gillian, largely because she's a witch able to cast a love spell on him. Encouraged by her aunt, Queenie (Elsa Lanchester), and her brother, Nicky (Jack Lemmon), Gillian gets a bit carried away with her scheme, also engineering a meeting between Shep and a writer (Sidney Redlitch, played by Ernie Kovacs) he was eager to work with. If it's really meant going to be a genuine love story, however, then Gillian knows that she has to tell Shep the truth. But will they stay together if the spell is broken?

Based on a play by John Van Druten, Bell, Book And Candle is brought to the screen by writer Daniel Taradash and director Richard Quine. Both may have other contenders for their best films, but this one should be fighting for a spot very near the top. It doesn't feel hampered by the adaptation from stage to screen, it fairly zips along through the 106-minute runtime, and there isn’t a weak link in the central cast.

Stewart does what he does so well, being a level-headed and generally swell guy, while Novak manages to be as constantly mesmerising as she needs to be, especially in the shots that show her using her powers with the help of her familiar, a cat named Pyewacket. Lanchester and Lemmon are both great fun, far less coy about using their magical powers than Novak’s character and happy to play tricks on unsuspecting humans in their company. Kovacs is also fun, especially when he is relaying his “expertise” to characters that he doesn’t realise know far more than he does, and Rule does her best in a role that requires her to be pushed aside very early on. Hermione Gingold also needs mentioned here, portraying the powerful Bianca de Passe, someone who may be able to prove the unbelievable truth to our leading man, and may also be able to break the spell.

I am sure that there are great essays out there about this film, with so much to explore under the rom-com surface, but I am just here with a brief and light review. I will mention the wonderful dialogue, the delight viewers will feel as they watch the plot strands weave together, the great score from George Duning, and the sequence that has Jack Lemmon energetically playing the bongos. But I would also encourage fans of the film to check out more in-depth examinations of it, because it certainly rewards further exploration.

“Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble”, I may have got myself in a bit of a muddle, trying to end by encouraging people to see this . . . on the double.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Vertigo (1958)

When I first saw it, many years ago, The Birds used to be my favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie. I have since changed my mind on that film. Despite the superb set-pieces, there are some other aspects to it that make it a surprisingly weak feature from the master of suspense. And so I moved my love to Psycho. And then Rear Window. Oh, and North By Northwest. The point I am trying to make is that ol' Hitch has a number of contenders that could easily be viewed as his very best. Vertigo should always be in the running.

James Stewart plays a detective, John Ferguson AKA Scottie, who is hired by an old acquaintance to follow his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak). There's a building sense that Madeleine is going to do herself some harm, a notion that solidifies into a reality when Madeleine tries to jump into a bay and drown herself. This is only a temporary reprieve, and Vertigo really kicks into gear after the halfway point, which sees Scottie encountering a woman named Judy Barton (Novak), a woman who seems very much like Madeleine in many ways.

It's always easy to admire the works of Hitchcock while also unfairly dismissing them as nothing more than exercises in thrills and tension, yet so many of his movies have a lot more to them than that. It just so happens that it's usually easier to recommend his films without having to go into too much detail. The real exploration and discussion of his classics is left to people who want to write essays, or even whole books, on them. If you think I am going to try and change that with this brief review then you can think again.

What I will do, however, is try to emphasise just why this is one of the greatest films of all time. Because it most certainly is.

Things have a good grounding in the script, by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. Although it's structured in a way that makes some of the 128-minute runtime feel like padding, very few scenes fail to provide food for thought, either in terms of the plotting, the characterisations, or the psychological turbulence of the leads.

Then you have a cast all doing excellent work. Stewart gives another wonderful performance for a director he worked well with, moving from his likeable everyman persona into something darker as the film whirls and dives into ever-darkening waters. Novak gives two performances that are almost flawless, particularly as things develop in the second half of the movie and viewers start to wonder if Judy IS Madeleine, or just someone who looks very much like her. The third main player here is Barbara Bel Geddes as Marjorie Wood AKA Midge, a close friend to Stewart's character, and someone who has similar difficulties to him in processing some complex feelings that she at least manages to manage in a slightly more healthy manner (at least outwardly anyway). There are others (Tom Helmore as the husband of Madeleine, a number of very small roles for characters populating the world that these characters move through, but the focus stays tight on the central pair, for the most part).

Add the masterful direction to this and you have quite the heady brew. Hitchcock isn't afraid to show the psychological cracks deepening and affecting the environments around his leads, and he also manages to show the effects of vertigo with a dolly zoom effect, still used best in both this film and Jaws. Love, obsession, control, regret, madness, all of these things and more are explored in Vertigo, in a flowing and beautiful series of scenes, accompanied by yet another one of the best music scores from Bernard Herrmann.

Watch it, take it all in, watch it again, take more in, and be sure to have it to hand whenever you want to enjoy an absolute classic.

10/10

This is the set to get. It is stunning.

Mubi Monday: Rope (1948)

Alfred Hitchcock once said something about how an explosion will give audiences a fright but showing a ticking bomb under the chair of some unsuspecting potential victim would have them on edge right up until the explosion. I'm paraphrasing but I remember the essence of his message. He liked to scare people, but he equally enjoyed making them tense.

Rope starts with a murder, committed by Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall). The body is hidden in a chest and, for the rest of the movie, there it stays while the two murderers host a small dinner party, all the while hoping that nobody suspects that they're sharing a room with a hidden corpse. The one person who may suspect is Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), an old schoolteacher they believe would actually enjoy their whole plan. Of course, they cannot tell him what they have done. The only thing they can do is enjoy watching Cadell mull over how strange the evening is.

As famous for the way it was shot as for the content, Rope is a film unfairly viewed by some (including Hitchcock himself, and I should mention that it was he who directed it) as nothing more than a gimmicky experiment. There's no denying that the lengthy takes, the logistics of how every shot was set out, and the manipulation of the main environment (including a wonderful display showing the city skyline turning from day to night), is technically impressive, but that's only part of the reason to enjoy the film. The script, by Arthur Laurents (from a play by Patrick Hamilton), is a lot of fun, allowing viewers to watch two nasty individuals grow increasingly edgy as their own arrogance starts to bite them on the backside.

Granger is the more agitated of the pair, tense from the very beginning and only getting worse when alcohol is added to the mix. Dall gets to have more fun, unflappable throughout, even as it looks more and more unlikely that their "perfect crime" will be discovered. Stewart, despite the fact that he didn't think himself suited to this role, is his usual good self, a smart and sophisticated man who is equally happy chatting to the other guests as he is joking with the maid (Edith Evanson). Joan Chandler and Douglas Dick are both enjoyable enough as the other, younger, guests,  and both Cedrick Hardwicke and Constance Collier are very good as the two older attendees, with Collier a particular delight.

Although it would be easy to confuse Rope with the attitudes of the two main characters - smug, self-absorbed, interested in creating something audacious and impressive just for the same of being able to say it was done - I think it holds up as a fine piece of thrilling cinema. Few other films spend the entire runtime showing you that ticking bomb under the chair. This one does, and to great effect. The ticking bomb just happens to be in the shape of a stashed corpse.

8/10

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