The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
This is a really fun movie starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Something of a combination of a horror and comedy film, it's about three women whose lives are turned upside down when a mysterious man moves into a mansion in their conservative town of Eastwick, Rhode Island. Each of the three women have been lifelong close friends and have coincidentally all lost their husbands. Mayhem ensues for the entire town as Daryl (Jack Nicholson) moves into the lives of the three women and proceeds to seduce them through various forms of witchcraft and trickery resulting in each of the women blossoming emotionally and sexually. Everything falls apart however as they begin to suspect the reason behind Daryl's ability to captivate them despite shortcomings in his appearance and personality and begin to experiment with supernatural powers. Parts of this movie are a little gross, and the content is definitely for more mature audiences, but it's never really scary. It's simply an entertaining movie to watch in celebration of Halloween! Jack Nicholson is pretty perfect for the character, and that alone makes it worth watching.
Bell, Book, and Candle (1958)
This movie stars Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in a much more light-hearted setting than in Hitchcock's Vertigo, which they made together the very same year. Kim Novak plays Gillian, a young witch who is bored with her life and wants to experience human love, of which witches are apparently incapable. Her aunt, also a witch, is played by Elsa Lanchester as her usually quirky self, and Jack Lemmon completes the eccentric cast as Gillian's warlock brother. Jimmy Stewart plays Shepherd 'Shep' Henderson, a mortal who works as a publisher, shares an apartment building with Gillian, and is engaged to be married to an overbearing woman who incidentally went to college with Gillian (they didn't like each other, of course). Gillian tricks Shep into falling in love with her by casting a love spell on him through her cat Pyewacket, and he hopelessly joins her rather exotic world. Meanwhile, Gillian arranges for Shep to meet an author who plans to write a book about witches in New York City, while her brother offers his inside knowledge on the subject to the author in exchange for a portion of the book's proceeds. His hope is also to debunk some of the false notions people have about witches and warlocks. By this time, Gillian is truly falling in love with Shep, but she must decide between keeping her supernatural powers and keeping Shep (witches who fall in love can't remain witches, of course!). All in all, it's a cute movie, and I watch it every year around Halloween. Though the subject matter is totally different, one could say that in both Vertigo and Bell, Book, and Candle, Jimmy Stewart is completely transfixed by Kim Novak. She did have an ethereal, other-worldly quality that made her perfect for both movies.
I Married a Witch (1942)
I just watched this movie for the first time a couple of days ago, as it was just released on DVD, and I loved it! A young witch, Jennifer, (Veronica Lake) and her father (Cecil Kellaway) are burned at the stake in colonial Salem, and their ashes are scattered at the base of a tree where their spirits are contained. Frederic March plays Jonathan Wooley, the Puritan who denounced them. As revenge, Jennifer casts a spell on Wooley and all of his descendants (all played by March) that they will be unhappy in romantic relationships. As centuries pass, the spell has worked and all of the Wooley men have married the wrong woman. Eventually a storm breaks open the tree and Jennifer and her father's spirits are released. They take on human form, and Jennifer wants to continue taking revenge on the present day Wooley by giving him a love potion so that he will fall in love with her and she can make him miserable. Unfortunately, she accidentally takes the love potion herself and falls in love with him! Her father is highly opposed to her pursuit of Wooley, who is engaged to be married to a woman who doesn't seem to love him at all, played by Susan Hayward. Eventually Wooley does fall in love with Jennifer of his own accord and calls off his marriage. Of course he will soon find out that his new wife isn't what he thinks. This movie is lots of fun, and I'll definitely be watching it again next year!
The Uninvited (1944)
This movie was also just released on DVD for the first time. Starring Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell, and Donald Crisp, it is one of the earlier haunted house/ghost story movies. As far as the plot, Rick (Milland) and his sister, Pamela (Hussey), move into an abandoned house on the Cornish coast, despite tales of the house having been haunted. It isn't long before strange things start happening: crying and moaning in the middle of the night with no apparent source, a strange scent of the mimosa flower, sudden chills in the air, etc. Stella (Russell) lives down the road with her grandfather (Crisp), and Rick and Pamela soon learn that Stella was born in the house. As the story unfolds, we begin to learn bits and pieces of the sordid tale involving Stella's parents and her father's mistress, and Stella becomes possessed when she is in the house. This is one of the few movies from that time that doesn't end with a typical "logical" explanation. There are many sweeping shots of the California coast (doubling for the Cornish coast and reminding me of several other movies, such as
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and
Humoresque) in combination with beautiful piano music. The melody for the popular tune, "Stella by Starlight," comprises the main theme in the musical score. I loved this movie, and I'm glad I bought it on DVD. There is another character that reminds one of the creepy and stone cold Mrs. Danvers in Hitchcock's
Rebecca, and it was also the American directorial debut for Lewis Allen.
The Munsters (1964-1966)
I watch
The Munsters every year in celebration of Halloween. I was first introduced to it as a kid watching
Nick at Nite. Generally a pretty silly show, it only went on for two seasons, but it definitely had a charm all its own. Starring Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster (haha, a play on the word "monster") as a bumbling, family man, Frankenstein look-alike, Yvonne de Carlo as his wife, Lily, Al Lewis as Grandpa (a vampire who seems to be from Lily's side of the family), Beverly Owen and Pat Priest as Marilyn, the niece of Herman and Lily, and Butch Patrick as Eddie, their werewolf son. The Munster family is like a normal 1960's family in every way except that they are, well, monsters! They consider themselves like everyone else, and they are consistently perplexed when people are afraid of them and their lifestyle. The only typical member of their family is Marilyn. There's nothing monster-like about her at all, and the rest of the family is always feeling sorry for her for not being attractive. The joke is of course is that she is the most attractive of them all. Produced by the same creators as
Leave it to Beaver, The Munsters really is about American family life in the 1960's with a "monster" twist. A common occurrence is when people run away from the house (in comic fast motion) on 1313 Mockingbird Lane after Herman answers the door. Incidentally, Fred Gwynne also played the judge in the 1992 comedy,
My Cousin Vinny, and I simply can't watch that movie without thinking of Herman Munster.
Bewitched (1964-1972)
Another comedy sitcom about witches and the supernatural,
Bewitched was on the air for eight seasons. I think it really started to go downhill with season three. The first two seasons are great. Elizabeth Montgomery (the daughter of actor, Robert Montgomery) plays Samantha Stephens, a young suburban housewife who happens to be a witch. Her husband, an advertising man named Darrin, is played by Dick York (later replaced by Dick Sargent), and Agnes Moorehead plays Endora, Samantha's mother. She always stole the show in my opinion. Agnes Moorehead was a great character actress who appeared in many movies such as
Dark Passage,
Since You Went Away,
Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and a particularly memorable episode of
The Twilight Zone, where she is the only actress in the entire episode, and there is absolutely no dialogue. In
Bewitched, she is constantly displeased at Samantha's marriage to a mortal, never fails to get "forget" Darrin's name, and many episodes revolve around her antics and trouble making. Another show-stealer on
Bewitched was Gladys Kravitz (played by Alice Pearce, and later replaced by Sandra Gould), the neighbor across the street who is always snooping on the Stephens household and seeing suspicious activity only to be told by her husband that she is imagining everything. Of course, she is not, but her frustration at never being believed is a common occurrence on the show. One of my favorite characters is Samantha's Aunt Clara, played by Marion Lorne. She's a sweet old woman who is losing her memory of spells, and her magic is faltering through her old age. She is an extremely endearing character (in contrast to Endora's comical wrath) who collects doorknobs and likes to arrive at the house via the chimney. When Lorne died, a similar witch, played by Alice Ghostly replaced her. Incidentally, they appear together briefly in the 1967 film,
The Graduate. Bewitched is often compared to
I Dream of Jeannie, as they were on the air at the same time, and both involved a domestic woman with magical powers. I always considered
Jeannie to be a better show. Bewitched had some issues with casting. As I mentioned above, many characters were eventually replaced because of various health problems or deaths. When that happens, I think it works better when the character isn't just played by a different actor, but a similar (but still unique) character is introduced instead. The first two seasons of
Bewitched work best with the original actors for Gladys, Darrin, and Aunt Clara. In spite of all of that, I do love to watch the show, especially at Halloween.
Happy Halloween!!
