Bell, Book, and Candle

I saw this somewhat absurd 1958 movie with Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart yesterday where Kim Novak was a witch and Jimmy Stewart was a publisher. It was made a year after Vertigo, and it was no Vertigo. That said, Kim Novak was luminous, Jimmy Stewart was irresistable, and it had one of my favorite bits of dialogue ever.

Jimmy Stewart: You’re reading that?
Kim Novak: Oh, Magic in Mexico, yes. Are you interested in that sort of thing?
JS: Well not personally but professionally I’m a publisher.
. . .
KN: Did you publish that?
JS: No but I wish I had. Sort of like the Kinsey Report.
KN: Well I can’t think why. It’s completely phony.
JS: It is?
KN: I spent a year in Mexico. I’m sure they fed him a lot of fake tourist stuff, and he swallowed it whole.
JS: Well maybe they did that to Kinsey too.

I love that they're talking about the Kinsey Report and that they're questioning his methodology, much like several others did in a Gender Studies dinner last week. I love Kinsey. My favorite famous Hoosiers, in no particular order: Kurt Vonnegut, Eugene V. Debs, Alfred Kinsey, David Letterman, Johnny Cougar, Madame CJ Walker, Carole Lombard, Ernie Pyle, James Dean, Theodor Dreiser, and Birch Bayh.