Saturday, July 9, 2016

BEWITCHED - Season One, Episode One (1964)

Sometimes you don't see the wigglin' nose on your own face! "Bewitched" was one of my favourite 60's sitcoms. It had all the right elements, brains, beauty, badinage, and buffoonery. and that's hard to beat!

The star of the show was one of my all-time favourites, Elizabeth Montgomery! Elizabeth is Samantha Stephens, the cutest witch you'll ever see! Elizabeth was unfairly taken from us in 1995 at the age of 62, another victim of cancer!

Dick York was Darrin Stephens, Samantha's dull and naively unsuspecting husband!
In my world, there is only one James Bond, and that is Sean Connery, and in the same context, there is only one Darrin Stephens, and that was Dick York. not Dick Sargent, and not Will Ferrell! Sorry, that's just the way it is! Dick also passed away at the age of 62, but what got to him was emphysema!

This first episode of "Bewitched" aired on September 17, 1964!
The couple meet, fall in love, and get hitched! (All before Darrin finds out that Samantha is a witch!)

Samantha's Mother Endora is not happy that she is having a relationship with a mere mortal, and creates lots of problems because of it! The terribly annoying Endora is excellently played by the always awesome Agnes Moorehead!

Samantha tells her Mother that she loves Darrin, and she can't do anything about it!

Darrin and Samantha are on their honeymoon, so Endora makes Darrin disappear, and reappear in the Hotel lobby! He has no idea how he got there, so he goes to the desk to ask for his room key! He still hasn't met Endora, so when he gets back to the room, she does it to him again! He's getting kind of disoriented!

Samantha tries to put a spell on her Mother to make her go away.................

...........But her powers are no match to her Mother's, and they have no affect at all!!

Elizabeth Montgomery is just so darn cute, it was hard to watch her in a film like "The Legend Of Lizzie Borden" where she plays a totally deranged character!

Both Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery had previously been in "Twilight Zone" episodes!! He was actually in two, "The Purple Testament," and "A Penny For Your Thoughts," and she was in the episode titled simply "Two!"

When she finally confesses to him that she is a witch, he doesn't believe her, so she has to do a couple of simple tricks to prove her point like moving this ash tray around......

.........And making a drink appear in his hand!

Darrin goes to a bar to just be able to tell somebody/anybody his story, but this guy Dave is so caught up in his own world, he doesn't hear a word he's saying! Dave was played by Gene (That Darn Cat) Blakely!

Samantha has agreed to not using magic in order to save her marriage, until Darrin gets invited to a party thrown by his old girlfriend Sheila Sommers as played by sultry Nancy (Jason And The Argonauts) Kovack!

Everybody at the party is fawning over their perfect hostess Sheila, and at the dinner table, Samantha finally can't take it anymore. First, she starts off by messing up her perfectly coiffed hairdo!

Then she does this to her teeth......

.......Which is followed by strategically moving a soup bowl so that Sheila puts her elbow right in it!

Samantha can be pretty devious when she puts her mind to it!

For the big finale in the humbling of Sheila, she basically has her sneeze herself right out of her dress, followed by a bunch of strong wind to finish off the job!

Oh, Samantha, you bad girl!! 
"Who? Sweet little me?"
You can bet that Elizabeth will be on my next list of 25 favourite gals of TV and cinema!
That ought to give you something to look forward to!

1 comment:

Lacey said...

Of course, this episode, like the full season, was in black & white, and not color.

Great review, as usual.

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