Okay, this week Nicole Kidman takes over the lead role in the Bewitched movie, and while I'll reserve judgement until I see the movie (which may be when Netflix has it), I'm a little nervous about it (and I like Nicole a lot -- I just don't know about the conceit of the whole TV show-within-a-movie thing, or the Will Ferrell idea). But the one good thing the movie is bringing is Elizabeth Montgomery - the first season of the TV show comes to DVD tomorrow - featuring Alice Pearce, the real Gladys Kravitz, and Dick York, the real Darren, and Paul Lynde but not yet as Uncle Arthur - he plays a nervous driving instructor. Plus appearances by not-yet-famous Raquel Welch, Peggy Lipton and Adam West. Plus the genius of Agnes Moorehead and Marion Lorne (someone needs to make a flashback series of Endora and Clara as sisters growing up)...
And Samantha. So anyway, besides starring in the one "grown-up" TV show I loved as a kid because I was a kid and still think is cool as an adult, I want to point out that Elizabeth Montgomery during her TV movie years ended up doing time as an AIDS activist, and also, rather bravely, donating her voice to two documentaries that her people may have tried talking her out of, CoverUp: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair and also, The Panama Deception - the latter won an Oscar for best documentary while basically pointing out to the world that Bush Sr. pushed to instigate an attack on US troops in Panama by having the military harrass citizens until someone "struck first" so that he could remove Noreiga from power after his usefulness to the CIA had ended. Both films were directed by Barbara Trent who continues to make a wonderfully patriotic nuisance of herself through The Empowerment Project.
And when Dick Sargent (the fake Darren) came out, Liz rode with him as co-grandmaster of the San Francisco gay pride parade and it was really sweet. So anyway, as all of the current Bewitched hullabaloo is going on, the same people who put the Ralph Kramden statue at the Port Authority bus terminal are lobbying to put a Samantha statue in Salem. Residents are pissy about the idea since celebrating witchcraft equals mass paranoia celebrating murder in the name of religion, really. But believe me, I went to a magician's convention there during the 80s and one more statue of a witch won't change the balance. Plus she's a good witch in many ways. If Massachusetts is as liberal as George Bush claims, they should embrace the Samantha statue.
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