The movie was just a little strange. It wasn’t so much a remake of the series as it was loosely based on it. The movie followed a woman named Isabel Bigelow, who is played by Nicole Kidman. She moves to LA and gets cast as Samantha in a remake of “Bewitched.” Will Ferrell plays her husband, Darrin.
The twists and turns start, and we find out that Isabel is actually a witch. Of course, the cast and crew of the “Bewitched” remake do not know this, and that is where they are trying to get the comedy to shine through. They try really hard to recreate some of the mishaps that Samantha would encounter on the original show, but unfortunately, the movie did not hold a candle to the original.
Free As a Bird
It was known that Elizabeth Montgomery was not really into her role of Samantha anymore by the end of the series. She had wanted to quit as early as season 5 but stayed on due to an excessive pay raise.
By the end of her time on “Bewitched” Elizabeth Montgomery had been no longer wearing a bra while filming. This was said to be a symbol of her support for the women's liberal movement. Montgomery was a big activist for social causes, so this comes as no surprise; however, some may say that she did it just because she was no longer invested in the role and just plainly did not care.
A True Spell
Fans of the show “Bewitched” have a long-running suspicion that there is a Bewitched curse. A very large amount of cast members have passed away. A big percentage of that has been cancer-related deaths and early deaths. Many of the cast members went on to pass away at a young age.
Elizabeth Montgomery, of course, passed away early. She is in the company of others who died under the age of 65, such as Alice Pearce who died from cancer, Paul Lynde who died after suffering a heart attack, Dick York and Dick Sargent who both died of cancer. While some may say it is witchcraft or a curse, it can also be said that unhealthy lifestyles of excessive drinking and smoking could have also caused these.
Samantha’s Magic Was Really Just Stagehands
Of course, CGI and all kinds of movie magic did not exist yet back in the ’60s when “Bewitched” first got started. The magic that Samantha created with her witchery had to be done in a very particular manner. The production team had stagehands who worked tirelessly to conjure up all of the magic.
Let's say, for instance, Samantha wanted to clean up a messy room quickly, Elizabeth (who played Samantha) would actually just stand there, she would throw her arms up, and then the director would cut the scene. At this point, stagehands would come on set and remove everything that her magic was going to remove. Then they would roll again, and it would look like she had made everything disappear.
Samantha-Serena Similarities
Did you know that Elizabeth Montgomery played two roles on the show “Bewitched?” she played Samantha, of course, but she also played the role of Serena. The two, while very different, also had many similarities.
Just like Samantha, Serena hung out with Mortals. She dated them as well; however, she was not married, she was more of a hippie swinger. She approved of Samantha marrying Darrin, who was just a mortal. Typically the two characters were not filmed in the same scene because that kind of technology was not around yet, but they would try to use split screen to have them appear simultaneously.