Really?
Posted on 03/31/2016 6:11:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
How did Salem, Massachusetts become a Halloween destination? For centuries, the New England town avoided any association with its infamous Puritan ancestors, who executed 19 people under suspicion of practicing witchcraft. The surprising answer, author Stacy Schiff writes for The New York Times, has a lot to do with the sitcom "Bewitched."
These days, Salem is rife with kitschy witches and Halloween attractions. But before the late 20th century, town citizens rarely acknowledged the Puritan trials. When playwright Arthur Miller visited Salem to research "The Crucible" in 1952, locals refused to help him. "You couldn't get anyone to say anything about it," he complained, according to "Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory."
Until "Bewitched," that is. In 1970, the popular sitcom filmed episodes on location in Salem, including one where Samantha Stephens, the titular sorceress, travels back in time and is put on trial. Schiff writes:
Accused of witchcraft in old Salem, she winds up manacled, on trial for her life. She admits to the charge. But she announces to the courtroom that she will also prove that no 17th-century suspect was a witch [...] "How can you imprison someone who can vanish before your very eyes?" she demands. Firmly she sets our Puritan forebears straight: "The people that you persecuted were guiltless. They were mortals, just like yourselves. You are the guilty," she informs the old Salemites, before she vanishes, at long last clearing the air.
After "Bewitched," Salem began to embrace a tourist-friendly version of its grim past. The town began hosting an annual Haunted Happenings festival in 1982, which quickly exploded into a month-long Halloween celebration. In 2005, a statue of Elizabeth Montgomery, the actress who played Samantha, was erected in Salem's town square. Today, even the city's police cars are decorated with witch insignia.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
I’ve been there. Nice sunny spring day. We enjoyed the town. Did all the tourist traps. Fun and interesting. Missed the house of seven gables though but did hit up ye old pepper co. For some good chocolate!
I’m willing to forgive her as she had great legs.
Yeah, it’s probably a reporter working on a self-help book to be titled, “The Agenda-Driven Life.”
Compared with Barbara Eden, or for that matter, Marianne on Gilligan’s Island, Liz was the dog that sleeps under the front porch.
A harsh sentence but just.
Really?
I had such a huge crush on Elisabeth Montgomery!
I know what you mean. I grew up in North Andover, which at the time was still part of Andover and bordered the part of Salem where the trials took place, which would later splinter off to become the town of Danvers. Still a dark and harsh place in many ways. The native populace is quite closed off and judgemental to this day. Had itermmittent cases of the heebie-jeebies my whole childhood.
Gorgeous.
Salem was a sideshow, King Phillip’s war was where the Puritans strutted their stuff. Of course they had plenty of practice under Cromwell before they shipped across.
One of my favorite Bogart movies...Dark Passage
That show had some funny actors as regulars - Paul Lynde (Uncle Arthur) and Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay) were my favorites. Gladys Kravitz was a great character as well.
The witch hunt goes on... now it is about being that pure feminist lamb victim of the child she needs to abort, coerced to have a child by god... just like in the Arthur miller book calling them babes.
They were all lovely. Who ruined your Cheerios?
ping
Wasn't Miller sorta a commie, and wasn't The Crucible a metaphor for McCarthyism, wherein Miller sided with commies?
The reality of dorky TV shows .....
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