Original subtitles

People ask, where do you get your ideas?

Right here.

Oh, this is my magician's toy shop.

I'm Ray Bradbury, and this is...

Sam Brown, you old fox.

Is that book for me?

Clara, I didn't see you there. Well, no, I'll go back to you then.

Well,

I ask you a question. Is that for me?

No.

No, nothing for you at all.

Oh, that's a pity. I was expecting my Albertus Magnus.

Who? Just a little old book like the others you brought me.

If you should find it in your bag, if you just bring it along, I'll fix you a

cup of coffee.

No. Yeah, right.

Bye.

Bye -bye. See you all later now, here.

Mom!

Mom, help! Come quick!

Quick!

I'll get you a band -aid, Miss Barrett.

Make it a big one!

I swear this cut looks like the Grand Canyon. Hurry up and don't forget the

iodine. Myra.

Oh, Sam, you startled me. Sorry. I'm still not used to my husband being a

postman. Every time you walk in, it scares the life out of me.

You hurt yourself again, Elmira.

Coconut cake was all I was after, and the darn knife slipped.

I don't know what's happening to me lately.

You've got to learn to be more careful, Myra.

You finished with that long, son?

Seems to me like there was mighty long grass still showing when I came up the

path.

You're home early.

Can't stay.

Well, spit it out. What's wrong?

Maybe nothing.

Maybe lots.

What's this?

Just a book I was supposed to deliver to Clara Goodwater.

Clara Goodwater?

Now, don't get your dander up. It's my job.

Hmm.

Albertus Magnus.

White and black art for man and beast, revealing the forbidden knowledge and

mysteries of ancient philosophers.

Go on.

While walking along, I had a good chance to peek at the front pages.

There's no harm in that.

Hidden secrets of life unveiled by that celebrated philosopher, chemist,

naturalist, astrologer, alchemist, sorcerer, metallurgist of the mysteries

wizards and witchcraft.

Together with the recondite views of various arts and sciences, obscure,

practical.

Clara Goodwater.

She got another just like this last week.

Looked me right in the eye when I handed it over and said, Gonna be a witch, set

up millions, hex crowds and individuals, old and young, big and small.

Gotta get going. You take care, Elmira.

You there, Tom. You go to Sunday school and everything?

Yes, ma 'am. You believe in the Lord and the goodness of righteousness?

Yes, ma 'am. Good. You come with me. I need you for moral support.

The equivalent of the blood of a lamb to be with me.

You sure look mad, Miss Brown. Oh, you don't know what mad is, boy. Miss Brown,

are you all right?

You see, Clara Goodwater did this to me with her magic.

There's your house you go in and kick any invisible wires out of the way But

pull

your finger back quick that juice will burn you to a cinder

Mary Goodwater, I know you're in there.

Hello there, Tom, Elmira. What can I do for you?

We come over on account of your practicing to be a full -fledged witch.

Oh, I see.

Your husband's not just a mailman, he's a newscaster.

Got a nose out to here and a mouth to go with it.

He didn't look at no mail.

Elmira, honey.

Everybody knows he's ten minutes between houses, laughing at postcards and

trying on mail -order shoes.

Why else do you think he's so long coming home every day?

It ain't what he's seen. It's what you yourself told him about these books

you've been getting.

Tom, honey, you run along here.

Miss Brown and I are going to have a cup of tea.

Come on, Myra. Take a load off your feet.

Tom, you wait right here, you hear? And if I'm not out of here by three, you

call Mr. Brantley.

I should have been invited to the

ladies' club lunch yesterday.

Well, lady, we thought that was your regular day with your grandma.

I can always have another deal with Grandma, if people only ask me places.

Well, there was to it at the club with me, sitting there with my ham and

sandwich, joking out loud, at last I'm going to get my witch's diploma.

Been studying for it for years.

That's what come back to me over the phone.

Ain't modern inventions wonderful?

I'm going to put it till you bang on the nose, Clara.

Considering you've been president of the ladies' lodge since the Civil War, it

would seem, have you been using your witchcraft to influence and hypnotize

ladies to get their votes?

Maybe.

Well, election's tomorrow again, and all I want to know is you fixing to run

another term, and ain't you ashamed?

Yes, to the first question, and no, to the second. Now, you look here, Myra.

I bought these books for my nephew, Raoul.

He's just ten years old and goes around looking in hats for rabbits.

I told him there's about as much chance of finding rabbits in hats as there is

in finding brains in the heads of certain people I could name. But he

so I bought these gifts for him.

Wouldn't believe you on a stack of Bibles, lady. It's the holy truth,

I love to find out about the witch thing. The ladies all yodel when I

about my black powers.

I wish you'd be now.

But how much magic junk you got here? Magic herbs, please.

They smell funny, but... Here, tell they do amazing things.

This is thesis root.

This here is ebon herb.

And black sulfur.

Now, what's this?

Bone dust.

Bone dust?

And warm wood and fine leaves so you can free your shotguns and fly like a bat

in your dream.

It says in chapter X of the book you're holding in your hand.

I'm on to you now, Clara Goodwater.

And I'm going to be fighting you tomorrow with a cross of gold and all

powers of good I can organize around me. Now you listen here, Elmira.

You want to be president of the ladies' honeysuckle harmony lodge.

You have been running every year now for ten years.

You always nominate yourself and wind up getting one vote.

Yours.

Honey, if the ladies wanted you, they'd lay and slide you in.

But from where I stand looking up the mountain, ain't so much as one pebble

rattling down save yours.

Because you keep casting your spells all these years. Well, I'll tell you what

I'll do. I'll nominate you and vote for you myself come noon tomorrow. How's

that?

Be damned for sure then.

Now, Elmira, stop carrying on like there's an empty cathedral between those

of yours.

The ladies don't want you.

It's as plain as the nose on your face.

Really?

But how come last year at election time I caught a deathly cold and wasn't up to

par? And the year before that I broke my leg. Mighty strange, don't you think?

And that's not all. Last month I cut my finger six times, bruised my knee ten

times, fell off my back porch twice, broke a window, dropped four plates and

knocked over a vase worth $8 .50 at Bixby's. And I'm billing you for every

from now on.

Well, I'll be poor by Christmas.

Elmira, everybody knows you are the clumsiest woman this side of the

Mississippi.

Maybe the whole state if we took a poll.

You can't sit down without playing a chair like an accordion. You can't stand

or what you kick the cat.

And you can't trot across an open field without falling into a well.

It's not clumsiness that causes my calamities.

It's you being within a mile of me.

Oh, lady, in a town this size, everybody is within a mile of someone or t 'other

during the day.

Huh? You admit to being around them? I knew it. You have pushed me too far,

Elmira. I wasn't interested in witchcraft, but now I think I'm going to

into it. In fact, you are invisible right now.

While you were standing there, I put a spell on you. You are clean out of

Oh!

You're pulling my leg, Claire. There I am.

Ah!

Claire Goodwater, you did this to me. I haven't had a gray hair in my life till

this second.

Put it in a job. Still ought to be an angle worm come morning.

Oh, Elmira, look at yourself at last, won't you?

All these years blaming others for your mallet feet and floaty ways.

Did you ever read Shakespeare?

There's little stage directions in there.

Alarms and excursions. That's you, Amara.

Alarms and excursions.

Now, you get on home before I read the books on your head and predict gas for

you at night.

Go on.

Shoot. Get in.

Go on.

Shoot.

Shoot.

My, the flies are thick this summer.

The line is drawn, Clara Goodwater.

candidacy from the ladies' Honeysuckle Harmony Lodge or come face to face with

me tomorrow when I run for office and win the day.

You're coming with me tomorrow, Tom, a good and innocent boy, and innocence

win the day.

Don't count on me being innocent.

My mom says... Oh, shut up, Tom. Good is good, and you're going to be there at

my right hand, boy.

Yes, ma 'am. Oh, if I can live through the night with that woman making wax

dummies of me and shoving rusty needles through the very heart and soul of

them...

Can't sleep.

Look. Just look here at the things she has done to me.

January the 5th, almost scalded to death. Too hot bath water.

Uh -huh.

February the 1st, whiplash. The clothesline snapped.

March the 10th, the garden hose chased me all around the yard.

Sam, you listening to me?

I hear you, Myra.

April the 10th, burnt dinner again.

Stubbed toe.

$10 ,000 at least. Try and sell that out of court, Mrs. Claire Goodwater.

Eh?

I simply refuse to lie down and die.

What's that, Myra?

I won't die.

That's what I always claimed.

thing to do.

Good Lord, looks like a milkshake's been left out in the sun for 40 years. You

intended to drink that?

Just before I go into the lady's lodge for the big doing.

Take my advice, Elmira, get up the quick first, then drink it. Uh -huh. What in

it? Known from Angel's Wing. Well, menthol, really, to cool hell's fires

burn you. It's right there in the book I got from the library.

And juice from a fresh grape off the vine.

Elmira, I think this heat's gone to your head.

It's for thinking clear, sweet thoughts in the face of dark vision.

Good against bad.

White against black. I can't lose.

But if you win, will you know it?

Yeah, hold on. Quick, quick, quick. The light.

Ah.

Ladies, ladies, please, will the meeting please come to order?

Oh, my.

Ladies, it's election time.

But before we begin, I do believe Miss Brown, wife of our eminent

graphologist... Graphologist?

Wife, as I say, of our eminent handwriting expert, Mr. Samuel Brown of

Postal Service.

Miss Brown wants to give us some opinions.

Miss Bryan.

Hello?

I got plenty to say.

I know what you have been through all these years, and I have come to put an

to it.

You know what was in this thermos, lady?

It's inside me now.

The charm circle surrounds me.

No knife can cleave, no hatchet can break through.

Ladies, I know now why you voted for Clara Goodwater here.

You all have families to feed and budgets to follow.

You can't afford to have your milk turn sour or your bread go stale or your

cakes fall flat as wheels.

You don't want mumps or chicken pox or whooping cough all winter. You didn't

want your husbands crashing their cars or electrocuting themselves during home

repairs.

But now that's over, you don't need to worry anymore.

We are going to exorcise the witch in our mess.

I mean your president here.

Me over here?

Uh, yesterday I went to... the library and i ran up on how to make a witch go

away how to fight for our salvation but i can feel the

power growing i got all kinds of good magic inside of me now from good roots

chemicals are you all right am i i'm feeling fine

goodwater has no more power over us now quick let's have the election

all those in favor of claire goodwater raise their hands

Excuse me.

Are you all right, Mom?

Power, honey, don't die.

You hear me? You must die.

I promise you there won't be any more cutting fingers and falling on dogs and

dropping chandeliers and chairs.

And listen, if you just open your eyes and sit up and

live, we'll have another lecture.

Isn't that right?

Honey, you're the new president of the latest Honest Uncle Harmony launch.

Is that true?

Yes, yes, yes.