Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Sam Jaffe: Bookman

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Miss Price and the Bookman have both halves of The Spells of Astoroth] 

  Bookman : I assume you're looking for the same thing I am.

  [holds out his right hand] 

  Bookman : May I?

  [they exchange halves] 

  Bookman : This is... quite a moment for both of us.

  [flips through the pages] 

  Bookman : "Substitutiary Locomotion, the lost... miracle of the ancients." And so on and so forth. Ah! Here we are! "The spell which creates this force is five mystic words. These words are--"

  [turns the last page] 

  Miss Eglantine Price : "Engraved... on the star that was always worn by the sorcerer Astoroth."

  Bookman : But where are the words of the spell? I assumed they'd be in *your* half of the manuscript!

  Miss Eglantine Price : But I thought they'd be in *yours*!

  Bookman : Once again, a dead end.

  [slumps back to his desk] 

  Bookman : I shall never know the secret.

  [sinks down into his chair] 

  Professor Emelius Browne : [points at a picture in the book]  Isn't that old Astoroth? And there's his star. It's a pity it's so small you can't read the writing.

  Miss Eglantine Price : But why the animals?

  Bookman : Towards the end of his life, Astoroth kept animals in cages and searched for the spells that would make them more like humans. The legend is that finally the animals rebelled at the experiment, killed Astoroth and stole many of his powers.

  Miss Eglantine Price : Including the star with the spell on it.

  Bookman : Possibly. They found a ship, sailed away and were never heard of again. However, there's a final notation in my half of the book saying that in the seventeenth century, a shipwrecked lascar was taken from the sea, half mad with thirst and exposure to the sun. Before he died, he *swore* he had seen an island ruled by animals.

  Miss Eglantine Price : [intrigued]  Where?

  Bookman : [shrugs]  There is, I regret to say, no such island. I looked for it on every chart. The Isle of Naboombu does not exist.

  Paul Rawlins : Oy, does too! Got me own--

  [Charlie clamps his right hand over Paul's mouth, making his words come out muffled] 

  Bookman : What is he trying to say?

  Charles "Charlie" Rawlins : Nothing. When he don't say nothing, he burbles.

  Bookman : [points at Paul]  I wish the child to speak!

  Charles "Charlie" Rawlins : [removes his hand from Paul's mouth]  Now you've done it.

• Mr. Browne : Bookman! Before your very eyes, I shall cause this bed, and all the occupants upon it, to disappear!

  Bookman : Disappear? I should like to see a cheap-jack tenth-rate entertainer do a trick like that.

  Mr. Browne : Cheap-jack entertainer. Now that was naughty.

• Bookman : I don't mind saying to see it all together at last, that isn't much I wouldn't do.