"Jess-Belle"

"Jess-Belle"

A girl (Anne Francis) strikes a bargain with a witch to win a young man's heart.

Stars Anne Francis, James Best.
Original air date: February 14, 1963.

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It stinks. Bottom of the barrel. I never watch it.

I never cared for witchcraft stories, that's probably why I don't like it.

Anne Francis is gorgeous, though. And James Best looks pretty good, too...

I loved it. Gave it an 8. told a great story about love, desire, heartbreaks and the supernatural. Had a nice spooky, eerie feel throughout. Just a top notch show for me

I'm not blown away by this one but I did give it an above average "6" because of the actors in it. They give great performances.

Leen

I've never been able to get into it much. I probably haven't seen it for a few years. I gave it a 4.

I just saw it for the 1st time (I think). Definitely one of the worst. I kept waiting for something good to happen. It was a long wait.

I gave it the lone 10...Lol, I am biased I think because the maternal side of my family hails from W.Va deep in the "hollers". In terms of a peek at culture from that part of the USA, it is wonderfully written and acted and very accurate.

I liked it a lot. I watched it 6 years ago, and it really stuck in my mind. "9"

I've seen this one 3 times. The first time I hated it. Second time I thought "hmmm" interesting. Third time brought me into the Jess_Belle club. I like it. Prototypical Earl Hamner style.

good episode..

i liked the part when ellie is picking flowers and jess-belle comes by and calls ellie an old maid and ellie calls jess-belle a vixen. i don't know if i liked the 'singing narrator' between scenes, yet it did lend a creepy feel to the story.

was the actress who plays ellie's mother one of the wealthy sisters (can't remember their names) from "the waltons"? she looks familiar.

-ag

Yes, Helen Kleeb was on The Waltons as Mamie, one of the Baldwin sisters.

ah.. baldwin sisters.. thanks kanamit!!
-ag

Psycho trivia:

Two of the performers who contributed to the voice of Norman Bates's mother appear in this episode--namely, Virginia Gregg (who played Jess-Belle's mother) and Jeanette Nolan (who played Granny Hart). The third was actor Paul Jasmin.

On pp. 594-595 of Patrick McGilligan's biography of Hitchcock (Alfred Hitchcock: A Life In Darkness And Light), McGilligan writes:

***PSYCHO SPOILERS (you really should see Psycho, I think! )***




"Paul Jasmin, an actor friend of Anthony Perkins, offered up his talent for doing an old lady...kind of voice; when Mother spoke, sometimes it was Jasmin, sometimes lines that had been looped by actresses Virginia Gregg or Jeanette Nolan....Hitchcock spliced and melded the voices together....Only the last voice, with Bates sitting forlornly in jail, his mind subsumed by Mother, is entirely female: "Virginia, with probably a little of Jeanette spliced in," according to Jasmin."

I think the cat's out of the bag on this one, but you never know nowadays.
However it's from The Twilight Zone era, and spoiler alerts are always good.

I think the cat's out of the bag on this one, but you never know nowadays.
However it's from The Twilight Zone era, and spoiler alerts are always good.

Yep, I knew I was bending over backwards on that one.

I like this a lot more than I used to! Why on earth did they cut out the wedding in syndication? That's one of the worst cuts in all the Zone!

I'll have to give it a 10 all over...you have to love any eppie that uses the phrase "I reckon" more than 3 time in an hour!!! Now, I'll be using it all day and driving my family batty!!

Ah, I just saw Psycho for the first time. Of course I loved it. I want to see all of Hitchcock's films eventually. Hitchcock is the greatest.

As for this episode I thought it was slightly above average. Ooh, that Anne Francis. If only she was a witch in real life and could have made some kind of potion to keep herself young...or something...I'll shut up now.

GlitcHead!



to a fellow TZ, Hitchcock and Anne Francis fan! Hope you enjoy it here.

thanks man

which Hitchcock films would you recommend the highest? I've seen Vertigo, Dial M for Murder, and Psycho so far. My uncle told me about Torn Curtain and I want to see that one the most.

Sorry to get off-topic. Uhh...Jess-Belle is good episode. And what did she turn into exactly? A jaguar? Panther? I forget...

See this thread.

Geez, I always forget what kind of cat it was. I thought it was a panther, but The Twilight Zone Companion by Marc Scott Zicree says it was a leopard. (He's not always accurate, though.)

She's certainly a spotted cat, and I've always assumed she's a leopard, but I don't know enough zoology to be sure. For that matter, male and female felines sometimes greatly differ in appearance (lions immediately come to mind), and I'm not sure whether spots may belong only to males of a particular species. That's going on the assumption that males generally have the stronger markings, and there's no guarantee a female cat was used to play the transformed Jess-Belle.

Oddly enough, Hamner's published script calls for a black panther, which is definitely not what we see, and I can't find any printed dialogue about the spots such as that which is heard in the episode.

She was also at different times a mouse, and a spider!

i don't think i seen this episode

9
This one is very, very good. Jess-Belle is one of the ZONE's most tragic characters.

i need to watch this one to see how it is

There's mixed opinion on this one but I really like it. It holds the distinction for having no closing narration too. (If I remember correctly)

You do indeed, Mr. Serling. I think this is also the only episode where "Twilight Zone" is mentioned twice in the opening narration. (I should know by now whether it is or not, I guess; I've been spending an awful lot of time with the narrations lately.)

LOL! True.

I managed to watch the last DVD from Season 2 Defiitive Edition last night (The missus went out - hooray! TZ night!) What a great DVD to watch episode-wise. The Silence, Shadow Play, The Mind and The Matter, Will The Real Martian Please Stand Up, and The Obsolete Man. Then there's the extras. I enjoyed the Jack Benny clip. Made me laugh quite a bit (then again, 4 cans of beer and a good mood helps!)

I'm looking forward to Season 3 now (and wish they'd hurry up with Season 4 and 5) The holes in my collection are bugging me now!! Also, I want to review Jess-Belle again. I have a real soft spot in my heart for that episode. (Oh, and Anne Francis! )

Jess-Belle is the only episode (to my knowledge) that doesn't have a closing narration. Having said that, there's no reason why we couldn't make one up - just for fun. I'll have to re-watch the episode and come up with one but I'm sure the regulars will have an idea of what could have been said.

I just saw this one last night.
It is much better than i thought it would be. I was thinking that most 4th season eps were a little slow but they are much better than i had anticipated.

Regardless, Jess-belle is ok.
I was captivated by this one more than some of the others.
Anne Francis is excellent in this one.
BTW, her video interview is absolutely awesome compared to the others.
The other audio interview from the 70s is on the definitive editions as well. But I am so stoked for the video interviews from the def. editions. Whoever has them will be surprised.

Thank you and good night.
TZ DZ Fan

MrRSerling's and TZ DZ Fan's posts were originally in a new thread separate from this one. This is what we have episode threads for, folks. I have merged it. (I wish I'd seen that thread sooner, but there was some kind of technical problem that prevented it from coming up in my "View New Posts" search.)

I was entertained by "Jess-Belle", but letdown by the ending. I thought James Best did another solid job and somehow managed to keep his composure with Anne Francis and Laura Devon hanging all over him. Yeah baby! I'll give it a "6".

I didn't know about the connection to "Psycho" mentioned above. But it can't help the fact that I didn't like it. There is about 1 minute that is good in this episode. The rest is boring or funny. I laughed first time I saw the cat. I don't understand how this episode can grow. The theme is better portrayed in other movies. 2 of 10 for lack of twilight elements and those extra 40 minutes.

Whitsbrain wrote.....

I was entertained by "Jess-Belle", but letdown by the ending. I thought James Best did another solid job and somehow managed to keep his composure with Anne Francis and Laura Devon hanging all over him. Yeah baby! I'll give it a "6".
=====================================================

I did enjoy this episode also. But I have to agree with you again Whit, the ending wasn't as strong as I would have liked it to be.
I'm not really sure how "I" would have done it, but it just didn't stand out as an exceptional ending IMO.

6 sounds about right from me also.

Thank you and good night.
TZ DZ Fan

Although for some reason, this episode is one of the more popular ones from this season. I have never been a fan of it. Not being a James Best fan, probably has something to do with it.

After seeing this recently myself I was amazed that beauties like Ellwyn and Jess-Belle couldn't do much better than Billy Ben. Slim pickin' in the mountains. But then again he was cute in those days. But to fight over the boy? I don't think so.

Well, living in the back and beyond, you'd probably find the only other choice was already married... to his mom!

Hehe, not on this board.

Equally inexplicable is "I Am the Night - Color Me Black's" rampant popularity at the cafe.

Now I have the right episode. Nothing has changed. I still don't like James Best. It was like trying to sit through The Killer Shrews.