Word: hofnagel
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Broomsticks, Amen! (by Elmer Greensfelder; produced by Thomas Kilpatrick). "All things come in threes," intones the patriarch of the Hofnagel family, holding aloft a length of red string. "Birth, life and death. Sun. moon and stars. Father, mother and child." The old man is "doing for" a neighbor's sick baby. From head to foot over the infant, lying on a table beneath his rapt gaze, he draws the red string from which he then plucks some invisible thing and casts it aside. He mutters "sanctious words," with his own hand scoops away the evil aura enveloping the small...
...Hofnagel is a well-to-do farmer of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, known and respected from Allentown to Lancaster as a potent "hex-doctor." A seventh son, he believes implicitly in his own powers. He informs a village woman that if she would know which of several suitors to accept, she should put initialed onions beneath her pillow, be guided by the onion that sprouts first. For a lovecharm he prescribes a drop of blood in a glass of water. To keep witches out of a churn he recommends a hot flatiron. Benign, fond of his family, Father Hofnagel spits...
...accepts his daughter's marriage to a "medicaler" with bitter resignation but he is overjoyed when she bears a boy who, he believes, will inherit the Hofnagel power. When the baby contracts diphtheria Hofnagel prevents his son-in-law from administering antitoxin by shooting him in the shoulder, kills the baby with his own mumbo-jumbo. These events are developed in a sharp atmosphere of authenticity, tautly directed by Arthur Beckhard, expert handler of family groups (Another Language). Good performances: William F. Schoeller as Hofnagel, Jules Epailly as a rival wizard, Victor Kilian as a slow-witted yokel...
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