I Married a Witch
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| I Married a Witch | |
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| Directed by | René Clair Jack Gage (dialogue director) |
| Produced by | René Clair |
| Written by | Thorne Smith (novel) Norman Matson (novel completion) Robert Pirosh, Marc Connelly |
| Starring | Veronica Lake Fredric March Cecil Kellaway |
| Running time | 77 min. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
I Married a Witch is a 1942 romantic comedy film, directed by René Clair. It starred Veronica Lake as a witch whose plan for revenge goes comically awry. The film was based on a novel called The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith, who died before he could finish it. It was completed by Norman Matson.
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[edit] Plot
Two witches in colonial Salem, Jennifer (Veronica Lake) and her father Daniel (Cecil Kellaway), are burned at the stake after being denounced by Puritan Jonathan Wooley (Fredric March) and their ashes buried beneath a tree to imprison their evil spirits. In revenge, Jennifer curses Wooley and all his male descendants - they are doomed to always marry the wrong person.
Centuries pass. Unfortunate Wooley males are shown marrying shrewish women, generation after generation. Finally, lightning splits the tree, freeing the spirits of Jennifer and Daniel. They discover Wallace Wooley (March again), living nearby and running for governor, on the eve of marrying the ambitious Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward), whose father just happens to be Wooley's chief political backer.
Initially, Jennifer and Daniel manifest themselves as white vertical smoky 'trails', occasionally hiding in empty (or sometimes not-so-empty) bottles of alcohol. Jennifer persuades her father to create a human body for her so she can torment the latest Wooley. He needs a fire to perform the spell, so he burns down a building (appropriately enough, the Pilgrim Hotel). This serves a dual purposes, as Jennifer uses it to get the passing Wallace to rescue her from the flames.
Jennifer tries hard to seduce Wallace without magic, but though he is strongly attracted to her, he refuses to put off his marriage. She concocts a love potion, but her scheme goes awry when a painting falls on her; Wallace revives her by giving her the drink she had intended for him.
Jennifer's father conjures himself a body. Then he and Jennifer crash the wedding, though they are at cross purposes. Daniel hates all Wooleys and tries to prevent his daughter from helping one of them. His attempts at interference land him in jail, too drunk to remember the spell to turn Wallace into a frog. Meanwhile, Estelle finds the couple embracing and the wedding is called off. Her outraged father promises to denounce the candidate in all his newspapers.
Wallace finally admits that he loves Jennifer, and they elope. Jennifer works overtime with her witchcraft to rescue her new husband's political career. She conjures up little clouds of brainwashing white smoke that "convince" every voter to support Wallace, and he is elected in a landslide. In disgust, Daniel strips his daughter of her magical powers.
Through all this, Jennifer is unable to convince Wallace that she is a witch until her father takes them in an airborne taxi back to the tree. At the stroke of midnight, Wallace is left with Jennifer's lifeless body, while two plumes of smoke watch. Before they return to the tree, Jennifer asks to watch Wallace's torment. While Daniel gloats, Jennifer reclaims her body, explaining to Wallace, "Love is stronger than witchcraft." She alertly puts the top back on the bottle of liquor her father is hiding in, keeping him drunk and powerless. Years later, Wallace and Jennifer have children, although their young daughter starts showing disturbing tendencies...
[edit] Cast
- Fredric March as Jonathan Wooley/Nathaniel Wooley/Samuel Wooley/Wallace Wooley
- Veronica Lake as Jennifer
- Cecil Kellaway as Daniel
- Susan Hayward as Estelle Masterson
- Robert Benchley as Dr. Dudley White, Wooley's friend
- Elizabeth Patterson as Margaret, Wooley's housekeeper
- Robert Warwick as J.B. Masterson
[edit] Possible inspiration for Bewitched
It is commonly believed that the popular 1960s television series Bewitched was inspired by this film. Sol Saks (the creator of Bewitched) neither confirmed nor denied this in his book, The Craft of Comedy Writing. He said that "the idea of a witch living as a mortal…has been used in Greek mythology, in fairy tales, in novels, on the stage, and in motion pictures. The only real originality, I’m quite willing to confess, was that Bewitched was the first to adapt the concept successfully to the television screen."[1] Coincidentally, Cecil Kellaway appeared in one episode of Bewitched as Santa Claus in 1964.[2]
[edit] Production
In a situation unusual for Hollywood at the time, Clair produced the film at Paramount Pictures but it was released through United Artists.
[edit] Inaccuracy
No one accused of witchcraft was ever burned in Massachusetts; they were generally hanged, though one was pressed to death by rocks during his trial.
