I Married a Witch
| I Married a Witch | |
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theatrical poster
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| Directed by | René Clair |
| Produced by | René Clair Preston Sturges (both uncredited) |
| Written by |
Screenplay: Robert Pirosh Marc Connelly Dialogue: René Clair André Rigaud (both uncredited) Uncredited: Dalton Trumbo |
| Based on | novel The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith Norman H. Matson (completion) |
| Starring |
Veronica Lake Fredric March |
| Music by | Roy Webb |
| Cinematography | Ted Tetzlaff |
| Edited by | Eda Warren |
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Production
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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77 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.1 million (US rentals) |
I Married a Witch is a 1942 fantasy romantic comedy film, directed by René Clair, and starring Veronica Lake as a witch whose plan for revenge goes comically awry, with Fredric March as her foil. The film also features Robert Benchley, Susan Hayward and Cecil Kellaway. The screenplay by Robert Pirosh and Marc Connelly and uncredited other writers, including Dalton Trumbo, is based on the novel The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith, who died before he could finish it; it was completed by Norman H. Matson and published in 1941.
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, dooming them always to marry the wrong woman.
Centuries pass. Generation after generation, Wooley men - all played by March - marry cruel, shrewish women. Finally, in 1942, 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 and spoiled Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward), whose father (Robert Warwick) 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 dual purposes, as Jennifer uses it to get the passing Wallace to rescue her from the flames.
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Wikipedia