I MARRIED A WITCH (1942)

" A brainless little blonde sexpot, void of any acting ability." is how Fredrick March described Veronica Lake in the pre-post production of  I MARRIED A WITCH. This remark leads to many pranks that  Lake would play on her leading man throughout the making of this picture. While being filmed from the waist up, Lake placed her foot on March's groin. Another prank consisted of Lake hiding a forty pound weight under her costume for scenes which March had to carry her in his arms. After making the film, March referred to the picture as  "I MARRIED A BITCH."

Our romantic comedy begins of all places at a witch burning, a young woman was just burned for being accused of being a witch. Another is about to meet the same fate, her sorcerer father. While waiting for the next execution to begin, the pop maze is distributed to the eager puritan crowd during the intermission. Among them is Master Jonathan Wooley ( Fredrick March), who accused Jennifer, now deceased for turning his cows pink than blue and making his sheep dance a minuet. After being denounced as a witch, Jennifer put a curse on Wooley and his ancestors to be unhappy in love. Jennifer and her father's ashes were scattered under an oak tree imprisoning them in its roots.

As the centuries rolled by, we see the Wooley men marrying one shrew after another, being tormented for the sake of love. In the present time, we now meet the newest Wolley...  Future Governor Wallace Wolley  (Fredrick March) having a debate with future wife ( Susan Hayward) at a pre-election party on the eve of their wedding day. It seems that Wallace is about to embark down the same disastrous matrimonial road as his previous ancestors marrying harpie Estelle Masterson ( Susan Hayward). Not the leading lady, but  Hayward holds her own in a supporting role as an ambitious daughter of Wooley's financial backer, who's marrying just for political gain.

Outside, on the Wooley's property, the oak tree is struck by lighting releasing the spirits of Jennifer and her father. They drift over as witches smoke to Wooley's house were the pre-election party being given. Jennifer and her father watch the party from the outside patio. Suddenly someone is coming outside onto the patio. Quickly they disappear funneling themselves in some liquor bottles left on the patio. As the stranger approaches, Jennifer recognizes his features but can't remember. It's not until they follow him inside when she sees the campaign poster of Wallace Wooley. She now puts it together, Wallace is a descendant of  Jonathan, who had her and her father burned for using witchcraft.

Jennifer and her father decide to follow Wally, who's bringing Estelle home from the party. On their way, riding on a broomstick borrowed from Wooley's kitchen, Jennifer tells her intoxicated father that she wants to be the female that tortures Wallace Wolley. She convinces her father into giving her a human body. But to do so, she has to be reborn in flames, which inquires something to be set on fire. Up ahead stands The Puritan Hotel, which is a good enough place as any to start a fire. Jennifer leaves her father and descends down inside the Puritan Hotel which is set aflame.

Wally stops the taxi and gets out to see the Puritan Hotel in flames. Everyone seems to have made it out of the hotel safely, but Wally hears a woman's cry for help still inside. But no one else hears it. Compelled to be a hero, Wally dashes into the burning building. Guided by her voice, Wally finds Jennifer( Veronica Lake), a cool blonde who is not wearing any clothes. He hands her his jacket to put on, which she later changes out to a mink coat during the rescue mission. With everything crashing down around them,  Wally becomes the hero, rushing from the burning hotel carrying a pretty blonde in a mink coat. But some become skeptical about his motives if he had known the blonde in the hotel before, especially Estelle after hearing the damsel in distress say "Wally, take me away from these people."

Veronica Lake is in top form here in her first comedy feature. Lake proves that she can be more than just window dressing in a film noir. Lake later confessed in her autobiography that she hated Fredrick March. But you would never know it, watching her in those romantic scenes with March. I guess Lake was giving us, one of her greatest performances.

Getting back to the synopsis, After Wally convinces his fiancée, Estelle that he had never met the blonde he rescued before. The wedding is still on. Then Jennifer decides to pay her hero Wally a visit at his home. But she ended up being carried out of the house and put in a taxi. That night Wally finds Jennifer in his bed wearing his pajamas. After that everything becomes a blur, as he spends all night talking to her. The next morning Margaret (Elizabeth Patterson), the Wooley family maid of 30 years, was quite surprised to find Jennifer in his bed and her employer sitting in a wingback chair. After three batches of waffles, Jennifer ate like she had eaten in years. Wally is told that Estelle and her father is waiting for him downstairs. He quickly goes downstairs, getting rid of them, before they discover the blonde he saved is upstairs in the bedroom.

Due to a pressing engagement before the wedding is to take place today, Wally is forced to leave Margaret to tend to Jennifer. But Jennifer wasn't up to listening to anything Margaret had to say and put her asleep standing in the foyer.  Jennifer dashes into the living room, wondering what to do next. All her efforts of making Wolley fall in love without witchcraft hasn't worked. Suddenly her father appears as flames in the fireplace, telling her that she needs a love potion. Thankfully, the fireplace is equipped with a black cauldron to concoct this love potion no. 9. After the enchantment was complete, Jennifer 's father leaves to find a building to burn for he too, can have a human body. Jennifer suggested the place where Wally went.

When Wally returns home with his best man Dudley White (Robert Benchley), they find poor Margret still asleep in the foyer. Wally races up to find the alluring Jennifer deck out in evening gown trying to offer him a drink of water. But unfortunate for Jennifer, she is the one who ends up drinking the water (Love Potion), after being struck in the head by the portrait of one of Wooley Ancestors. Jennifer falls madly in love with Wally. But Wally is marrying Estelle within the hour.  There is no time to lose, Walley leaves Jennifer upstairs,  and dashes out with Dudley to get married.

Cecil Kellaway is devilishly splendid in this film as Lake's father, the sorcerer Daniel. He's totally inept with his incantations, not able to remember the last lines, due to being intoxicated. He is a nasty devil with lots of nasty ideas, but his calamity making is usually preempted by being concealed inside a liquor bottle.

Returning to the synopsis, Daniel returns to his daughter with a new body of a frumpy middle-aged man. To his surprise, Daniel finds that his daughter Jennifer has taken the love potion instead of Walley Wooley. Making a dramatic entrance, wedding crashers Jennifer and her father blow in with a gust of strong wind ripping through Estelle's Family house. Everything and everyone gets thrown around from the strong hurricane type winds. Dudley tells Walley that he saw Jennifer blow in. Not only, does Walley find Jennifer, but her father as well with Walley's revolver upstairs. Daniel tells Walley that he is going to settle the score of what Jonathan Wolley did, by having him fry in the electric chair for his murder. After a few incantations  " Pistol, Pistol let there be murder in the first degree. " The revolver goes off shooting Daniel. But the murdered victim returned back to life when Jennifer threatens her father to expose them as witches. After Daniel flees the scene and gets thrown in jail for drunken disorderly. Finally, after all the interruptions, the wedding is called off when the bride finds the groom in the arms of the blonde he rescued.

After Estelle's Father threatens to destroy Wally's political career, Wally decides to drive over the state line in the fog with Jennifer. Once the fog lifts, they find themselves in front of The Justice of The Peace. Already in a tux, Wally decides to marry Jennifer. Before they retire for the night, Jennifer tries to come clean with Wally telling him that she is a WITCH. But Wally doesn't believe her. She tells him that she will only use witchcraft to help him like making him win the election. Wally laughs it off saying " It will take witchcraft to do that."

The next day, Everybody is shouting "We Want Wooley" including the talking parrot and the newborn babies in the maternity ward. Walley wins by a landslide and becomes the next governor. While Walley is giving his acceptance speech to the people gathered in front of his home. His wife Jennifer is visited by her father, who came from the fireplace. Now, sober Daniel is no longer tolerating his daughter outwitting him. He tells his daughter that he is forced to expel her back to the tree for denouncing herself as a witch at the stroke of midnight. Jennifer is then stripped of her powers, no longer a witch and cannot resist.

Jennifer is granted to say goodbye to her mortal husband. She takes Walley out the back door and into a cab, unknowing that her father is behind the wheel. Jennifer tells her husband that she has lost her powers. Daniel has the cab flying through the air, only to crash into the oak tree. Walley helps Jennifer from the wreckage of the cab. Her father, now in form of witches smoke calls her to return to the oak tree. Daniel informs Walley that he will never stop loving his daughter which will be his torture and that his daughter will not remember him which will be her punishment. Jennifer tells Walley that love is stronger than witchcraft. They embrace, kissing each other for the last time. Jennifer's body went cold and limb, as she bid farewell to her mortal husband. Walley then swept up her lifeless body in his arms and carried her back to his house.

Before going back to the tree, Jennifer persuades her father to follow her husband back to the house to watch him suffer. On the patio looking into the living room, Jennifer and her father watch poor Walley desperately trying to revive his wife's lifeless body lying on the sofa. Daniel manages to find himself a bottle of rum to funnel himself into. While poor Jennifer watches her distraught husband through the window. Then suddenly like it happens in the fairy tales, Walley brings Jennifer back to life with a kiss. But before there any happy ending, Jennifer immediately opens the window and corks the rum bottle that contains her father. Seven years later, we find that Jennifer and Walley have two fine sons and a daughter who likes to play with a broomstick. As for Jennifer 's Father, we see that he is kept under lock and key, still in the same rum bottle. And if you listen closely you can hear him sing...

"Goodnight Ladies, Good Ladies, Good Night Ladies, tomorrow I will be sober."

FUN FACTS

 Joel McCrea vowed after making SULLIVAN TRAVELS (1941) that he would NEVER make another picture with Veronica Lake. He even declines the role of Wally Wooley in I MARRIED A WITCH. But five years later, McCrea finds himself doing another picture with the actress that he vowed that he would never work with again called RAMROD (1947).

 Sol Saks who created the classic TV Series BEWITCHED, claims that he was inspired by two classic films, I MARRIED A WITCH (1942) and BELL, BOOK, and CANDLE (1958) when making the series.

The name of Jonathan Wolley's mother TABITHA was also the name of Darren and Samantha Stevens's daughter in BEWITCHED.

Veronica Lake was asked to change her iconic Peek-a-boo hairstyle which covers her right eye until after the war. Because many women who copied Lake's look got their hair caught in machinery working in the war plants. I MARRIED A WITCH  was one of the first films, having Lake's new look exposing both eyes. Unfortunately, when Lake gave up her iconic look, her popularity suffered causing her career to wane.

                        IMMORTAL DIALOGUE

" Pop maze, fresh Indian pop maze. It's buttered, it's hot, it fresh, with anti witch charm in every pop."

          "WALLEY... Take me from these people."

                      THE CAST
.              Jennifer ... VERONICA LAKE

            Wally Wooley... FREDRICK  MARCH

            Estelle Masterson... Susan Hayward

            Dr. Dudley White... Peter Benchley

             Daniel ..... Cecil Kellaway

             Margret ... Elizabeth Patterson

           J. B. Masterson ... Robert Warrick

                           

                               MY BOTTOM LINE IS .....

 I MARRIED A WITCH (1942) is a true classic in every sense of the word. The performances were given by Veronica Lake and Fredrick March are surprisingly impressive given the circumstances they worked under. Despite all the drama that happened behind the scenes, nothing transpired in front of the camera. This first-rate classic has an impressive supporting cast as well, which includes Cecil Kellaway who steals the show. Kellaway could have easily walked away with the picture if he had little more screen time. As for our Leading Lady in Waiting Susan Hayward, she definitely exhibits the attributes of a star, even in this supporting role. In a few years, Hayward would get Star billing and her time to shine. While other Leading Ladies like Veronica Lake would fade out. I highly recommend this classic anytime, not just during the Halloween season.