I Married A Witch is a 1942 romantic screwball comedy fantasy film by French director René Clair based losely on the novel The Passionate Witch written by Thorne Smith, author of the best-selling Topper novels at the time.
In a moment shot in hazy, dreamy vapors, our star apparitions and the movie's main characters played by Fredric March (Jonathan) and Veronica Lake (Jennifer) meet in a fire, she as naked as Eve and he, the coughing, blinded Adam, stumbling through the fumes, saving this trickster in distress.
While the movie belongs to another era, if you set aside your preconceptions and allow yourself to immerse in its world, you may find it to be one of the sweetest, innocently pure, and tender love stories, offering a delicate, entertaining, simple, but touching escape.
Nineteen year old Lake is absolutely hilarious in her role as Jennifer. She’s totally a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but in the best way possible. Wallace is a stereotypical vanilla politician, a real Wally to Jennifer's being the most bubbliest witch in the history of cinema.
Both actors had spectacular chemistry in the movie. In truth, they loathed each other. Lake claimed she spurned the 44-year-old man’s advances. March claimed she was an ill-behaved amateur. The hatred between the two performers playing at romance on-screen is so hot it works wildly.
The actress explained in her memoir Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake:
"One scene had me in a rocking chair. A picture falls off the wall and strikes me unconscious. I’m supposed to sit in the chair without movement while March desperately attempts to talk to me.
The shot was medium, showing only the two of us from waist-high. We were into the scene and he came close to me.
He was standing directly in front of the chair. I carefully brought my foot up between his legs. And I moved my foot up and down, each upward movement pushing it ever so slightly into his groin.
Pro that he is, it wasn’t easy for him, and I delighted simply in knowing what was going through his mind. Naturally, when the scene was over, he laced into me. I just smiled."
Personally I think this great movie points to various issues that have been mishandled these days. Were both actors actually really loathing each other enough for them to start hurting each other professionally, emtionally or fysically? I'm sure that they were not because there was always something more going on than could have notice at first sight.
The story begins with a good old fashioned witch burning in Salem. Jennifer and her father are outed as witches by an ancestor of Jonathan Wooley, causing them both to be burned. Jennifer doesn’t let the crime go unpunished as she places a curse on his family that will cause all the Wooley men to have unsuccessful marriages... but that's on first read... please continue!
