Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

weezeralfalfa Those of you familiar with the films "Topper" or "Topper Takes a Trip" will recognize a commonality with the present film of ghosts or deceased ghost-like witches interacting positively or negatively with the living, readily transforming from the invisible to the visible, as well as the reverse. All these films are based upon books written by Thorne Smith: "The Passionate Witch" being the relevant book for the present film. Actually, this novel was finished by Norman Matson after Smith's early death, and not published until 1941, shortly before this film was made. Frederick March plays a series of men with the surname Wooley, beginning during the Salem witch trials, and ending with the contemporary Wooley descendant. Johnathan Wooley is a Puritan who denounced Jennifer(Veronica Lake) and her father Daniel(Cecil Kelloway) as witches and sorcerers, and had them burned at the stake. We don't get to see what they looked like before they were burned. However, Wooley said that Jennifer was uncommonly beautiful. Before being burned, Jennifer put a curse on Wolley and all his male descendants that they would marry a woman who would make them unhappy.(Daniel quips that all men marry a wrong woman, which I would disagree with). Apparently, this was true of all the Wolley descendants until the present Wallace Wooley, who is about to marry a headstrong, demanding, young woman for political reasons, although she is also beautiful. She is Estelle Masterson(Susan Hayward), daughter of an influential and wealthy man who is Wooley's most important backer in his imminent run for governor. After being burnt, the ashes of Jennifer and Daniel were buried in the soil and a tree seedling placed above, with the hope that it would thrive and help keep them entangled among it's roots.(Why were their souls assumed to reside in their bodily ashes??). This worked until one day in 1941, when lightning struck tree, splitting it so that their spirits could escape. Their souls were designated by 2 plumes of smoke. At a formal dance, they hid in 2 bottles of spirits, apparently having a taste for alcohol. They think they have found a Wooley descendant in the man present who is running for governor. They decide to try to make Wooley unhappy by convincing him to marry Jennifer: a witch. They will have to work very fast, as Wooley is scheduled to marry Estelle the next day.Skipping ahead in my summary, Jennifer finally convinces Wooley that she loves him and he loves her more than the volatile Estelle. She convinces him to marry her that night, as they are motoring out in the country and come across a bed and breakfast run by a justice of the peace(as luck would have it!). In their bedroom, Jennifer reveals that she is a witch, which Wolley doesn't believe at first. Meanwhile, a drunk Daniel has figured out how to exit his jail cell. His spirit finds Jennifer and says he will take away her sorceress powers , because her heart is too full of human love and kindness to continue being a witch(Why couldn't she be a 'white witch'??). Daniel, Wooley and Jennifer drive to the oak they were imprisoned in, and crash land ,after an aerial drive. Strangely, none is hurt. However, Daniel calls Jennifer's spirit to abandon her body, saying that Wooley's punishment will be the imminent loss of Jennifer, who is no longer a witch. Before Daniel can nudge her back into the tree, her spirit reenters her body and brings it back to life, she saying that "Love is stronger than witchcraft" Daniel is trapped inside a bottle of spirits, and kept on a shelf for the future. Meanwhile, Jennifer and Wooley live a happy life, with several children. To me, this film is more interesting than "Topper". Partly, this is because of the additional interesting factor of witchcraft, along with ghosts that can change back and forth between the visible and invisible. Partly, it's because of the looks and film personality of Veronica Lake. Surely, her long blond hair, sexily arranged mostly over one side of her head is a significant part of her appeal. But, also her manner of speaking and coquettish personality are important. On the other hand, Frederic March, as Wooley, was poorly cast. He came across as too straight-laced, which even a Veronica would have difficulty loosening up. The girls were left to mostly carry the film. Also, March was 45 and looked early middle-aged. Veronica, at 20, seemed too young for him . Actually, I thought Susan(Estelle) had more potential as a politician's partner, but maybe that was just because she was older. It would have been nice if Bing Crosby or Bob Hope, also at Paramount, could have taken the role of Wooley. Cecil Kellaway was good, as Daniel.

mightymothra Put this on looking for a cute, fun 40's flick, and eh? It's got some cute touches here and there, but the movie itself is weirdly scattershot, bringing up plot devices and abandoning them almost immediately for no apparent reason. At one point the witch dad uses his magic to frame the main guy for murder, which his friend immediately witnesses, then within 5 minutes the entire thing is fully resolved with no impact on the movie whatsoever.Stuff will just happen. The witch will cast a spell and it'll backfire, but then she'll be perfectly fine a scene later. The witch dad will get drunk from staying inside of a bottle, and then be like permanently drunk for two straight days until he's not. Good guys turn into bad guys then are immediately turned back to good guys.I think the other thing that bugged me was how much of this movie is devoted to the main guy resisting the premise of the movie, refusing the believe witches are a thing over and over while the witch throws herself at him to be rebutted again and again, in mirror scenes stacked next to each other. Ugh. Just get on with it!Yeah, not one of my favorites.

lasttimeisaw Served as French film pyrotechnist René Clair's second Hollywood venture when he was a hired- hand by the studios, I MARRIED A WITCH cashes in on a light-hearted script about witchcraft and head-over-heels romance, and headlined by a 20-year-old Veronica Lake (in her iconic peekaboo coiffure) and a visibly too-old-for-the-bachelor-role Fredric March.The fatuous story develops around a witch Jennifer (Lake), after miraculously awaken by a thunder striking the oak tree where she and her sorcerer father Daniel (Kellaway) were burned centuries ago, now is frivolously bent on seeking revenge from Wallace Wooley (March), the descendant of her denouncer in Salem, by seducing the latter into marry her, so that she can break his heart. But under the premise is that Wooley's family has been already inflicted by her curse that all descendants will marry the wrong woman, so their marriages have been destined for unhappiness, which only makes her punishment gratuitous.Anyway, things don't go exactly as Jennifer plans, for one thing, she accidentally drinks the philter which prepares for Wallace and gets all smitten with him instead. However, as the throwaway catchword is "love over witchery", which would been unsubtly addressed multiple times in the course of the farce, the writers (including an uncredited Dalton Trumbo as the contributing writer) seem oblivious enough to unleash her under the spell, so eventually when they reach that banal happy ending, it awkwardly sends out a mixed message in aftermath.The cast is serviceable at its best, there is a pleasant and even childlike guilelessness in Veronica Lake's cheerful insouciance, radiates from her vintage glamour out of her petite figure, a starlet made from Tinseltown banks on her looks rather than her acting range, while Oscar-winning leading man Fredric March self-consciously settles for a perpetual innocuous bewilderment, to audience's amusement, only Cecil Kellaway is whimsically glinting with a certain degree of unpredictability to make the plot thicken. Finally, it is downright offensive to see Susan Hayward is cast in a thankless role as Wallace's petulant bride-to-be Estelle, plays a second fiddler to a star far less talented than her.An utterly harmless fluff notwithstanding, the picture at least dazzles with its dexterity of handling with its fantasy tropes, two wisps of smoke represents the amorphous Jennifer and Daniel and a set piece of a flying taxi using matte legerdemain must have been quite an engrossing technique to woo its audience upon its release, a credit certainly should be attributed to Mr. Clair himself.

davidjanuzbrown I am a Veronica Lake fan, so I really do not care what the haters say about her (see March, Frederic). This is a classic movie, that is timeless. It is about two witches named Jennifer (Veronica Lake)and her father who are burned at the stake, and their remains are trapped in a tree. However, before that she puts a curse on all Wooley men which is to marry the worst possible woman, starting with the man she loves Nathaniel (March). If you see the speech he gives to his son, warning him not to tell his mother (he knows it is coming and he probably would have been better off with Jennifer in the first place). They show several different Wooley men (all played by March) who suffer that fate. One cannot wait to fight in the Civil War to get away from his wife. 270 years later, lightening strikes the tree and the spirits are released and they see another Wooley this time named Wally who is running for Governor and they plan on ruining is life. The witches come back to life (the father creates a fire in a Department Store to make a body and Wally hears a voice and "Rescues" Jennifer, and brings her to a hospital and she has no burns, and shows up at his home in his pajamas, starting the process of ruining him, because marrying a bad woman (Susan Hayward) is not good enough, Jennifer tries to get Wally to fall in love with her and break off his engagement to Susan Hayward. He does fall for her, but does not break the engagement, so she creates a love potion, for him to drink so she can take him away. However, a painting of Nathaniel hits her on the head, and Wally gives her the potion, making her fall in love with him. Spoilers ahead: Jennifer then wrecks the wedding and she and Wally end up eloping, and breaking the curse, and by witchcraft she gets everyone in the State to vote for him. However, her father does not approve and would rather have Jennifer in the tree with him and crashes their car into the same tree with Wally surviving but Jennifer losing her powers and dying. The last thing she tells him is "Love is stronger then witchcraft." They look in the window and see how brokenhearted Wally is losing her, and Jennifer pretends she is happy and her father gives her powers back, and she then traps him in a whiskey bottle and is reunited with Wally. They have a happy life with a boy and a girl but the little girl wants to play on a broom, so you know she will be trouble. The key line in the entire movie is the one Jennifer said: "Love is stronger then witchcraft." That is the key to not only breaking the curse: A Wooley marrying the right woman instead of the various shrews they ended up with (and it can only be Jennifer who is the right woman), which is what Wally did (with some supernatural help from Nathaniel and the clunk on the head), It also allows Jennifer to be with someone who really loves her, instead of her spirit continuing to be trapped like her father. 10/10 stars.