I Married a Witch (Rene Clair, 1942)

Resurrected after centuries, witch Jennifer (Veronica Lake) renews her campaign against the people who executed her - the Wooley family, especially their most contemporary descendent, Jonathan (Frederick March).

I used to read Empire magazine, and loved to read their big historical pieces at the back. They would cover a specific topic - like script-doctoring or the history of a specific person or trend.

One of these pieces was a biographical essay on Sturges. This was the early noughties, and Sturges was undergoing something of a revival thanks to the success of fans like The Coen Brothers (O Brother Where Art Thou? takes the title of the titular character’s pet project in Sullivan’s Travels).

I started catching Sturges' movies late at night. One of the main broadcast channels played older movies late on Friday nights.

This was how I was introduced to Sturges’s comedies, Universal horror movies and Hitchcock’s British movies.

This was my introduction to Veronica Lake, in Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels.

Lake is so beautiful and so gloriously naturalistic in Sullivan’s Travels, she steals the movie. Joel McCrea is great, but the movie loses Lake’s wild, unpredictable energy.

I did not have access to Lake’s other movies, so I did not get to see her other vehicles until later.

And I only watched I Married a Witch recently based on listening to the You Must Remember This podcast episode on Lake.

I had not thought about her in years.

Watching this film reinforced what a unique presence Lake was, and you can look forward to more reviews of her films in the future.

Produced by Sturges (who refused screen credit after a breakdown in relations with Rene Clair), I Married a Witch is a spritely, wicked takedown of Wasp America.

Opening in the puritanical past, we dropped into the middle of a witch burning.

The grim occasion is offset immediately by a salesman selling snacks to the spectators.

With the tone established, the film advances rapidly through time with a montage showing Woolley’s ancestors unlucky in love.

Frederick March is perfectly cast as the straight man. There is something vaguely theatrical about his delivery that clashes with Lake’s unstudied naturalism. He works for the character of a stuffed shirt. 

Cecil Kellaway is also hilarious as Jennifer’s father, giving a diabolical self-regard that makes him more of an antagonist. 

He is also key to the comic highlight of the movie, the wedding - the time bomb of Wooley’s society friends and would-be bride finding Jennifer is further complicated by the added variable of her father. 

The film treats Wooley and his milieu as the punchline - a world of wealth where everyone is still forced to hide their true feelings and desires, like Wooley’s fiancé (Susan Hayward).

The movie sends up WASPiness, highlighting how the representation of their ancestors endures - the only desire permitted is the pursuit of wealth and power.

Without its star, I Married A Witch might have worked. 

But Lake takes it into the stratosphere. 

There is no one quite like her, then or now. There is nothing frothy about Lake as a bombshell. She can trade repartee but there is a pathos to her. It always seems like she has more edge than the films intend. Even as Jennifer, she is playful in a way that feels more knowing the character lets on.

One wishes the film was a little more adventurous - the film ends with our central couple in wedded bliss, with only the comic threat of Jennifer’s father in the wings.

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