I Married A Witch!

I Married A Witch!:

Or Veronica Lake Is The Hottest Witch Ever

I haven't dug into the past of Hollywood much lately, and I felt today was as good a day as any to do so, after all, I happened to catch this one on television recently and fell in love with it all over again. Plus, its the movie that the classic television series Bewitched is based on. For those of you that haven't really seen or heard of this film, well then, shame on you, to often is Veronica Lake, the original bombshell, overshadowed by hotness-come-laters like Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Diana Dors and Jane Mansfield and the like, both in her impact and importance to pop culture, and as well as her importance to film and hollywood in general. And though one can argue that like those that came after her, one could argue that most of Veronica's work was simply to just get an insanely hot woman on camera in vamp like roles just to draw in the theater-goers, but not so much with this film. I Married A Witch! stands out as possibly the funniest and most endearing of her many roles, or atleast the one she had the most fun doing.

The film itself, starts off in late 1600s Salem Massachusetts, during the Salem Witch trials, young puritan Jennifer and her father Danial are accused of being witches by local man Jonathan Wooley, and are then burned at the stake, as was the style of dealing with witches at the time, for they had not yet discovered the sexy witch outfit that has saved many a modern witch and goth girl from being burned at the stake in modern times. As they burn, it turns out Jennifer and her father were infact witches, and as she burns at the stake, Jennifer curses Wooley's family, claiming that every single man from now until the end of time, will be doomed to marry the wrong woman and never be happy. After this, the ashes of Jennifer and her father are scattered at the tree they were burned infront of, as to lock them in the tree forever. No idea how that works, but its the 1940s, so they knew no better, hell the general population of the world, like juggalos, didn't know how magnets worked back then, interestingly enough also like juggalos, the general population in the 1940s also believed that sex was a sin but having a friend that was black or hispanic was an even greater sin, but asians are ok because asian women are hot. Also, no one ever seems to mention that using witchcraft to bond souls to a tree, even if for god, is still witchcraft either.

Eventually, they show time go on, and all the Wooley men, all played by the same guy btw, living in bad marriage after bad marriage, doomed to forever be unhappy in love and in life, all because some idiot hundreds of years ago accused a hot goth chick and her dad of being witches and now everyone of them has to suffer for it, even if its not their fault. As luck would have it, in 1942, lightening strikes the tree where Jennifer and her father Danial's souls were trapped., splitting the track in two and somehow freeing the two witches souls, who as I'm sure you can guess, are pretty pissed off at the fact they were burned at the stake for being witches, and then had witchcraft used on them, in the name of god, to lock their souls in a god damn tree for all of time. They appear as little balls of smoke that float about observing the new world, even hiding inside more then afew bottles of booze, much to hilarious extent. Eventually they discover that there is a Wooley man living near by, and discover that he is running for governor of Massachusetts, and is about to marry the daughter of his biggest money contributor, whom he doesn't care at all for, but feels that its best for his career. Jennifer, having been locked up inside of a tree decides to instead of letting the nature of the curse she put on the Wooley men take its course, she wants to stick it to the family abit extra this time now that she's free of the tree, her father Danial, happily agrees and sets about gathering the stuff needed to give Jennifer a body, so she can go about doing evil, because its alot better doing evil in a body then to do evil as a cute little ball of smoke. From there, the basic romantic comedy plot takes over, Jennifer meets the current Mr. Wooley and she finds a way into his heart and makes him love her 1940s style, she as well falls in love with him 1940s style, and in the end, though trials and tribulations and normal every day romantic comedy stuff, which ofcourse leads to the eventual realization, "Love is stronger then witchcraft".

The plot and concept might seem simplistic and abit goofy by today's standards, but you have to remember, in 1942, this had never been done before, in a sense, this was one of, if not the first romantic comedy, and still one of the best I think. The great Veronica Lake shines while keeping her trademark bombshell appearance, and adding alittle bit of campy fun to it, the image of her in the witch hat is one of the most iconic images of Veronica from her entire career. Under-rated character actor Fredric March, most known for playing Death in "Death Takes A Holiday" the film "Meet Joe Black" is a remake of, plays every male member of the Wooley family rather well, they don't at all look like just the same guy wearing different clothing, for the short time you see each of them they are unique and different then the one before, thats a detail trait that is so refreshing to see, even if it was in a film thats the same age as most of the people that watch The History Channel. The rest of the cast shines as well, even right down to the goofy ending. Its easy to tell after watching it, how it evolved into Bewitched, it ends leaving you wondering what happens next, and I guess a logical answer would be to do a tv show along the same lines. So, if you get a chance, and you wanna see a nice throwback to the days of old school hollywood, then please, give this gem a look.

here is the trailer...


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BC