Reviewed by Chris J. Magyar

The aforementioned nightgown.

The back of the box said this movie inspired the beloved hit TV show "Bewitched." But I wasn't looking at the back of the box. I was looking at the front. Why? Because on the front of this particular box was a picture of Veronica Lake in a sheer black nightgown.

Veronica Lake enjoyed a meteoric career that took off with her appearance in "Sullivan's Travels" in 1941. She made 14 movies before 1946, then basically stopped working. Her biggest claim to fame, besides being the pre-war equivalent to Marilyn Monroe, was her long, wavy, perfectly blonde hair, so much more glorious in black and white than in color. Her hairstyle became such a strong trademark of 1940's glamor that it was used on Jessica Rabbit. For that reason, the script of this movie is loaded with coy references to Ms. Lake's vanity about her hair.

Ah, yes, the script. Well, it's a long way from "Bewitched". The movie starts out surprisingly much like modern Naked Gun type spoofs do. It takes place in colonial America, at a witch burning. This partiular pilgrim named Wooley points the finger at a father and daughter, accusing them of witchcraft, and the two are burned at the stake and buried under an oak tree to keep their spirits from escaping. The trick is that just before their death sentence, the young daughter cursed Wooley and all his descendants to unhappy marriages. This scene contains a lot of cute pilgrim talk, with lots of thous and thys. I laughed the first time, but it got old as fast as Pauly Shore doing a Phillip Glass impression.

Then follows a quick montage of selected moments from the lives of Wooley's descendants, who, sure enough, end up in horrible marriages. Which brings us to the present day (if you think the present day is still 1942, that is*). Wallace Wooley, (that's right, Wally Wooley), is a direct descendant of you-know-who, and he's running for governor in the very same state where the witchcraft trials were held 270 years before. The election is two days away, and he's been arranged to marry the daughter of an influential newspaper publisher the day before the election for publicity reasons. Of course, the bride hates him. Wally Wooley is holding a party at his place, which happens to be built near a certain oak tree, the night before his wedding. All of a sudden, a storm brews up and the oak tree is struck by lightning, releasing the spirits of daddy witch, Daniel, and daughter witch, Jennifer. The witchy spirits appear as plumes of smoke, and they still speak in that crazy pilgrim talk. They float over to Wally's and peer inside at the party. I think you can assume what happens from there.

Or can you? The most enjoyable thing about this movie is not the "comedy" -- which is at best corny, and at worst as painful as the final "joke" on Scooby Doo. Sure, there are a few laugh-out-loud one-liners sprinkled through the script, but it's not the laughs that keep you there. It's the writing. "The what?" Oh, fear not, loyal modern filmgoers. Let me tell a story. Once upon time, back when special effects were done with fishing twine, and romantic comedies emphasized the first part of the description, Hollywood actually employed writers. And these writers did things like script interesting plots, and write dialogue. "Dia-what?"

"Jessica Rabbit? I don't know what you're talking about."

I Married a Witch is not the best romantic comedy from the '40's. Except for Veronica Lake and Susan Hayward (who plays the grouch Wally is supposed to marry, and nearly steals the show), the cast is fairly weak. The music and the jokes are mostly corny and even the lines aren't all that original. But the plot! Ay-my-dog-in-heaven the plot is actually original. Of course you know that Wally and Jennifer are meant to be together -- it wouldn't be a romantic comedy if you didn't -- but the amazing thing is that the plot is written so that you doubt yourself the whole way through. There actually are times when it almost doesn't happen, when the two destined lovers almost forsake destiny and forget the whole thing. In short, you care about what happens to them. That right there makes the whole thing worth watching.

As for influencing Bewitched, that's kind-of, sort-of true. Wally is a politician (which raises interesting questions about fidelity all by itself ... I'm sure a certain former governor from Arkansas wishes he had Wally's story to fall back on), while Darren is a regular Joe. Jennifer is a seductress, while Samantha was a housewife. In short, the characters are all there, but the situations are entirely different. It's interesting, really, to note the differences between pre-war and post-war culture, and how they affected this tale (example: Jennifer is definitely a bad witch, while Samantha is really quite nice), but I make it a point not to think too much when confronted with a romantic comedy.

And as long as you don't either, this is a good one.

* A suspicious little entry in the IMDB states that I Married A Witch is being remade, and should be released this year. However, no studio has been attached to the project, and the entry hasn't been updated in a year. I'd think that in the current re-make frenzy it would be much more likely to see a big screen "Bewitched" than a re-do of the not-so-famous movie that supposedly inspired it, but what do I know? Go back!