Story: A beautiful 17th-century witch returns to life to plague politician Wallace Wooley, descendant of her persecutor.
Director: René Clair
Writers: Robert Pirosh (screen play), Marc Connelly (screen play)
Stars: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Robert Benchley
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Review: I'm sure there are many women just as beautiful as Veronica Lake. I'm sure there were, and will be, directors as gifted as Rene Clair. And I'm sure there are Irish mischief makers as amusing as Cecil Kellaway. And politicians as stuffy and pompous as Frederic March. But the combination here in this wonderful fluff is without equal.
Some Hollywood ace, befuddled and benumbed on a steady diet of coke and guacamole, has decided to remake this amazing film. Perhaps we will be shown a flash of real naked witch. But it will never be as sensual as the imagined view of Lake, as she appears in a smoke-filled hotel room. Perhaps in the re-make we will be shown the two characters locked together in a passionate embrace. But it will never equal what we imagine as we see the two ascend the stairs in this wonderful original.
It's not that Hollywood is doomed to produce banality in this new century; it's just that they seem to like it. There are very few films as good as I Married A Witch and there are very few directors who can call on studios like Paramount to supply them with gifted artists and craft persons to equal this witty and wonderful confection. Why even Susan Hayward, who did well with her strident image of bitchiness, is just right here. I suspect that new generations of filmgoers will never see this lovely film, for it is now OOP - out of print. But the horror of it all is I suspect those who made the new film never bothered to screen the old one, being convinced that they had nothing to learn about the craft of cinema.
That they were wrong becomes more obvious as the distance between the old and the new is measured in financial disaster. Perhaps next they might try to remake Sous Les Toits de Paris.Watch I Married A Witch (1942) Movie Streaming Online For Free
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