I Married a Witch is a bewitching movie just right for Halloween. No need for blood and gore! No man can resist Veronica Lake in this enchanted romantic movie. This bubbly cauldron of mirth is a family movie everybody will enjoy. The movie is based on the 1941 novel The Passionate Witch by Thorne Smith, who died before he could finish it; it was completed by Norman H. Matson. The book was three-quarters complete, its resolution was written by his friend Norman Matson and became a best seller in 1941.
Veronica Lake casts a seductive spell as a charmingly vengeful sorceress in this supernatural screwball classic. Many centuries after cursing the male descendants of the Salem puritan who sent her to the stake, this blonde bombshell with a broomstick finds herself drawn to one of them—a prospective governor (Fredric March) about to marry a spoiled socialite (Susan Hayward). The most delightful of the films the innovative French director René Clair made in Hollywood, I Married a Witch is a comic confection bursting with playful special effects and sparkling witticisms.
The Passionate Witch (1941) was initially drafted as a film scenario but later completed as a novel by Norman Matson after Thorne Smith’s death in 1934. Unlike Smith’s hugely popular Topper novels, the post-humous collaborative effort failed to satisfy the public (and the critics). Still, much of Thorne Smith’s magic and singular wit shines through and, all in all, the book doesn’t disappoint. The storyline was heavily reworked for the sunnier, more successful movie adaptation, I Married a Witch (Masterpiece/United Artists/Cinema Guild, 1942).
Fun Fact: Creator Sol Saks’ inspirations for this series were the film I Married a Witch (1942), developed from Thorne Smith’s unfinished novel The Passionate Witch, and the John Van Druten Broadway play Bell, Book and Candle, which was adapted into the 1958 film. Hanna-Barbera produced the opening and closing animation credits.