I love Golden Age Hollywood fantasy movies. Show me a light-hearted film with a ghost, an angel, a devil or even a witch and I'm sold. I'm also always intrigued when I learn that the two leads in a film didn't get on, as was apparently the case here with old stager Fredric March and young whippersnapper Veronica Lake and yet you'd hardly notice any of that in front of the camera.
In short the movie's a delight with March and the much younger Lake perhaps in their mutual enmity inadvertently finding the spark which helps the comedy here. He's the stuffed shirt would-be senator being led by the nose to marry the shrewish daughter of a rich newspaper magnate, while she's the mischievous witchy offspring of an eternal warlock dating back to the Salem witch-trials who harbours a grudge against the descendants of the witch-finder general who saw him burned back in 1670, whose present-day representative just happens to be March's Wallace Wooley character.
March proves himself adept at screwball comedy but Lake steals the picture with her smoky-voiced sexiness as well as excellent comedic timing. The dialogue is sharp, the direction by Rene Clair effective while the special effects are noticeably good for this type of feature. There are several funny scenes like the on-off-on-off wedding to March's haughty fiancee played by Susan Hayward and the witty years-later epilogue with the happy coup!e coming to realise that one of their own daughters might also be a witch.
Miss Lake reportedly stood less than 5' high and this film runs for only 71 minutes but both these facts are proof that good things definitely come in small sizes.
In short the movie's a delight with March and the much younger Lake perhaps in their mutual enmity inadvertently finding the spark which helps the comedy here. He's the stuffed shirt would-be senator being led by the nose to marry the shrewish daughter of a rich newspaper magnate, while she's the mischievous witchy offspring of an eternal warlock dating back to the Salem witch-trials who harbours a grudge against the descendants of the witch-finder general who saw him burned back in 1670, whose present-day representative just happens to be March's Wallace Wooley character.
March proves himself adept at screwball comedy but Lake steals the picture with her smoky-voiced sexiness as well as excellent comedic timing. The dialogue is sharp, the direction by Rene Clair effective while the special effects are noticeably good for this type of feature. There are several funny scenes like the on-off-on-off wedding to March's haughty fiancee played by Susan Hayward and the witty years-later epilogue with the happy coup!e coming to realise that one of their own daughters might also be a witch.
Miss Lake reportedly stood less than 5' high and this film runs for only 71 minutes but both these facts are proof that good things definitely come in small sizes.