I thought that "The Ghost Goes West" (1935) was carried by Robert Donat's charm (and mellifluous voice). The whimsical 1942 comedy "I Married a Witch" (with more ghosts) convinced me that the charm must have been that of René Clair, who directed both (and the 1931 "À nous la liberté"). It definitely was not the charm of the male lead. I think Frederic March was somewhat overrated as an actor at the time. No one would accuse him of having loads of charm. For that matter, the female costar, Veronica Lake, had a bit of charm but no acting chops.

The movie (I'll get to the story!) did have some very memorable supporting characters. Eugene Pallette was funny without doing anything, as Whoopi Goldberg is now. (OK, both made faces frequently, but even a steady stare from either is funny.) In movies of the late-1930s, Pallette added a wacky dimension to everything from the deliriously romantic "Shanghai Express" to the tart screwball comedy "My Man Godfrey." (Pallette was also in "The Ghost Goes West.")

Cecil Kellaway was a warm and fuzzy presence into the 1960s (Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte). How Lana Turner could get anyone (John Garfield) to kill Kellaway('s character) in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" is one of that movies puzzles.

And Robert Benchley was one of the Algonquian Round Table wits, who  mostly starred in shorts, though I remember him best as Fred Astaire's flummoxed friend in "You'll Never Get Rich" and Ray Milland's in "The Major and the Minor."

The Passionate Witch, on which the movie was based, was written  (at least begun) by Thorne Smith, who wrote the classic ghost comedy "Topper."

The story: In 1672 Salem, MA, two witches, Jennifer (Lake) and her father Daniel (Kellaway) were burned by puritan Jonathan Wooley (March). Jennifer put a curse on Wooley males: each marries a woman wrong for him. The latest incarnation, when Jennifer and Daniel are freed from the roots of a tree when it is struck by lightning in 1942, Wallace Wooley (March) is running for governor of Massachusetts, and engaged to a very demanding Estelle (Susan Hayward at her most arbitrary). The newspaper owned by her father (Robert Warwick) is a major backer of Wooley's political career.

Daniel prepares a love potion so that Wallace will fall in love with Jennifer, but she drinks it by mistake and falls in love with him, a match of which her warlock father strongly disapproves. Benchley, playing the campaign manager, is amusingly perplexed by goings-on.

March is the comic foil for the antics of Kellaway and Lake. After breaking up the wedding and embarrassing Wallace, Jennifer eventually casts a spell on the whole state so that he is elected anyway.

The special effects were state of the art for 1942 (a long time ago in that development!). The witty plot  requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, not least that there really were witches in 17th-century Salem and that they were precursors of Samantha in "Bewitched" rather than malevolent, but the characters as played by Kellaway and Lake reward suspending disbelief.

©  2008, Stephen O. Murray

A writeoff trifeca: lean&mean VII, good movies, black&white movies (tho I decided that  French director does not a "French find" make)

Recommended:
Yes