There’s something magical about Veronica Lake’s presence in 1942’s I Married a Witch, and not just because she’s playing the title sorceress. René Clair’s romantic comedy is a whimsical trifle, as light as the vapor forms of Lake’s Jennifer and her father Daniel (Cecil Kellaway), but Lake gives it substance with the force of her charm. Jennifer may be a sort of 1940s manic pixie dream girl, disrupting the life of stuffy politician Wallace Wooley (Fredric March), but she has an internal life behind those twinkling eyes, which Lake imbues with wit and cunning.
Jennifer falls in love with Wallace, but really she has every reason not to. His ancestor Jonathan Wooley (also March), a Puritan settler in early New England, denounced Jennifer and Daniel and had them burned at the stake. Their spirits were then trapped in a tree, where they remained for the next 200-plus years. In retaliation, Jennifer placed a curse on the Wooley lineage, that Jonathan and his descendants (all of whom appear to be male, all played by March) will always be unlucky in love, marrying the wrong spouse. Sure enough, when a bolt of lightning splits the tree and sets Jennifer and Daniel’s incorporeal forms free, Wallace is engaged to the humorless, demanding Estelle Masterson (Susan Hayward).
Jennifer and Daniel may be witches, but they’re not evil. When they float over to the engagement party/campaign rally for Estelle and Wallace, who’s running for governor, the worst they do is cast a spell to make Wallace stub his toe. The more experienced Daniel tells the somewhat naive Jennifer that the worst curse for a man is not to marry the wrong woman, but rather to be in love with a woman he cannot be with. So Jennifer decides to punish Wally by making him fall in love with her, after she assumes an alluring form.
Lake is easy to believe as a woman irresistible to even a devoted husband-to-be, although the hapless Wallace is less enticing. Jennifer’s plan is silly, but this is a silly movie, and the instant love connection between the two characters could serve as a parody of the speed at which love develops in a typical 1940s rom-com. Wallace goes to comically elaborate efforts to avoid Jennifer, but there’s never any sense that he actually loves Estelle or that he particularly wants to be governor. This is a man who has nothing worthwhile in his life until Jennifer comes along.
Jennifer and Daniel have to start a fire in order to regenerate Jennifer’s body, burning down a hotel named after the pilgrims (but of course harming no one in the process) and attracting Wallace’s attention. He “rescues” Jennifer, who doesn’t seem in much of a hurry to escape the burning building, instead taking time to admire her latest physical incarnation and to tease Wallace with the prospect of her naked form. Clair and Lake test the boundaries of the Production Code with multiple implied moments of nudity, and they have Jennifer spend the night in Wallace’s bed, although he himself never appears to join her.
There’s a certain kinky power dynamic to the relationship between Jennifer and Wallace, which foreshadows similar magical pairings in Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and even Mary Poppins. Jennifer perfects the sliding-up-the-banister maneuver years before Mary Poppins attempts it, and she mainly uses her powers in service of romantic and household harmony for herself and Wallace. Even before she’s accidentally dosed with a love potion meant for Wallace, Jennifer seems smitten with the flustered politician. If her plan is meant to punish him, it’s a complete failure.
Like Bewitched’s Samantha Stephens, Jennifer pledges to devote herself to becoming a housewife, and her infatuation with Wallace could be viewed as negating the freedom and mischievousness that comes with being a witch. Despite Daniel taking her powers away in retribution for her antics, though, she still has the upper hand in her relationship with Wallace. Even when he seems to make a decision on his own, it’s driven by her desires, and he’s better off for it. Darrin Stephens may have been the high-powered ad executive, but there was no question who held the power on Bewitched, and the same holds true here.
I Married a Witch ends with a flash-forward to the domestic life of Jennifer and Wallace that could be the start of a similar sitcom, but one of the movie’s charms is that it’s lively and brief. In 75 minutes, Clair delivers effervescent romance, clever wordplay, gentle social satire, and one of the best movie-star showcases of the era. Wallace falls in love with Jennifer over the course of a night that passes in a single time-lapse shot of a clock. By that time, the audience is way ahead of him. 
