Written by Marc Connelly and Robert Pirosh
Cinematography by Ted Tetzlaff
USA, 1942, United Artists, B&W, DVD, 82 min.
Cast: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Robert Benchley, Susan Hayward, Cecil Kellaway
“When
fire came in, it burned the negligee right off me,” coquettes Jennifer,
title trickster of The Passionate Witch. “When fire came in!” Mr. Wooly
objected. “You talk about fire as if it was a brush salesman.”
Puritanical politics prevented René Clair, Charlie Chaplain’s early
French counterpart by way of directorial efforts like The Italian Straw
Hat and A Nous la Liberté, from singeing screens, particularly since
the film’s original producer (Preston Sturges) and screenwriter (Dalton
Trumbo) spared only the book’s conflagration and names. Veronica Lake,
newly christened after her big three, Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels and
Alan Ladd gats-and-hats This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key, later
claimed that she (early-20s) and her co-star (mid-40s) rubbed each
other wrong. Like tinder sticks. -- Raoul Hernandez, Guest Curator