I Married a Witch (1942)

Directed by Rene Clair 

Starring Veronica Lake, Frederic March, Susan Hayward

Unrated

USA

“Oh well, it's late, I've got to be getting into my straitjacket. I'll call a broom.”  

If the title of this film reminds you of a certain 60's show, it should. Sol Sacks, creator of beloved supernatural sitcom Bewitched, cites I Married a Witch as one of the main inspirations for his creation. And, much like Bewitched, this film came with its share of backstage drama. John McCrea, star of Sullivan's Travels, was originally slated to play the male lead, but dropped out after deciding it wasn't worth the considerable effort to work alongside Veronica Lake again, his prickly co-star in Sullivan's. Even by Hollywood standards, Lake was a handful, a booze-guzzling paranoid schizophrenic who enjoyed tormenting her co-stars with vicious pranks. The ideal choice, then, to play a wicked witch. Her signature hair-style - flowing blonde locks covering one-eye, a signature style that came to be labeled "The Peekabo" - and petite frame hid the out-of-control she-demon that lurked within her, a grim fact that newly recruited leading man Fredric March had to learn the hard way. He reportedly endured verbal and physical abuse from the tiny terror throughout the production. No wonder he began to refer to the film as "I Married a Bitch". Released the day before Halloween in 1942, the film has subsequently become a minor cult hit, thanks to its peculiar concept and its even more peculiar leading lady.

Back in the old-timey Salem days, a pilgrim named Jonathon Wooley (March), who had a dalliance of some sort with a buxom-faired woman named Jennifer, later accuses her of being of witch.

Before she and her pop Daniel are burned at the stake, she curses Jon and his family and all their descendants. The curse? They will always marry the wrong person.  Seems pretty mild for a curse. Anyway, 270 years later, the tree their ashes were buried under gets struck by lightning and their souls are released as puffs of smoke.

They float over to Jonathon's house – now owned by his great-great-great-great grandson, Wallace Wooley (March again), who's currently hosting a pre-election party. He's running for governor, and he's a shoo-in to win. He's not happy though, because he's got a shrewish fiance, Estelle (Susan Hayward), and he's due to marry her the next day. The curse is still working! Good job, Jennifer.

Jennifer's dad thinks the curse isn't evil enough, and suggests that falling in love with a woman you can't have is much worse than marrying the wrong woman. Jen agrees, and suggests she find a sexy body and torture Wallace with it. Dad's into it. They grab a broom and zoom off into the night, looking for fresh bodies. But first they burn down the Pilgrim Hotel. They hate pilgrims.

Wallace and Estelle are driving home when they spot the fire. Wallace stops and hears a woman crying out inside the hotel. Feeling chivalrous, he runs in, finding a beautiful blonde (Veronica Lake), wearing nothing but a fur coat. She's excited to see Wallace, but seemingly unconcerned with the fire or the walls caving in. He manages to carry her out and hands her to the cops. He's a hero!

Turns out the blonde is, in fact, Jennifer-the-witch. She's taken to the hospital, but she immediately flies away on her broom, and when Wallace get home, he finds Jennifer in his bed (and in his pajamas).

He is, naturally, shocked, but they talk all night long and before he knows it, Wallace is smitten. As is the audience.

However, when morning breaks, so does Jennifer's spell. Wally comes to his senses when Estelle shows up, and he splits for his friend's house to get ready for the wedding.

Frustrated, Jennifer talks to her dad (he's in the fireplace) about what happened. They sing a terrible song together, and then he suggests he she conjure up a magic elixir, a love potion, and then make Wallace drink it. But how to get him back to the house? That's easy, Daniel burns down Wally's pal's place.

That part of the plan works out, and Wallace comes home. But while trying to convince him to drink the potion, Jen gets knocked in the head, and Wally ends up giving her the drink. And now she's in love with Wallace, instead of the other way around. What a mix-up!

Of course, he has no time for this nonsense, so Wally splits for the wedding. He's getting ready to walk down the aisle when a gust of witchy wind blows through the hall, upending everything. Rushing off to a back-room, Wallace finds Jen and her dad (now in the body of a fat drunk), who demands he marry Jen instead. When he refuses, Daniel shoots himself and yells for help. But then he falls out the window, and the cops drag him away.

And so, once again, Wallace tries to marry Estelle. And once again...well, this time Estelle finds Wally making out with Jennifer (long story), and that's pretty much the end of that.

Not only is Wallace not getting married, but now his political career is fucked, since Estelle's big-wig dad owns the newspaper. He decides to get the hell out of town, and brings Jennifer with him.

Jen and Wally find an inn to stay in, but there's only one room available, and they'll only rent to them if they're married. So, what the hell. The innkeeper's registered, and they're game, so he marries them. They seem pretty happy, but when the innkeeper's wife asks Jen if she's planning on having children, she freaks out. She's 300 years old, after all. Way too old to have kids. She hadn't thought of that.

So, she confesses. She tells Wally that she's a witch. Naturally, he thinks she's just joking, and then he beds his beautiful new bride.

The next morning, she's still yammering about it. Wally goes to jail to see Jen's dad. He's worried about all this witch talk. Maybe he married a nut. Daniel tells Wally that if he gets him out, he'll help out. Meanwhile, Jen's using her witchy powers to make everybody vote for Wally in the governor's election. Even parrots and babies want to vote for Wooley. He wins in a landslide, which convinces him. He married a fuckin' witch!

Wally's worried that if the word gets out, his career is over. Again. Meanwhile, dad shows up and takes away Jen's powers. Then he tells her at midnight, she's going back under the tree. Because it's bad-form to tell a mortal that you're a witch. Bummer.

Wally and Jennifer pile into a cab to try to escape her sorcerer dad, but he hijacks it and crashes it into the tree. The clock chimes midnight. It's time for her to return to the cursed soil under the tree.

Wally wanders off, clutching Jen's now empty husk of a body in his arms and sobbing. 

Dad thinks this is all pretty awesome. After all, the plan was to make the guy suffer.

But wait, maybe there's a loophole! Maybe love can conquer witchcraft!  

Lighter-than-air and economically paced - the film gets in and out in an 75 eventful minutes - I Married a Witch is a fun and frothy little romp made more captivating then it probably should be by Lake's impish capering, goofy vocal inflections, and vampy, proto-goth get-ups. Even without a cursory knowledge of her trials, travails, and dramatic fall-from-grace just a few years after this film wrapped, it's painfully obvious here that not only was Lake a born movie star, she was also completely bananas. It's an irresistible combination. I Married a Witch is by no means a classic comedy, but it's well-worth digging up and would make for great Halloween viewing. 

- Ken McIntyre

Klute (1971)

Directed by Alan Pakula
Starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland 
Rated R 
USA 

“I hope this doesn't make my cold any worse.”

Klute. Everybody's heard of it, right? Jane Fonda plays a prostitute, Donald Sutherland's in it, it's 1971. So far, so good.   But then you realize it's directed by the guy who made Sophie's Choice, and written by two creaky old TV hacks, and that it's two hours long and Jane doesn't get naked in it at all, and then you think to yourself, “Perhaps I'll just watch some porn and/or Family Guy reruns instead”, and then you go on to live a happy, productive life. That's what you would do, because you are a relatively sensible person. I went the other way, and watched the whole goddamn thing. Sigh. Let's get this over with.

Tom is missing, whoever the fuck he is. Some kind of executive from Pennsylvania. The cops are stumped, so John Klute (Donald Sutherland), a detective and family friend of Tom's, gets to work on the case. All they've got to work on is a dirty letter they found in Tom's office, addressed to a hooker named Bree (Jane Fonda).

Bree's in New York, turnin' tricks, auditioning for modeling/acting gigs, and smoking weed by candlelight. Klute shows up at her apartment to ask some questions, but she slams the door in his face. Bree doesn't talk to  two-bit gumshoes, man.

The thing about Bree is, she's pretty miserable. She sees a therapist weekly to discuss how much she hates hooking, but part of the reason she has to keep doing it is to pay for the goddamn therapy sessions.

Also, she has a weird Ziggy Stardust-esque haircut, and that can't be much fun either. This is the same hairdo that would later be appropriated by Stephanie Fondue in The Cheerleaders (1973), Cherie Curry from The Runaways, and Tegan and/or Sara. They all wore it better, quite frankly.

Klute's got her place bugged at this point, so he's keeping tabs on her as she trudges around the city, banging rich old Burl Ives-esque dudes. Well, she does a lot of yapping first. Not sure she ever gets around to banging them.

Eventually, she decides to let Klute interview her. She assures him she doesn't remember this Tom fucker, since she sees hundreds of clients every year. She offers to have sex with him so he'll leave, but he declines the offer and tells her to sit down and relax, because he just noticed that there's some unknown dude creeping around on the roof. He skulks around looking for the peeper, but it turns out to be a bunch of hippies. Roof hippies! That's pretty much the suspense highlight of the film, by the way.

Bree mentions that she met with some dude one time who beat her up. She says her old pimp, Frank (Roy Scheider) set the 'date' up. Klute tells her they're going to see Mr. Pimp the next day. And so they do.

Frank says one of the other girls in his stable set Bree up because she didn't like her. Says he never met the dude, and the hooker-in-question killed herself awhile back. So, kind of a waste of time, really, except for one detail: there was another girl, Arlyn, that also met with the punch-crazy maniac. Apparently she's a junkie now.

After a night of pajamas-sex on a cot, they hit the streets looking for Arlyn. Eventually they find her holed up in some dump, waiting for her  dealer to show up.

She's too freaked-out to be any help, so Bree takes off and heads to a disco, where she wanders around braless until she finds Frank.

She wants her old pimp back! Or does she?

She does not. She just likes manipulating dudes. Meanwhile, Arlyn gets snuffed, Tom is still missing, and now Bree is going back to her therapist to yap about Klute. Turns out she's got a thing for him, which is rare in her line of work. So she's mixed-up.

But what the hell, why not take a stab at happiness? They go out to buy fruit while jazz music plays on the soundtrack. Romance!

And then, back to the case. There's a mysterious black book and some more dead hookers, and then the shocking truth is revealed, although it's not that shocking, since there's only like five people in the whole movie. The end. Finally.

Jane Fonda won an academy award for her role in Klute. One thing's for sure, it's about a million miles away from Barbarella, so I guess acting was involved, but she's really just a talky sourpuss, and Klute is mostly a tedious, two-hour slog through her many persnickety moods. Also, as mentioned, she never gets naked. And she's supposed to be a prostitute? Disgraceful.

If you're in the mood for a good hooker flick, stick with Angel.

PS: A bright spot: Edith Bunker's in it!



- Ken McIntyre 

Welcome to the dollhouse (1995)

Directed by Todd Solonz
Starring Weiner Dog, Brendon Sexton III
Rated R
USA

"Your club is for retards."

Todd Solonz is a misanthropic freak of a filmmaker known for bleak, pitiless, pitch-black anti-comedies like Happiness (AKA the child molester movie) and Palindromes (AKA the one with the piles of bloody abortions). He lives to bum you out, and he’s fairly amazing at it. Welcome to the Dollhouse was only his second film – after the rarely seen (and fittingly titled) Fear, Anxiety and Depression – but all the elements that made him infamous are already there: casual cruelty, a conflicted, put-upon protagonist, and the constant, nagging reminder that humans, for the most part, are awful creatures. It’s also pretty funny. I mean, the laughs are pretty queasy, but its got ‘em, nonetheless.

Nobody likes Dawn Weiner, AKA "Weiner Dog" (Heather Matarazzo).

Even the kids at the loser table in the cafeteria are reluctant to let her sit with them. The cheerleaders chant 'lesbo' at her.

Her locker is splattered with mean-spirited graffiti.

Her little sister Missy (Daria Kalinina)  is a snotty wannaba ballerina, and her big brother Mark (Matthew Faber) is in the worst garage band in the world.

Even worse, she's stuck in a hate-hate circle with class bully Brandon (Brenden Sexton III) and his butchy girlfriend Lolita (Victoria Davis).

The point is, It ain't easy being the weinerdog.

Luckily, she's got the “Special People's Club”. So far, it's only her and some wimpy kid named Ralph, and mostly they talk about how Dawn hate her little sister, but it's a start.

One day, while sawing the head off her sister's pink-haired Barbie doll, Dawn hears a strange sound: music, coming from the garage. Music, instead of horrible noise? Turns out her brother recruited some older kid, Steve (Eric Mabius), into his band, and now they sound pretty awesome. Also, he's dreamy. Dawn is smitten.

The next day, during an assembly about getting kidnapped, Dawn gets into a spitball fight with some bullies, accidentally hits a teacher in the eye, and ends up in the principal's office.She explains that she was only fighting back. Her horrified mother gasps. "When have we ever taught you to fight back?"

That night, Dawn briefly bonds with Steve over their mutual loathing of school, but Mark quickly shoos her out of there.

Later that night, Dawn talks to Mark about Steve. He tells her Steve's so horny he'll have have sex with just about anybody. Dawn checks this theory out with one of Steve's old flames, a middle-school hussy named Ginger. Ginger assures her she's too ugly for the gig.

Undaunted, Dawn attempts to seduce him the next day with fish sticks and Hawaiian Punch and her sad-ass piano playing. It does not work, so Dawn makes a Steve shrine and starts praying to it.

The band come up with a sweet new jam - "Welcome to the Dollhouse", naturally  - and Dawn loves it.
Here's the problem, though. Mark's a dick, so Steve quits the band, and now Dawn has no access to her dream-lover. Even worse, Brandon gives her some very bad news.

He tells her he's going to rape her after school. Yikes. Three O'clock rolls around and Brandon corners Dawn outside of school. Luckily the janitor shows up and Dawn makes it home with her virginity intact. So that's good.

Her luck runs out almost immediately. Mom wants to tear down her Special People's Club clubhouse. Also, Brandon calls her up and tells her he's just going to rape her tomorrow.

They meet the next day for the rape, which is not usually how these things go. He takes her off to some dump under a bridge and they talk about, you know, current events.
"I think marijuana should be legalized," says Dawn.
"Why do you always have to be such a cunt?" Replies Brandon.

Anyway, Brandon decides not to rape her. She seems a little let down by his decision.
Then she goes home and everyone has chocolate cake except for her, because she refuses to tear down her clubhouse. And then mom tells her brother and sister they're just gonna have to tear it down without her.
Well, at least Steve agrees to reunite with Mark's band for one day – and a substantial fee - to play Dawn's parents' anniversary party. So there's hope yet for romance.

Eventually, the anniversary party happens! Dawn dresses up in her sexiest outfit and makes her move. She finds Steve in the garage, kanoodling with some willowy blonde. Panicking, she asks Steve to join the Special People's Club. Steve informs her of what "special people" is a popular metaphor for. And then he goes back to necking with the hussy.

So, that didn't go so well. And then Steve moves to New York to be the “next Jim Morrison”. And then the family sits down to watch a videotape of Dawn's sister pushing her into the pool. And then they all laugh. And then they watch it again.

Later that night,  Dawn gets up, skulks around in her PJs, and smashes the tape. She also thinks about killing her sister with a hammer, but changes her mind. She does sorta-kinda cause her to get kidnapped the next day, though. Suddenly, the house is full of cops and detectives and local reporters.  Dawn's got the day off, thanks to the kidnapping, so she goes over to see Brandon, who was recently expelled from school for drugs. Brandon's dad thinks she's there because Brandon got her pregnant.Ha!

Dawn goes to Brandon's room and asks him to be her boyfriend. He tells her it's too late, he's leaving for New York. And then they make out a little. And then he tells her he's innocent, and escapes out the window. There goes Dawn's second, and even less likely, chance at romance.

Feeling guilty about her sister and bummed out about Brandon, Dawn hops a greyhound bus to New York and starts passing out missing-person fliers.

That goes nowhere, but then she calls Mark, and he tells her they found Missy. She was in their neighbor's secret dungeon!

No one really even notices Dawn was missing, so she just comes home.

And then she goes to Disneyworld, and has a lousy time. The end.

As painful as it is, this is still Todd Solonz’s most accessible film, probably because it’s so relatable. As much as we squirm watching Dawn hobble through her miserable existence, most of us have suffered and survived similar - and sometimes even worse - indignities during our formative years. Adolescence is a particularly ferocious slice of hell that lingers for a lot longer than it should, and Welcome to the Dollhouse is one of the most authentic portrayals of those agonizing years ever. It’s like staring into a gruesome, inky black abyss that we’ve all been lucky enough to escape from. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent in their deadpan portrayals of everyday-evil, and Heather Matarazzo gives a career-making performance as our hopeless, helpless, heroine, a pitiful creature that is nearly as nasty as her tormentors, but one whose fathomless pluck and seething rage carries her through her darkest moments. We know she’ll be ok because we know we ended up ok, and that’s really Solondz’s triumph here: Dollhouse is more than just a catalog of cruelty. It’s a celebration of the glories of adulthood. We might have bills to pay and a few aches and pains, but at least we’re not getting bullied by cheerleaders or forced to tear our clubhouses down.

Fuck childhood, man.



- Ken McIntyre