270 years ago in Salem, a witch and her father were burned at the the stake by a New England Puritan, who is cursed along with all his descendants by black magic and will never find happiness in romance; jump ahead to the present day (circa 1942), the witches are released from their holding spot and the bewitching lass discovers the latest descendant is a handsome politician with a shrew for a fiancée (the witch's father tells her men always marry the wrong woman--it's the girls who get away who cause the real unhappiness). From the story "The Passionate Witch" by Thorne Smith and Norman Matson comes a teasing, silly romantic comedy which begins brightly but flags sometime after that. Fredric March is appropriately befuddled, but Veronica Lake (despite her famous peek-a-boo tresses) has very little charisma (and her sing-songy delivery is a nuisance). The plot is so thin it doesn't even count as a contrivance--sequences (like a disastrous wedding or a hotel fire) start and stop like sketches, and nothing in it is very memorable. ** from ****