''Maid of Salem'' is a 1937 film made by
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, directed by
Frank Lloyd
Frank William George Lloyd (2 February 1886 – 10 August 1960) was a British-born American film director, actor, scriptwriter, and producer. He was among the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was its president ...
, and starring
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert ( ; born Émilie Claudette Chauchoin; September 13, 1903July 30, 1996) was an American actress. Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the late 1920s and progressed to films with the advent of talking pictures ...
and
Fred MacMurray
Frederick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films and a successful television series, in a career that spanned nearly a half-century. His career as a major film le ...
.
Plot
It tells the story of a young girl in
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports tr ...
, 1692, who has an affair with an adventurer. She is sentenced as a witch, but saved by him.
Cast
Reception
Writing for ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' in 1937,
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
gave the film a mildly positive review, describing the dialogue as "pompously period", but praising the story as one allowing for "a little authentic horror [] to creep in".
[ (reprinted in: )]
References
External links
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1937 films
Paramount Pictures films
1930s English-language films
American historical drama films
American black-and-white films
Films directed by Frank Lloyd
1937 drama films
1930s historical drama films
Films scored by Victor Young
Films set in Massachusetts
Films set in the 1690s
Films set in the Thirteen Colonies
Drama films based on actual events
Salem witch trials in fiction
1930s American films
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