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★ 9 / 10
You’re driftwood, floating underwater. The Enchanted Cottage is
John Chard
You’re driftwood, floating underwater. The Enchanted Cottage is directed by John Cromwell and adapted to the screen by Herman Mankiewicz and DeWItt Bodeen from…
You’re driftwood, floating underwater.
The Enchanted Cottage is directed by John Cromwell and adapted to the screen by Herman Mankiewicz and DeWItt Bodeen from the play of the same name by Arthur Wing Pinero. It stars Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, Herbert Marshall and Mildred Natwick. Music is by Roy Webb and cinematography by Ted Tetzlaff.
Once a play it had been adapted to the silent screen previously in 1924, latterly it would also be adapted to radio plays and remade on the big screen in 2016. Pinero's literate leanings for message fantastical is ripe for transference to the visual form, and thus with a slight itch about moral standpoints, this filmic version is a pure heart warming delight.
Story finds McGuire as a homely house maid type and Young as a disfigured and disabled GI, who meet at the cottage where McGuire works and in spite of their perceived ugliness see only beauty in each other. Could the romantic spirit of the cottage really make them see what others do not?
Lets get over that itch to scratch first and foremost. Without doubt this is morally dubious when McGuire's character is believed to have a self-conscious handicap because she's dowdy? Really? Of course the daft irony is no matter how they dress her - clothes and hair - or how they light her (Tetzlaff does great work in this), McGuire is still beautiful. So you have to forgive this out dated piece of nonsense. That aside though...
The story sells itself, pure of heart in pitching two people on a course of love, all set to a dreamy back drop of the quaint cottage which appears to have a magical glow to it. As the romantic majesty of Webb's musical score floats elegantly over the tale, we are given a story that's fantastical to the point where it could have ended up as a Twilight Zone episode later on down the line - which is definitely meant as a high compliment.
This is escapist beauty, a pic for those who have ever loved, or in search of love, lost love and etc, but mainly for those who don't quite have the hope for human company to lift the spirits, those who feel for whatever reason they don't fit in society. This is wistful magic that's superbly performed by the four principal actors, each guided with skilled hands by Cromwell (The Prisoner of Zenda). Enchanting is in the title and that's exactly what this film is, so get in the right frame of mind and fall under its spell. 9/10
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★ 8 / 10
david-1976
When I was a little boy, my mother used to say that "The Enchanted Cottage" was her favorite movie. It was a long time before I ever saw it.This is a lovely…
When I was a little boy, my mother used to say that "The Enchanted Cottage" was her favorite movie. It was a long time before I ever saw it.This is a lovely little film. Herbert Marshall does his usual good job playing someone impaired in some way but with a great deal of emotional fortitude. Mildred Natwick, cast a bit against type (she was a lovely comedienne) as the landlady, a dour WWI widow, ends up being sweet.This is one of Robert Young's best performances, and I think that he is often underrated. He was something of an insecure man, and he projects his humanity so well in this and in many other films of the 1940's; of course, I'd gladly buy insurance from Jim Anderson, too!What really strikes me about this film, though, is that the Young character, returning from the war, finds himself to be disfigured, and "Laura Pennington" believes herself to be ugly and unattractive. One of the things that has often struck me about people is how little their actual physical beauty affects how they perceive themselves, and how that influences their behavior.Could it be that Robert Young's scar and Dorothy Malone's plainness are more in their minds than on their faces? Could it be that love can transform not only the plain so that they believe that they are beautiful, but also that it can transform the beautiful so that they can see that quality in themselves? The reason that this film works--and it works wonderfully well--is that it appeals to every person who has ever felt inadequate, and that there are very few people (and let's face it, those very few are probably sociopaths) who don't feel inadequate.Pinero, the playwright of the original, understood this all to well, but it has never been a popular way of looking at things: in a way, this film is a "revenge of the nerds," which says (as does the nerd film) that beauty is, truly, in the eye of the beholder.Really nice acting on the part of all concerned, including the wonderful Spring Byington. We don't have Hollywood actors like Byington and Marshall anymore, those wonderful character actors whose presence in a movie was part of the tissue that held it together, and connected it with other films. Lubitsch, Sturges, Capra, RKO, Warner Bros, and even MGM had a stable of these actors whose presence illuminated their work and expanded on it. Someday I will make a list of them and dilate on this subject further. This is a little gem that needs to be seen more often.
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★ 8 / 10
A beautiful film about seeing with your heart, not your eyes
jem132
This is a lovely, almost-forgotten little RKO weepie from the 40's. It boasts touching performances from it's two leads, Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young, and…
This is a lovely, almost-forgotten little RKO weepie from the 40's. It boasts touching performances from it's two leads, Dorothy McGuire and Robert Young, and a fine supporting turn by the always good Herbet Marshall.'Enchanted Cottage' has a real message. This is a film about seeing with your heart, not your eyes. Laura Pennington (McGuire) and Oliver Bradford (Young) learn to do so while cast under the magic spell of the 'enchanted cottage' they are inhabiting. It seems a hokey concept on paper, but this film really works.Laura is a homely maid who looks as if she is going to spend her days as a spinster. She takes on a job at a pretty cottage owned by a dour old widow. Oliver Bradford originally wanted the cottage as a honeymoon location for him and his soon-to-be bride. However, Oliver was called to war a day before their wedding. He is disfigured and scarred as a result, and upon arriving home, his fiancé expresses disgust (although we never see it) at his changed appearance. Crippled, bitter and lonely, he takes the cottage as a single man. The kind-hearted, yet plain, Laura helps him in his loneliness, as she too knows what it feels like to be judged on looks alone.They eventually decide to marry out of convenience. But the spell of the enchanted cottage starts to work on them on their wedding night, as they realise the true love and affection they harbour for each other, a love that goes past face value and transports them into another realm.It is a tender love story. McGuire is never anything but convincing as the downtrodden yet kind Laura; she impressed me a lot more here than in her Oscar-nominated work for 'Gentlemen's Agreement'. All the time throughout watching the film I was thinking of her as a perfect actress for 'Jane Eyre'. She certainly could play the plain, ordinary girl well, with emotional depth and understanding. Indeed, the relationship between the once-handsome but now-scarred Oliver and the homely, unwanted maid Laura is reminiscent of the Jane-Rochester relationship.The widow seems to subscribe to the English novel theory too; her stopped clock at the time of her husband's death is very 'Miss Havisham' from 'Great Expectations'.Marshall is great, giving his usual understated performance as the blind composer who cannot 'see' with his eyes, but can feel with his heart and his brain.A great musical score accompanies the scenery well, and appropriately dark cinematography complements the darker points of the story too. This was a war-time pic, and once again we are being shown the harsh realities of war through the disabled figure of Oliver. Still, this is more of a love story than propaganda.This was made by the cash-strapped RKO studio, and today it is little-known. Apparently finding this film is hard, but here in Australia the ABC free-to-air network plays it regularly. I view myself as lucky.This a tearjerker, and a beautiful romance story. Keep the tissues nearby.8/10.
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Beautiful and poetic film. 10/10.