John Cromwell directed The Enchanted Cottage, supernatural romance starring Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, and Herbert Marshall.
Grade: B+
At a party, guests are waiting for the married couple Laura and Oliver Bradford to arrive. John Hillgrove, a blind pianist, proceeds to perform his tone poem titled “The Enchanted Cottage,” written in their honor.
At a seaside New England cottage, Laura Pennington meets Hillgrove and his young nephew Danny. Laura had heard fantastical stories about the cottage from her late mother.
Feeling ostracized for being homely, she is hired as a caretaker by Mrs. Abigail Minnett, a widowed tenant owner. She feels a mutual connection with Laura after losing her husband during World War I.
Oliver Bradford, a war pilot, has rented the cottage with his new fiancée, Beatrice Alexander. Beatrice, however, is displeased with the decor, but Laura reassures her that the cottage is magical.
After their honeymoon, Laura and Oliver return to the cottage, both transformed.
A flashback occurs in which the couple initially reflect on their marriage being a sham until their wedding dinner. Laura tries to declare her love for Oliver. She runs to her bedroom in tears, but Oliver comforts her. He realizes his genuine love for Laura, seeing her as a beautiful, glamorous woman. Laura in return sees him as handsome and unscarred.
Oliver’s mother and stepfather arrive, and Hillgrove unsuccessfully attempts to notify them about Oliver and Laura’s “transformations.”
The couple turns to Mrs. Minnett, who validates their love, telling them that her beloved late husband made her feel beautiful, because that’s how people who are in love are—and that’s the real enchantment of the cottage.
Back to the present, the couple happily embrace each other as their idealized selves before entering the house.
Arthur Wing Pinero’s play, written in 1921 and performed in 1922, was filmed in 1924, with Richard Barthelmess and May McAvoy as the newlyweds, as a story about physical and emotional disabilities after First World War. Oliver is an emaciated wreck of a man, broken by the war. He was wounded in the neck, it is painful to straighten his left leg, and his mind is the worst.
In the 1924 film, his body is contorted, he walks with a cane, and he cannot put his right foot to ground.
In the 1945 film, most of Oliver’s face is scarred, and he has completely lost the use of his right arm and hand. He can walk without aids and there is no visible impairment of his lower body.
The original play and film were set in England, and the “honeymoon” couples extended back into the Tudor period. The “shadows” of three of the historical couples appeared onstage. Elaborate fantasy sequences, representing Laura’s dreams and fears, which played key roles, were eliminated from the 1945 version.
In the play, Mrs. Minnett’s uncanny gifts are made explicit: She comes from a long line of witches.
David O. Selznick lent RKO Dorothy McGuire for the film, and MGM lent Robert Young, who re-teamed with McGuire after her debut in Claudia.
Parsons contributed to the screenplay along with Herman J. Mankiewicz, who was hired by Cromwell to touch up the screenplay.
Composer Roy Webb was nominated for the Best Original Score Oscar, and later performed the concerto at the Hollywood Bowl later that year.
Herbert Marshall, who had lost a leg in World War I, played his role as a blind man with special contact lenses.
Dorothy McGuire insisted for a plain look with no makeup, ill-fitting clothes and a drab hairstyle.
The film was moderately successful at the box-office, yielding a profit of $881,000.
The film also forms the basis of one of the films that Manuel Puig used in his novel Kiss of the Spider Woman. In chapter 5, Molina tells a film to himself, in which he imagines the advantages of lovers’ bodies being adapted to the “true love” of their souls.
Cast
Dorothy McGuire as Laura Pennington
Robert Young as Oliver Bradford
Herbert Marshall as Major John Hillgrove
Mildred Natwick as Mrs. Abigail Minnett
Spring Byington as Violet Price
Hillary Brooke as Beatrice Alexander
Richard Gaines as Frederick ‘Freddy’ Price
Alec Englander as Danny ‘Taxi’ Stanton
Robert Clarke as Marine Corporal
Eden Nicholas as Soldier
