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," which he wrote in their honor. At a seaside New England cottage, Laura Pennington arrives where she meets Hillgrove and his young nephew Danny. Laura had heard fantastical stories about the cottage from her mother before her death. Feeling ostracized for her homely appearance, 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, arrives, having rented the cottage with his new fiancée, Beatrice Alexander. Beatrice, however, is displeased with the cottage decor, but Laura reassures her that the cottage is magical showing her the window where couples have written their names.
Later that night, a honeymoon party is planned for the engaged couple, but Oliver sends a letter stating he will be unable to arrive. He has been called back into military service before his wedding. Beatrice subsequently cancels their leasing agreement. One year later, a telegram arrives stating Oliver's intention to rent the cottage indefinitely. Oliver arrives, hiding his face inside his trench coat, and locks himself in his room. During a stormy night, Laura enters his room where Oliver reveals his disfigurement from the war. His face is scarred, and his right arm and hand are disabled after his plane was shot down by the Germans.
The next morning, Laura develops a connection with Oliver in the garden. Hillgrove arrives and converses with Oliver, stating that when he became blind, he developed a new look on life by appreciating music. By nighttime, Oliver receives a letter from his mother, Mrs. Price, but he refuses to see her and his stepfather due to how he looks with his war injuries. Near the seashore, Laura finds Oliver there. In an attempt to keep distance from his mother, Oliver proposes to Laura, and she accepts.
After their honeymoon, Laura and Oliver return to the cottage, both feeling 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 but is unable to do so. 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.
At the cottage, Oliver's mother and stepfather arrive, in which, Hillgrove unsuccessfully attempts to notify them about Oliver and Laura's "transformations". However, Mrs. Price mentions Laura's "not being pretty" while complimenting her character before she leaves, which breaks the spell of their mutual illusion, and they're "transformed" back to their former selves. The couple turns to Mrs. Minnett, who gives them her validation of their love, telling them that her beloved late husband made her feel beautiful, because that's how people who are truly in love see each other—and that's the real enchantment of the cottage. She then leaves the room. Oliver and Laura hold hands, then proceed to write their names on the window. Back to the present, the couple arrives at the front door, where they happily embrace and kiss each other as their idealized selves before entering the house.
According to Jeremy Arnold of TCM, Robert Young told Leonard Maltin in a 1986 interview that he considered The Enchanted Cottage to be "the best love story that's ever been written. [It] was one of those films I hated to see end. I wanted it to go on and on and on. It was such a joy to do." Young later named a home he built in California “The Enchanted Cottage.”[2]
Arthur Wing Pinero's play, written in 1921 and first performed in 1922,[3] was filmed in 1924 as a timely story involving physical and emotional disabilities following the First World War. In the stage directions, Oliver is described as an emaciated wreck of a man, broken by the war. The dialogue reveals that he was wounded in the neck and that it is painful to straighten his left leg, but he says his “head,” meaning his mind, is the worst.[3] In the 1924 film, his body is contorted, he walks with a cane, and he cannot put his right foot to the 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 history of 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, played key roles in the story. They were eliminated from the 1945 version.
In the play, Mrs. Minnett's uncanny gifts are made more explicit: She comes from a long line of witches (witches can be good, Laura hastens to say). She is more damaged by her grief. The cast of the play is larger, including the local rector and his wife, and the couple's blind friend, Major Hillgrove, believes in the transformation unlike the character portrayed by Herbert Marshall.[3]
RKO Producer Harriet Parsons acquired the rights for her studio for an updated World War II version set in New England. When RKO management took the film away from her and gave it to producer-writer Dudley Nichols, Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper wrote a strongly worded newspaper editorial criticizing RKO for gender bias. The outcry from the column led RKO to change its plan and give the property back to Harriet Parsons.[4]
Parsons wrote an outline of the updated story about a World War II veteran. She engaged DeWitt Bodeen for the screenplay, and the two became lifelong friends. Parsons also selected John Cromwell as director. 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 Bodeen's screenplay.[5]
Composer Roy Webb wrote a piano concerto for the film that a blinded World War I veteran (Herbert Marshall) uses as a tone poem to describe the story of the two protagonists to a gathering of their friends. Webb was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1945 and performed the concerto at the Hollywood Bowl later that year. Marshall, who had lost a leg in World War I, played his role as a blind man with the help of special contact lenses.
Dorothy McGuire insisted for her character to show her plainness with no makeup, ill-fitting clothes and a drab hairstyle. When McGuire was filmed looking appealing to Robert Young, her character had similar costumes that were well tailored.[5]
Reception
The film was released in April 1945. Not all the critics were enthusiastic. Writing for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther observed[6]
[The play and first film] concerned the illusion of beauty and the moral courage which was mutually found by a homely girl and a maimed war veteran when they viewed each other through the eyes of love. It is a theme which is quite as appealing today as it was back then and one which can bear repeating in modern and practical detail. However, the current film version of the wistful drama... contemporizes the subject in peculiarly obsolete terms. Despite all the marvelous advances in plastic surgery, it assumes that a shattered Air Force pilot would be returned to society with a face very badly disfigured and frightening to behold. It forgets that a casualty quite as bitter as the American hero in this case would be studiously rehabilitated through modern treatment before being dismissed. And it violates an obvious tenet of feminine beauty culture today—which is that a girl of moderate features (and fair intelligence) can make herself look very sweet. [T]he deep and studied poignance of this elaborately heart-torturing film appears not only unreasonable but very plainly contrived. It is hard to believe that a depressed veteran's entire recuperation would be allowed to devolve upon a fustrated[sic] girl, an intuitive blind man and a honeymoon cottage possessing charm. And it is fair to insist that no young lady with a face and figure such as that of Dorothy McGuire would permit herself to look so dingy and woebegone as she does in this film.
A review in Variety on December 31, 1944 stated: “Sensitive love story of a returned war veteran with ugly facial disfigurements, and the homely slavey—both self-conscious of their handicaps—is sincerely told both in the script [based on the play by Arthur Wing Pinero] and outstanding direction of John Cromwell.”[7]
The Enchanted Cottage is a movie with its heart in the right place. Anyone who has ever been in love can relate to the sensation that one's partner becomes more beautiful as one's love deepens. The Enchanted Cottage illustrates this phenomenon to full and lovely effect, with its allegorical yet delicate story of the power of love to physically transform a couple.[5]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a rating of 86% among critics and 83% among viewers.[8]
The film also forms the basis of one of the films that Manuel Puig used to compose his novel Kiss of the Spider Woman. The movie is the basis of chapter 5 in which Molina tells a film to himself, one in which he imagines the advantages of lovers' bodies being adapted to the "true love" of their souls, a reality that would make possible supposedly impossible romantic possibilities for himself and his married love interest, Gabriel.[citation needed]
Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress for Friendly Persuasion (1956). She starred as the mother in the popular films Old Yeller (1957) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960).
Louella Rose Oettinger, known professionally as Louella Parsons, was an American gossip columnist and a screenwriter. At her peak, her columns were read by 20 million people in 700 newspapers worldwide.
Dorothy Malone was an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years, she played small roles, mainly in B-movies, with the exception of a supporting role in The Big Sleep (1946). After a decade, she changed her image, particularly after her role in Written on the Wind (1956), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
The Spiral Staircase is a 1946 American psychological horror film directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, and Ethel Barrymore. Set over the course of one evening, the film follows a mute young woman in an early-20th century Vermont town who is stalked and terrorized in a rural mansion by a serial killer targeting women with disabilities. Gordon Oliver, Rhonda Fleming, and Elsa Lanchester appear in supporting roles. It was adapted for the screen by Mel Dinelli from the novel Some Must Watch (1933) by Ethel Lina White.
Royden Denslow Webb was an American film music composer. One of the charter members of ASCAP, Webb has hundreds of film music credits to his name, mainly with RKO Pictures. He is best known for film noir and horror film scores, in particular for the films of Val Lewton.
DeWitt Bodeen was an American film screenwriter and television writer best known for writing Cat People (1942).
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a 1945 American drama film that marked the debut of Elia Kazan as a dramatic film director. Adapted by Tess Slesinger and Frank Davis from the 1943 novel by Betty Smith, the film focuses on an impoverished but aspirational, second-generation Irish-American family living in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, in the early 20th century. Peggy Ann Garner received the Academy Juvenile Award for her performance as Francie Nolan, the adolescent girl at the center of the coming-of-age story. Other stars are Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, Lloyd Nolan, Ted Donaldson, and James Dunn, who received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Francie's father.
Constantin Bakaleinikoff was a Russian-American composer.
Isle of the Dead is a 1945 American horror film directed by Mark Robson and made for RKO Radio Pictures by producer Val Lewton. The film's script was inspired by the painting Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin, which appears behind the title credits, though the film was originally titled Camilla during production. It was written by frequent Lewton collaborator Ardel Wray. It starred Boris Karloff. Isle of the Dead was the second of three films Lewton made with Karloff, and the fourth of five pictures Robson directed for Lewton.
Rafter Romance is an American 1933 pre-Code romantic comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The film, which was based on the 1932 novel of the same name by John Wells, stars Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster and George Sidney, and features Robert Benchley, Laura Hope Crews and Guinn Williams.
The Richest Girl in the World is a 1934 American romantic comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea and Fay Wray. Norman Krasna was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story. It was remade in 1944 as Bride by Mistake with Laraine Day and Alan Marshal.
The Enchanted Cottage may refer to:
The Enchanted Cottage is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by John S. Robertson based upon a 1923 play by Arthur Wing Pinero.
Mama Loves Papa is a 1945 American comedy film directed by Frank R. Strayer and written by Monte Brice, with a story by Keene Thompson and a screenplay by Charles E. Roberts. It is a loose remake of the 1933 film Mama Loves Papa, written by Douglas MacLean. The film was produced by RKO Radio Pictures and stars Leon Errol and Elizabeth Risdon.
Bride by Mistake is a 1944 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Wallace, and starring Alan Marshal and Laraine Day.
Ding Dong Williams is a 1946 American comedy film directed by William Berke. The film stars Glen Vernon, Marcy McGuire, Felix Bressart, Anne Jeffreys, and James Warren. It was released on April 15, 1946 by RKO Radio Pictures.
Seven Days Ashore is a 1944 American comedy film directed by John H. Auer and written by Edward Verdier, Irving Phillips and Lawrence Kimble. The film stars Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Marcy McGuire, Virginia Mayo, Elaine Shepard, Gordon Oliver, Amelita Ward and Dooley Wilson. The film was released on April 25, 1944, by RKO Pictures.
Glen Vernon was an American actor.
Reward Unlimited is a short film produced in 1944 by David O. Selznick's Vanguard Films, for the United States Public Health Service, dramatizing the need for volunteer military nurses for the U. S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, the 10-minute film stars Dorothy McGuire in one of her first films. The story by Mary C. McCall, Jr., dramatizes the choice that young Peggy Adams makes to become a nurse, her training, and her volunteering for military nursing service. The cast includes Aline MacMahon, James Brown, Spring Byington and Tom Tully.
Harriet Oettinger Parsons was an American film producer, actress, director, and magazine writer; one of the few female producers in the United States at the time. Her mother was famed gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
References
↑ Wagner, Laura. "Eden Nicholas", Classic Images. September 2022
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