Rent The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
3.8 of 5 from 48 ratings
1h 31min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
After a crash disfigures his face and maims his body, pilot Oliver Bradford (Robert Young) hides from family and friends in a seaside cottage. There he befriends homely, gentle Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire). The two marry for companionship - until some rare magic within the cottage transforms them into ardent and beautiful lovers. Director John Cromwell's delicate, achingly romantic film is based on Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's play, written in a post-World War I era of broken men returning to families who could not recognize them. When history sadly repealed itself. World War II film audiences likewise embraced a story of the transcendent power of love. The film so moved Young that he named his own California home 'The Enchanted Cottage'. - Actors:
- Dorothy McGuire, Robert Young, Herbert Marshall, Mildred Natwick, Spring Byington, Hillary Brooke, Richard Gaines, Alec Englander, Robert Clarke, Eden Nicholas, Wally Albright, Virginia Belmont, Barbara Blair, Patti Brill, Martha Holliday, Carl Kent, Nancy Marlow, Sherman Sanders, Walter Soderling, Larry Wheat
- Directors:
- John Cromwell
- Producers:
- Harriet Parsons
- Writers:
- DeWitt Bodeen, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Arthur Wing Pinero
- Others:
- Roy Webb
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
More like The Enchanted Cottage
Reviews (1) of The Enchanted Cottage
Romantic Fantasy. - The Enchanted Cottage review by Steve
This is a remake of a silent film about men who returned from the great war with horrific injuries. RKO updated it to WWII, just as that conflict was ending. Robert Young plays a flyer who suffers facial scarring and paralysis. He finds companionship with the shy, unattractive spinster (Dorothy McGuire) who cares for him as he comes to terms with his injuries.
And they fall in love under the influence of the enchanted cottage, which makes them perceive each other as attractive. He glimpses her inner beauty and she sees the man she distantly loved before the war. Others don't share their illusion, but the lovers are protected by the cottage's mystical, lonely housekeeper (Mildred Natwick) and a blind neighbour (Herbert Marshall).
Clearly, the studio pulled a lot of punches on the couple's appearance. She is so unattractive, soldiers at a wartime dance draw back in horror. But she's just Dorothy McGuire without makeup. He has a scar, but the twisted lip comes and goes. This isn't horror. It's a lush wartime romance which offers comfort to the home-front waiting for its heroes to return. Who may have changed.
It is a lush Hollywood fantasy, conventionally scored by Roy Webb's nostalgic, wistful orchestration, with tasteful photography and visual effects. It's the most sentimental film imaginable, but it conveys a strange ethereal magic, and has developed a small but devoted cult.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.