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 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