Mit den Augen der Liebe

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.

This movie moved me the first time I saw it, I was 7 years old. I didn't really understand the plot, but I knew it made me feel so happy inside. Now that 30 have passed, I can see the beauty in this story of love and enchantment. It brings hope to anyone that feels they will never find that special someone. For those of us that have found that special someone, then when you watch this movie, you can be reminded that though there are trying times in every relationship, you can always find that one thing that made you fall in love to begin with.

This is a forgotten gem of a movie that I have only seen two or three times over the years but it's a well made romance/drama/fantasy film that deserves a look. A WWII casualty played by Robert Young was to be married and honeymoon in a New England historic quaint honeymoon cottage before the war and fate stepped in. Instead he returns from the war with disfiguring and disabling injuries bitter and resentful and as he takes refuge in the cottage he was to have honeymooned in he meets a housekeeper who is plain in appearance and self doubting in confidence and appears resigned to an unmarried life. They marry at first out of convenience and then the magic of the centuries cottage ignites in them the beauty of the soul. Noted British playwright Sir Arthur Wing Pinero wrote the play The Enchanted Cottage: A Fable in Three Acts as a moral booster to WWI veterans resuming life after the Great War with many disabled and disfigured. It was first staged in London in 1921 and then in America on Broadway in the spring of 1923. The stage play was quite different from the two filmed versions in it showed the stories of three couples who honeymooned in the cottage set in England over the years. It also had witches and cherubs and imps. Four roles from the play made the transition to the film Laura Pennington, Oliver Bashforth (with a slight change to Bradford), Major John Hillgrove and Mrs. Minnett. Hollywood filmed a silent film version in 1924 with a script adapted by Gertrude Chase and Josephine Lovett that eliminated the overt supernatural characters and other wedding couples so it centered more on the four main characters. For the 1945 film Screenwriters Dewitt Bodeen and Herman J. Maniewicz do a rewrite of the 1924 adaptation with John Cromwell directing. Cromwell had made such films as The Prisoner of Zenda, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Of Human bondage, Abe Lincoln in Illinois and So Ends Our Night among many in his fine directorial career. Proliffic cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff who photographed such films as Talk of the Town, I Married a Witch and Notorious is the the film's cinematographer. Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire star along with fine performances by Herbert Marshall, Mildred Natwick and Spring Byington. This is a fine film and is indeed enchanting. I would give this a 9.0 out of 10.

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.

This was a nice, short fairy tale-type romance with truly nice people in the leads: Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire. One of the best features of this film, to me, was listening to McGuire's soft, sweet feminine voice. It certainly went with the nice, compassionate character she played in this movie ("Laura Pennington").

Robert Young, as "Oliver Bradford," also is very good in here and Herbert Marshall is outstanding as the blind neighbor, "Major John Hillgrove." The annoying character was played by Spring Byington but her "Violet Price" role was small.

This is the story of a plain woman and a battle-scarred World War II pilot who meet at this cottage, fall in love, see each other as beautiful thinking that some mystical power at the cottage and transformed their faces, but in the end find out they haven't changed at all. They find out that love changed they way they looked at each other. Sounds corny, but a lot of profound truth to it.

I read one famous critic write that this film could have been better. Well, I don't doubt it, but you could say that about most movies. I have no complaints with it. I do have a question: it's listed at 91 minutes but my tape only plays for 79. Did I have 12 minutes cut out of the story on my VHS?