The Enchanted Cottage

1924

Drama

2
IMDb Rating 6.9/10 10 772 772

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Plot summary

The Enchanted Cottage stars Richard Barthelmess as Oliver, a physically and emotionally wounded World War I veteran who comes home to a fiancée who promptly leaves him. Licking his wounds in solitude, he meets a young woman named Laura (May McAvoy). They fall in love and agree to marry, but unexpected and magical events occur inside The Enchanted Cottage where they have agreed to spend their wedding night.

Director

John S. Robertson Photo
John S. Robertson

Top cast

Richard Barthelmess Photo
Richard Barthelmess as Oliver Bashforth
Carole Belcher Photo
Carole Belcher as Young girl in front of cottage.
Susan Belcher Photo
Susan Belcher as Young girl in front of cottage.
Ethel Wright Photo
Ethel Wright as Mrs. Minnett
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
738 MB
1280*1098
English 2.0
NR
29.97 fps
1 hr 20 min
Seeds 39
1.34 GB
1258*1080
English 2.0
NR
29.97 fps
1 hr 20 min
Seeds 81

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by JohnHowardReid 8 / 10

Enchanted or not enchanted, that is the question!

Reviewed by wes-connors 6 / 10

The Eye of the Beholder

Wounded serving in "The Great War" (World War I), formerly handsome Richard Barthelmess (as Oliver Bashforth) hobbles around the house with a cane. His misshapen body has caused him to forbid mirrors, lest he be reminded of his changed appearance. Despite this statement, a mirror prominently appears on the screen, showing Mr. Barthelmess his sad reflection. Depressed after seeing his wartime sweetheart fall in love with an able-bodied man, Barthelmess decides to move out of his parents' estate, to a small cottage. Still, he is pestered by mannish sister Florence Short (as Ethel), who continually feels she must "look after" Barthelmess.To ward off Ms. Short, who he fears is about to move in with him, Barthelmess proposes to homely May McAvoy (as Laura Pennington), a woman he's acquainted with through blind friend Holmes Herbert (as Major Hillgrove). Even blind, Mr. Holmes knows Ms. McAvoy is ugly because, "We sense what other people see." But, McAvoy is kind, and agrees to become companion to Barthelmess, through marriage. The pitiful newlyweds take care of each other, but hide from most people - with the exception of blind friend Holmes. Together, they find "The Enchanted Cottage" they live in was home to 300 years of honeymooning lovers.Like the spirits of couples roaming around the cottage, Barthelmess and McAvoy fall in love. Then, something magical changes their disfiguring appearances. McAvoy abruptly loses her overbite and crooked nose (shown in dramatic profile dissolve). Barthelmess exclaims, "How blind I've been - you are beautiful!" Then he stands up straight as she exclaims, "You are wonderful to me!" The newly attractive pair are deliriously happy, of course. They share the miracle of their appearance with blind friend Holmes. After considering Holmes' counsel, Barthelmess and McAvoy decode to reveal their newly-found beauty to his family… This leads to the film's most dramatic scene, which you really should see for yourself. The Arthur Wing Pinero story, re-made with Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire in 1945, is indeed enchanting. This version benefits from the appearance of two great stars who successfully left their respective "nests" - Barthelmess from Griffith, McAvoy from DeMille - and found good roles. Here, McAvoy is most successful, due to the nose and teeth work looking extraordinarily realistic (possibly helped by a fuzzy print, but still). Barthelmess fares less well, apparently stricken with the paralytic disorder Lon Chaney suffered in "Flesh and Blood" (1922).Directed by John S. Robertson, "The Enchanted Cottage" was the ninth best film of the year, per "Motion Picture" magazine.****** The Enchanted Cottage (3/24/24) John S. Robertson ~ Richard Barthelmess, May McAvoy, Holmes Herbert, Florence Short
Reviewed by F Gwynplaine MacIntyre 7 / 10

Wistful semi-fantasy

'The Enchanted Cottage' is a delicate little drama that flirts at the edges of fantasy. Cleverly, this film evokes the aura of the supernatural without ever making clear whether it's actually here or not.The film actor Richard Barthelmess engages me intellectually but not emotionally. I've never yet seen a Barthelmess performance that convinced me he actually was the character he was playing. Yet he always impresses me with the effort he clearly takes in his characterisations. This is especially clear in his best-known role, as the meek Chinese emigrant in 'Broken Blossoms'. Not for one instant did I accept Barthelmess as a Chinese, yet he works hard and impresses me favourably.In 'The Enchanted Cottage', alas, Bathelmess seems to be doing a bad imitation of Lon Chaney. Barthelmess plays Oliver Bashforth(!), a shell-shocked veteran of the Great War. He was wounded in combat, but the inter-titles are very imprecise about the nature of his injury. As Bashforth, Bathelmess stoops over and wears raccoonish eye makeup. Very distressingly, he keeps making V-signs with both his hands, like some demented Winston Churchill. This is meant to indicate some sort of physical handicap, though I'm not aware of any injury that causes its victim to make V-signs. Harvey Smith syndrome, perhaps? In one scene, Barthelmess crouches in front of a full-length mirror and bitterly confronts his own deformed reflection: he seems to be imitating the scene in 'A Blind Bargain' when Chaney as the Ape-man discovers his own reflection.The leading lady in this movie is May McAvoy. May McAvoy was one of the most beautiful actresses in silent films. Here, she portrays a plain-faced spinster named Laura Pennington. The makeup artist has given McAvoy an extremely convincing overbite and a putty job to make her face less attractive. I usually dislike it when a beautiful actress is uglified so that she can play a role that could have gone to a less attractive actress. Here, for once, the device is valid.Bashforth, allegedly deformed by his injuries and wallowing in self-pity, flees to a secluded cottage so he'll have no visitors. His sister Ethel persists in visiting so she can tend him. Bashforth enters into a sham marriage with unattractive Laura, solely as a ploy so that his sister will go away.Bashforth and Laura discover that the cottage has a long history as a honeymoon cottage; lovers have trysted there for more than two centuries. Gradually, Bashforth and Laura fall in love. As this happens, they subjectively become more attractive. He loses his deformities, whilst Laura becomes more beautiful and starts looking like May McAvoy. The film subtly persuades us that this is a subjective transformation rather than an actual change. Bashforth's and Laura's only neighbour is a retired major (very well played by Holmes Herbert) who's blind, so he 'sees' the couple in terms of their personalities, not their physical appearance.SPOILERS COMING. All is well until sister Ethel returns with her fiancé Rupert and Rupert's mother. By now, Bashforth and Laura are so good-looking, they could be a couple of matinée idols. When they come down the stairs into the parlour, there is a beautiful dissolve shot as their physical appearance melts back into what it was at the beginning of the film. He is again deformed, she is again plain and buck-toothed.This is a beautiful and subtle film, made more so because we never quite know how much of this is genuine fantasy, and how much of it merely the fancies of the on-screen characters. But the effect is sadly undercut by some extremely maudlin inter-titles. This was an ongoing hazard of silent films, as the titles were often written by someone completely unrelated to the production of the film in which the titles appeared, and often the tone of the latter contrasted with the former. I'll rate 'The Enchanted Cottage' 7 out of 10.
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