The Enchanted Cottage (1924 film)

This article is about the 1924 silent film. For the play, see The Enchanted Cottage (play). For the 1945 remake, see The Enchanted Cottage (1945 film).

The Enchanted Cottage
1924 lobby card
Directed by	John S. Robertson
Written by	Josephine Lovett (scenario) Gertrude Chase (intertitles)
Based on	The Enchanted Cottage 1923 play by Arthur Wing Pinero
Produced by	Inspiration Pictures Inc.
Starring	Richard Barthelmess May McAvoy
Cinematography	George J. Folsey
Edited by	William Hamilton
Distributed by	Associated First National
Release date	March 24, 1924 (1924-03-24)
Running time	7 reels at 7,120 feet (appr. 80-85 minutes)
Country	United States
Language	Silent (English intertitles)

The Enchanted Cottage is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by John S. Robertson based upon a 1923 play by Arthur Wing Pinero.

The film was produced by Richard Barthelmess, through his company Inspiration, and released through Associated First National. Barthelmess and May McAvoy star in the drama.

Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire starred in a 1945 version also based on the 1923 play.

Plot

As described in a film magazine review, Oliver Bashforth (Barthelmess), physically wrecked by the late war and hating himself because of his twisted body and hollow cheeks, breaks his engagement with his boyhood sweetheart and quits his family to seek isolation in a lonely cottage in the woods. There he meets Laura Pennington (McAvoy), a lonely little governess, whose plainness makes her unattractive to men. They marry and then both commit themselves to intense depression because they are both so ugly. However, with the dawning of real love, both commence to see each other through the beauty of the soul, with the consequence that each appears as handsome to each other as either could wish. In the week of their enchantment, they have found love and they look forward to a future happiness and to the creation of children who will embody the beauty they do not possess.

Reception

A reviewer for Photoplay wrote, "To anyone with a poetic soul, this picture will be a rare treat. But the too literal person will be sadly disappointed. A picture for folk who dare to dream. As such we cannot recommend it too highly."

"There is a charm about the spoken or written word that is frequently too elusive to be caught by the camera, and in its efforts to make things clear, too often the screen makes them merely clumsy," wrote Marguerite Orndorff for The Educational Screen. "There was a danger of such a result in filming this whimsy of Pinero's, but the direction of John S. Robertson, and the understanding portrayals of May McAvoy and Richard Barthelmess have in a large measure preserved its delicacy."

Cast

Richard Barthelmess and May McAvoy in The Enchanted Cottage

• Richard Barthelmess as Oliver Bashforth
• May McAvoy as Laura Pennington
• Ida Waterman as Mrs. Smallwood
• Alfred Hickman as Rupert Smallwood
• Florence Short as Ethel Bashforth
• Marion Coakley as Beatrice Vaughn
• Holmes Herbert as Major Hillgrove
• Ethel Wright as Mrs. Minnett
• Harry Allen as Riggs, the major's servant

Preservation

A print of The Enchanted Cottage is preserved at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

In 2024 Edward Lorusso, restored the film from a 35mm print held by the Library of Congress. The restoration included a new score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

External links

• The Enchanted Cottage at IMDb
• Synopsis at AllMovie
• The Enchanted Cottage at the TCM Movie Database
• The Enchanted Cottage at the American Film Institute Catalog