In different shots, viewed by her adoring husband, McGuire is coiffed and made up, and lit of course, beautifully, and from another camera angle from the perspective of the in-laws, she is homely again. Remember that Seinfeld episode where his new girlfriend is alternately ugly or beautiful depending upon what lighting she’s in?Ĭinematographer Ted Tetzlaff and editor Joseph Noriega deserve to be noted for their work on this film, culminating in the terrific scene where Young’s mother and stepfather return to visit, and the camera lets us see, if we haven’t figured it out before, that there is no enchantment in the cottage that made them beautiful, that they are beautiful only to each other. McGuire seems to be lit from below quite a bit, and the lighting crew all but holds a flashlight under her chin to create hard lines and freaky shadows on her face, the way we did when we were kids telling ghost stories. That had to have been challenge for the crew. It’s especially noticeable when she is in a scene with another person, and the other person is lit well, smoothly and in a flattering way, and she isn’t. In her homely scenes, she is lit poorly to convey harsh shadows on her face. The chief feature of her homeliness lies in a somewhat mousy appearance of not being made up, and in the way she is lighted. Frankenstein.”ĭorothy McGuire’s ugliness is remarked upon by others and herself, but it is hardly the stuff of horror films. Crowther comments, not unfairly, that he is made up “to look like something horrible constructed by Dr. As he fixes a hollow gaze upon himself, we may expect him to turn into a werewolf at any moment, and even critic Mr. When he lights a match to gaze upon his face in the mirror of a dark room, the camera lingers on the drooping right eye with the line of a scar ending at his ear, and a twisted lower lip. This is one of the most memorable aspects of the film. Young and Miss McGuire find comfort in each other’s company, marry for the sake of convenience, and fall so deeply in love afterward as to become beautiful in each other’s eyes and in the camera lens as well. Equally condescending and horror struck are his flighty mother, played by Spring Byington in a departure from her usual kindly roles, and stepfather played with terrifically boorish officiousness by Richard Gaines. Later, she breaks her engagement with Young by her horror at his disfigurement upon his return from the war, and the bitter Young broods in his room in the cottage, hiding from the world. He brings his intended bride played by Hillary Brooke, a glamorous society girl who dismisses the new maid McGuire, with a bored glance. Miss Natwick’s character displays a kind of sixth sense about people, but we are never given an explanation as to why or how she deftly manipulates the fortunes of those around her, but she has shut herself off from all people until a handsome Robert Young shows up wanting to rent her cottage. Mildred Natwick plays the owner of the cottage, a lonely widow with an austere manner and seeming intuitiveness for unexplained phenomena, who invites Dorothy McGuire to work as a maid. Taken as an allegory and not literally, the film can be emotionally devastating as it is uplifting, and interestingly, for what we see into it and not for what we see.Ī remote cottage on the New England coast is a setting intended to be romantic and haunting. Our perception of beauty, and perhaps to modern audiences today, our perception of being accepted by other people and loved for who we are is the broader message of this film. Crowther is looking at beauty as being only skin deep. Advances in plastic surgery of the day would make it possible for the veteran, played by Robert Young, to be “studiously rehabilitated” and with cosmetics, the plain girl, played by Dorothy McGuire, could “make herself look very sweet.” He claims that the story of the WWII veteran with scars upon his face and a right arm left useless by his war injury who finds love with the homely maid in the cottage he rents, each finding beauty in each other, is ridiculous because these two people don’t have to be ugly if they don’t want to be. Crowther’s practical assessment is interesting. The Enchanted Cottage (1945) is today a sentimental favorite of many old movie buffs, but upon its release, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther found the film “unreasonable” and “contrived.”ĭissenting opinions of this film are perhaps fitting, as the film’s message is of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.
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