Retro (Classic) Review: “Enchantment” | You’ll be under the spell of this marvelous, under-the-Radar B&W film
Despite the “one sheet” above, this charming, under-the-Radar 1948 film starring the late, great David Niven, and the late, equally great Teresa Wright was shot in glorious Black and White, in the 4:5 (35MM) aspect ratio.
Weirdly (or actually as is common, on Amazon Prime Video) the Trailer included with the film is grainy and fuzzy. Clearly whatever film nerd was dedicated enough to find and do a Digital Transfer of this gem so it could be re-released in DVD, then (maybe) Blu-ray, but now stream, was looking for “extras”. While many films on the World’s-Greatest-Streaming-Platform-for-Movies look great — that is, are made from a pristine print, and the transfer is well done, in at least HD, sometimes in 4K — often the Trailers don’t. Equally as often, what is billed as a Trailer is actually a clip of the film.
I call it “under the Radar” because I had never heard of it. And I have heard of, and watched many, many films from this era: called by many the Hollywood Studio System Era, or “Golden Age of Hollywood” (an epithet I find kind of annoying). I found it using Amazon’s “viewers who watched this, also watched…” feature which is really, for a film geek like me, the greatest thing that was ever invented
Is there actually a film review, here?
Anywho…
The Trailer for “Enchantment” is so technically crappy you might wonder whether the film, itself, is. It isn’t. Crappy, that is. It is truly wonderful. Why? Well, literally anything Oscar-winner David Niven made was good, if not great. Ditto for Oscar-winner Teresa Wright.
The film-makers use a clever technique to tell two stories about a house in London: one story from around the time of World War I, and the other, later. If this telescoping time technique sounds familiar, Celine Song used it in her wonderful “Past Lives”, which I reviewed earlier this year (https://bit.ly/4bDPk33). And this Samuel Goldwyn production bears more than a little few resemblance to Song’s lovely paen to unrequited love.
In the earlier story line, a young girl cousin who’s parents have passed away comes to live in a home in bustling, early 20th Century London. The children already living there both accept (the boy) and reject (the girl) their new house-mate. This sets up the interesting twist that takes place at the end of the early time frame, in between, and then has consequences in the later time-frame. Some of this has to do with Class, as nearly any story set in England does, but the screenplay by John Patrick and Rumer Gordon isn’t too heavy-handed about this.
What a twist
You see, David Niven’s character, as a boy, falls madly in love with the cousin, played as an adult by Teresa Wright. When they reunite, many years later, the regret of unrequited love is piquant. Again, not unlike Song’s equally touching story in “Past Lives”.
The major factor that has influenced all of their lives is World War I. Given that this film was made on the heels of World War II — which nearly destroyed England, and London in particular — it is interesting that this story hearkens back to an earlier, maybe more innocent time. WWI was quaintly called “the war to end all wars”, and although more Brits died in it than any other war in history, its horrors were nothing compared to what occurred in Nazi Death Camps, and Japanese POW camps in World War II.
This is important because it is the War, itself, the comes between the two young ones and their chance at love. Most of the rest of the story involves how they, as adults, work through their disappointment, and make actual lives as the loving Father (head of the house) eventually leaves them on their own.
Production design: the House as a Character
The trailer for “Enchantment” spends much of its visual ‘time’ on the house, its exterior, interior, and how it changes over time. Almost as if it is saying, in spite of the loves, and loss of the people living in it, the House itself continues.
It is a fairly standard “Row House” probably in Grosvenor Square or somewhere else, although it was probably built on a Hollywood Sound Stage. The details are unimportant, as the house itself takes on a role in the film as almost a character itself. It becomes the locus of much of the action — the love, and the loss — and goes through its own changes over the decades that reflect the changes in the characters.
In the end, it is the place they leave, and the place they return to, in spite of all that happens.
Teresa Wright was the real deal
The entire cast of “Enchanted” is top notch, including a very young Farley Granger (famous for his role in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train”) as an ambitious American soldier and the legendary Jayne Meadows as the still-spiteful, adult sister of Niven’s character.
But the main event, here, is Niven and Wright.
Many reviewers and film critics have written, over the years about Niven. He had many great roles, for example the Burt Lancaster-produced, Oscar winner “Separate Tables”. But Wright was much lauded, as well. And, interestingly, lived quite a bit longer than Niven.
I learned from IMDB that Wright’s last film, in the 1990s, was Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of John Grisham’s “The Rainmaker”, in which she played the kindly Landlady to an impossibly young Matt Damon. What a treat it must have been for everyone on the set, especially Damon, to work with a true Hollywood legend.
I hope Damon has seen “Enchanted”. I hope you will, as well. Available on Amazon Prime Video in HD, for rent or purchase.
