The Enchanted Cottage (1924 film)


The Enchanted Cottage is a 1924 American silent drama film based upon a 1923 play by Arthur Wing Pinero, and directed by John S. Robertson.
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 1945 version also based on the 1923 play.

Plot

Crippled by the war, Oliver Bashforth moves into a lonely cottage in search of solitude. He meets Laura Pennington, a plain and lonely woman, and marries her, primarily to escape from his energetic sister, Ethel. The unhappy couple allow their insecurities to suppress romance and happiness, but their mutual admiration grows and becomes love, manifested by the recognition of the inner beauty in each of them.

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

This film is preserved at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.