The 1940s was a great decade for melodrama. Take, for instance, “The Enchanted Cottage,” a love story about appearances and self-esteem.
Laura Pennington (Dorothy McGuire) has returned to the village where she was raised in hopes of starting over. She’s a plain girl, and love has never come her way. She believes herself to be ugly, and no one has ever set her straight on that point. She takes a job as a maid in a cottage near her old home, working for the enigmatic Mrs. Minnett, played by Mildred Natwick, who is very good at looking enigmatic.
Together the ladies ready the cottage for the arrival of Oliver Bradford, who will be coming with his fiancé to make sure everything is in readiness for their honeymoon stay. As soon as Laura sees Oliver (Robert Young), she’s quite taken with him, but she knows he’s soon to be married, so she doesn’t entertain any hopes in that direction.
But the day Oliver is to be married and come to the cottage, he is called up to the war. A year passes, in which Laura stays on at the cottage, and one day the ladies get a telegram. Oliver is coming to the cottage after all and would like to stay for a while. He has been badly injured in the war and needs a place to recuperate. His face is scarred down the right side and his right arm is limp due to nerve damage. He feels he’ll never be the same, and wants to hide out from the world.
Together, he and Laura find friendship, and he asks her to marry him. She feels he’s only asking out of pity. She’s in love with him, but is just sure he could never return her feelings. He, on the other hand, doesn’t want her to feel chained to such a ruined man. They enter into the marriage, each unsure of the other’s feelings, until that night, when a miracle happens.
Laura looks at him and notices that his scars are gone and his arm is healed. She has become beautiful. Now they are the perfect couple, and they can’t account for the change except for to say that the cottage is enchanted.
This is a touching story about true love and the power it holds over us. I did wish that someone, anyone, would have told Laura that she was beautiful before the change took place – that would have made me feel a lot better. But maybe the director didn’t think the miracle would have been as powerful, I don’t know. This film was unrated.
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