Review of The Enchanted Cottage

I was a young boy of 14 in 1945 when I just happened to see THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE. I had neither heard of the movie or Dorothy McGuire. I was mesmerized as the beautiful story unfolded. It is a bit of fairy-tale but so splendidly done. The change from plain and homely to beautiful and from scarred to handsome is a masterpiece of make-up. The cottage, its furnishings, the burned ruins still standing, and the outside sets were in themselves pure magic. Sadly, all gone now, McGuire, Young, Marshall, and Natwick were all perfectly cast. The only movies: PORTRAIT OF JENNIE and SOMEWHERE IN TIME have come close to the same theme. Odly enough there were 4 other classic movies of that same narrow 7 year time frame that I recall now: WUTHERING HEIGHTS ('39), JANE EYRE ('44) THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE ('46) and LAURA ('45). AMC (before commercials) is the only COMPLETE version I've found. The RKO Collection cut out 14 minutes. The complete AMC version runs 91 minutes. A must see. Richard Stroup (stroup62131@aol.com)