There was a cheap short-lived color process for films called "Cine-Color". This low cost photography used at such "Z" Grade movie studios as Monogram, Lippert, PRC and Screen Guild, was utilized in mostly poor films (such as Screen Guild's "Scared to Death", Bela Lugosi's only color film), but ended up in some interesting sleepers as well. One of those is "The Enchanted Forest", a PRC family drama starring the magnificent character actor Harry Davenport ("King's Row", "Meet Me in St. Louis"), a lovable elderly performer who is simply magnificent here.
He plays a forest hermit who befriends wolves, foxes, chipmunks, mountain lions, and various species of birds. Finding a baby boy after a train accident, Davenport takes him in, and teaches him about the beauty of God's world outside man's cities. The boy's parents are devastated, but the mother refuses to give up hope that the child is alive. By coincidence, years later, they end up in the woods, where the hermit is fighting to keep the forest from being destroyed by land developers.
This is a sweetly made film, even on the cheap, and is a lesson for youth on the importance of man respecting nature. The interaction between Davenport and the animals (particularly the protective wolf and the weather forecasting frog) is entertaining and humorous without being silly. The film also avoids becoming sappy with the introduction of the baby boy who grows up under Davenport's love and the animal's protection. While not on the level of some of Disney's live action films of this era, it has a narrative that adults won't find cloying. Compare this to a later Disney classic, "So Dear to My Heart", as well as MGM's "The Yearling", for an innocence and purity of a long ago era, even post World War II that is missing today. Oh, and don't miss the visual of where the hermit lives. It is most memorable!
He plays a forest hermit who befriends wolves, foxes, chipmunks, mountain lions, and various species of birds. Finding a baby boy after a train accident, Davenport takes him in, and teaches him about the beauty of God's world outside man's cities. The boy's parents are devastated, but the mother refuses to give up hope that the child is alive. By coincidence, years later, they end up in the woods, where the hermit is fighting to keep the forest from being destroyed by land developers.
This is a sweetly made film, even on the cheap, and is a lesson for youth on the importance of man respecting nature. The interaction between Davenport and the animals (particularly the protective wolf and the weather forecasting frog) is entertaining and humorous without being silly. The film also avoids becoming sappy with the introduction of the baby boy who grows up under Davenport's love and the animal's protection. While not on the level of some of Disney's live action films of this era, it has a narrative that adults won't find cloying. Compare this to a later Disney classic, "So Dear to My Heart", as well as MGM's "The Yearling", for an innocence and purity of a long ago era, even post World War II that is missing today. Oh, and don't miss the visual of where the hermit lives. It is most memorable!