The Enchanted Cottage | |
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1924 lobby card
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Directed by | John S. Robertson |
Produced by | Inspiration Pictures Inc. |
Written by |
Josephine Lovett (scenario) Gertrude Chase (intertitles) |
Based on |
The Enchanted Cottage 1923 play by Arthur Wing Pinero |
Starring |
Richard Barthelmess May McAvoy |
Cinematography | George J. Folsey |
Edited by | William Hamilton |
Distributed by | Associated First National |
Release date
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Running time
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7 reels at 7,120 feet (appr. 80-85 minutes) |
Country | United States |
Language |
Silent (English intertitles) |
The Enchanted Cottage (1924) is a 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.
Crippled by the war, Oliver Bashforth (Richard Barthelmess) moves into a lonely cottage in search of solitude. He meets Laura Pennington (May McAvoy), a plain and lonely woman, and marries her, primarily to escape from his energetic sister, Ethel (Florence Short). 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.
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."
This film is preserved at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.