I was flipping through the channels, and came upon good ol’ TCM. Say what you will about Ted Turner (and I’ll usually agree!), at least TCM isn’t getting as bad as AMC.
Anyways, there was this old movie on The Enchanted Cottage. I had heard mention of it, in a book once, so I thought I’d watch it.
It’s the best movie! Robert Young is a man who comes back from the war (WWII, I think), with the right side of his face severely scarred and he’s unable to use his right hand. He goes to stay at this old cottage somewhere, where this young girl is living, played by Dorothy McGuire. McGuire’s character is this sweet, but plain and frumpy girl.
Anyhoo, Young’s fiancee has dumped him after she saw his face, and Young tries to kill himself, but McGuire stops him.
(Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the movie in total, because I started watching halfway through, and then I had to go eat dinner). When I came back, well, they had gotten married. Eventually, despite the fact that everyone else sees them as plain and ugly, they each see each other as devastatingly beautiful. It’s so sweet and romantic!
As you said, I love how they see each other as beautiful and everyone else sees them as frumpy and ugly.
This movie was a serendipitous find for me too, years ago, when I was flipping through channels.
I don’t know anyone else who has seen it. I tried to get my teenaged daughter to sit and watch it with me (within the last year) but she rolled her eyes at me as she usually does when I suggest a black and white movie, and ran out the door to do fun teenaged things. Sheesh!
I watched this yesterday, but I’ve seen it before. It is a lovely movie. The scene where Dorothy McGuire goes to the dance and is completely rejected is just heart-breaking.
Guin, I think the bit you missed was the evening after they were married. When they begin to see each other as attractive, they believe that the cottage has worked some sort of physical magic on them–that they really have changed. They tell this, in flashback, to their blind friend, who perceives the truth more quickly than they do. Both he and the housekeeper are at some pains to keep them from finding out, until Robert Young’s mother and stepfather blunder right in.
Yeah, the mother was an absolute bitch. I couldn’t stand her.
I think a remake of that movie would quite suck, to put it bluntly. If only because Hollywood’s idea of “ugly” is glasses and a hair bun.
No, I walked in right as they started to see each other as beautiful-as they were eating dinner, and then she went to play the piano, but started crying and ran upstairs. Then Young runs after her, and sort of “rolls her over” on the bed, and he thinks she’s beautiful.
I’m near tears right now. This was one of my mom’s all-time favorite movies. We watched it years ago and cried and cried…it makes me miss her. I think I’ll watch it tonight (have it on tape).
Did you see where the mother had written to RY and said that she didn’t like him living alone and, if he didn’t move back in with her and the stepfather, then they would come out and move into the cottage with him? Right after that, he asks DMcG to marry him–rather ungraciously implying that an ugly girl couldn’t expect to do better. He does apologise for it, and DMcG accepts.
After that, we jump a few weeks to when the blind pianist returns home, and the couple asks to see him right away. The housekeeper tells him that they’ve been keeping exclusively to themselves since they married, avoiding even her, and wrapping themselves up to hide their faces when they go out.
When the two come in, they tell him about the wonderful thing that’s happened to them, and we flashback to the two of them having dinner on their wedding night. RY talks about how guilty he feels about dragging the poor girl into this marriage of convenience, and DMcG says she’s loved him since the first time he came to the cottage. She wants to tell him about it through music, and gets up to play the piano…and that’s where you came back in.
