Enchantment (MGM)
Picture: B-
Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B-
Enchantment is a film that, while looking
back upon it, seems like the type of film that was probably odd during its
time. By that I mean the actual
storyline almost sounds like a Jerry Springer episode. General Roland Dane is spending the
remainder of his years in solitude as he wrestles each day away quietly in
peace. He does not like interruption to
his quiet studying of the patterns perhaps in the ceiling or the floor…he just
wants to be left alone.
In actuality, he is still closed off from the love he once
lost, which we realize upon the entrance of his niece to his home. Upon her arrival he begins to flashback and
explain the story of how he fell in love with his ‘half-sister’, but was
basically not permitted to be with her because of the circumstance, which I
will not go into for it might make this review more confusing or perhaps give
away too much. David Niven plays the
aging General to perfection and brings life to the somewhat groggy old man,
although he also captures the passion filled younger man who was seeking his
love.
MGM has issued Enchantment
to the DVD market and its debut will probably make a lot of Lifetime Channel
watchers quite glad because this is exactly the type of sentimental wishy-washy
material that those people, mostly female, eat up like hotcakes. Not that this is a bad film, by any means
its actually one of the more tolerable love stories, but it does have a limited
target audience by today’s standards.
Although that conclusion might be hard to derive from based on this
really good effort from MGM for this DVD.
While the film contains no extras to speak of, the
transfer is quite solid keeping the film to its original full frame aspect
ratio photographed by the, at this point, famed Gregg Toland. By this time he was emerging as one of the
finer cinematographers and his work here truly captures a splendid black and
white visual narrative. There may be
some slight bumps and bruised with the print here and there, but overall the
depth and contrast look good. Softness
appears here and there, but nothing too disorienting. You will notice some of the sharp detail and use of various
angles and shot setups to enhance the story, or to garner more out of the
actors/actresses performances. Toland
had mastered this technique coming off The
Best Years Our Lives (1946) and of course Citizen Kane (1941), or some of the other work he did for MGM, such
as Dead End (1937), which that
review is elsewhere on this site. Sadly
though, this would be Toland’s last film, as he would die later that year of
coronary thrombosis at the young age of 44.
In the sound department we have another Dolby 2.0 Mono
soundtrack that gets the job done, but nothing overly special. Upon a close listen there is still some
minimal amounts of hiss that is present on the soundtrack. Dialogue is fairly clean and discernable as
is the music, but once again nothing that will make you want to explode with
excitement. These older titles are
typical difficult to find source material that lends itself to a boosted Dolby
Stereo or even remixed 5.1 track, especially for a title that is not nearly as
known or marketed. With that in mind we
also can speculate that by keeping extras off of these DVD’s the studio is able
to then keep them at a consumer friendly price and move more product spending
the majority of the overhead cost in tending to the transfer.
If you are looking for a nice solid film that appeals to
both sexes, or if you are a fan of camerawork and want to see some interesting
visual storytelling than this might be a starting point or a nice add on item
to any of the films mentioned above.
- Nate Goss
