Enchantment (1948)

....What a wonderful film......Technically superior..........The slow dissolves from past to present.....done so slowly was refreshing to see especially when compared to the rapid jerky crap that we see today..........and the narrowing of the spot on the key being held by Jayne Meadows....indicating the compression of her character into the key in the door being opened by Evelyn Keyes indicating the opening of the relationship between Keyes and Farley Granger was SPECTACULAR!!!!What a wonderful way to express character and story.Wish we could see techniques like this today.....Gigi Perreau's scene in which she makes her lower chin quiver when brought into her new home at the beginning of the film was very moving........have only seen Hepburn, Brabara Rush and Marisa Haggarty of CSI Special Victims able to do this on the screen....an incredible acting accomplishment.......

When TRANS-LUX Theaters decided in 1948 to abandon their policy of showing programs of news and short subjects in favor of the more conventional idea of showing feature movies like everyone else, ENCHANTMENT was the first picture they booked --- with great success. It was a solid good picture, very well promoted, and ran for multiple weeks. Because the picture has no outlaws, sheriffs, cattle, et cetera, I skipped it in 1948 but we saw it tonight -- after 60 years -- on DVD.The verdict is mixed. While I score it 8/10 truthfully I was expecting a more deeply emotional movie (partly based on reviews on this site) but while I appreciated and enjoyed the movie I was expecting to be heart-struck and was not. So, OK, this was better drama than any of the trash released by Hollywood's current cocaine crowd in 2007-2008, so please take my opinion as a very mild disappointment. An 8/10 ain't bad.

I saw this movie while home sick from school many years ago and found it to be magical and sweet. The writer (Rumer Godden, who also penned 'Black Narcissus') created a wonderful weave of time and characters -- 'Enchantment' is based on her novel, 'Take Three Tenses: A Fugue in Time,' which tells one a bit more about how she intended the story to work.Not a top-flight movie by any means, just a wonderful watch. Looking at other reviews I suppose one warning would be that it might be experienced as being too sentimental -- and, perhaps therefore, too transparent. But if the intended magic works for you I think you will enjoy the film immensely.

I saw the movie Enchantment in 1948 when I was 11 years old. I was so moved by the story, when I returned home I wrote down the complete story, so I would never forget. I have seen the movie 5 times in the last 50 years and if I owned the movie I would watch it every week.