ENCHANTMENT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 551, 13 January 1950, Page 18

ENCHANTMENT

(Goldwyn-RKO Radio) NCHANTMENT has the distinction of being the last production to be _ photographed by Hollywood’s top cameraman, Gregg Toland, the man whose inspired innovations contributed so much to the critical success of films like Wuthering Heights and Citizen Kane. Coming at a time when technicolour was beginning to attract a lot of over-enthusiastic praise, Wuthering Heigkts proved beyond all doubt that black and white photography could produce results far more effective (in the dramatic sense) than the colour camera, while Citizen Kane (made by Orson Welles in 1941) was technically one of the most revolutionary films to come outiof America, and is still, nearly ten years later, ahead of its time. Toland was only 44 when he died at the end of 1948, but he had photographed many other notable films, including The Long Voyage Home and The Best Years of Our Lives. He was always an innovator with the movie camera, and at the time of his death was concentrating on the "ultimate focus" lens, which makes both near and far objects appear equally distant, Although many.of his ideas did not catch on (for instance the trick used in Citi- zen Kane of taking all indoor shots so that both floor and ceiling come into the picture) his talented combination of ‘creative imagination and technical skill" are bound tobe sorely missed in a Hollywood not overstocked with the first of these. * Pa Ba As it happens Enchantment is not ‘among the best films he helped to make, although it is in many ways an interesting one. Right from the start it is handicapped by one of those hackneyed devices in which a voice on the soundtrack representing the spirit of an old house whispers nostalgically about the inhabitants it once knew, while the camera tracks sadly through its empty rooms. The plot is just about as stereotyped, involving an old general who comes home to dream about his youthful mistakes in love (shown in flashbacks) and who warns his grandniece and her RAF boy-friend not to do the same. Yet the film overcomes the restrictions of its story remarkably well, thanks to some charming acting by David Niven and Teresa Wright, while added point is given to some of the best scenes by Toland’s subtle photography. The interlacing of the tales of the old lovers and their young counterparts (Farley Granger and Evelyn Keyes) is accomplished by the use of some very skilful camera dis-solves-indeed I felt that all of: Toland’s ingenuity must have been needed to make the creaking mechanism of the picture’s framework move with any smoothness at all. One of the best shots occurs when young Niven tosses to his sister the keys of the house after he has decided to leave it for ever. The whole screen blacks out to a tiny pinpoint of light concentrated on the bunch of keys in her hand,jand then slowly brightens to show the keys in the hand of Evelyn Keyes as she opens the door two generations later.

The setting is wartime London, flashing back to the gay Nineties when Niven was a handsome young cavalry officer setting off on an expedition to Afghanistan. The contrast in temper between the modern lovers with their veneer of sophistication and the simpler, more leisurely progres8ions of the past is well enough brought out, and Jayne Meadows gives a thoroughly shrewish performance as the elder sister who ruins the first romance. The surprise ending is effective, although it only serves to emphasise the artificial slickness of the plot as a whole. Director Irving Reis would have done better simply to tell a straightforward tale of the old love affair between David Niven and Teresa Wright, and leave it at that.