Skip to main content

Movie - Enchantment [UK] (1948)

 

My views

Plot

In World War II London, a bold American servicewoman named Grizel Dane (Evelyn Keyes) pays a visit to her granduncle, aged General Sir Roland 'Rollo' Dane (David Niven), looking for a place to stay.

Interspersed flashbacks reveal the history of the Dane family. The first takes place when Rollo (Peter Miles) is a child. He and his older siblings, Selina (Sherlee Collier) and Pelham (Warwick Gregson), are introduced to Lark Ingoldsby (Gigi Perreau) by their father (Colin Keith-Johnston). He explains that her parents have been killed in the Tay Bridge disaster and that she will be living with them as a member of the family. Selina immediately resents the newcomer.

The second flashback occurs when the children have grown up. Roland's father has died, leaving Selina (played as an adult by Jayne Meadows) in charge of Lark (Teresa Wright), whom she treats like a servant. Rollo (David Niven) returns on leave from the army. When Lark asks Pelham (Philip Friend) for a dress, the first that would not be a hand-me-down from Selina, he realizes that she is growing up and invites her to a dance. She becomes acquainted with the Marchese Guido Del Laudi (Shepperd Strudwick), a business associate of Pelham's.

In the last flashback, Lark is being courted by the Marchese. Pelham reveals his love for her with a kiss, but she does not love him. Rollo surprises everyone by returning early from his latest posting on Lark's birthday. Rollo and Lark acknowledge their love for each other, but Selina has arranged for General Fitzgerald (Henry Stephenson) to appoint Rollo to his staff for a five-year mission to Afghanistan. However, Lark refuses to wait that long, living uneasily with both Selina and Pelham. When Rollo is indecisive, she goes up to her room. Rollo refuses the appointment, but Selina tells Lark that he has decided to take the job. When he does not return by the next morning, Lark is convinced and leaves to marry the Marchese. Rollo returns too late, finding a letter Lark wrote in which she says, "Selina was right." Furious at his sister's meddling, Rollo vows never to enter the house again while she lives. The poem "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold features prominently in the film.[3]

In the story set in World War II, ambulance driver Grizel transports injured Pilot Officer Pax Masterson (Farley Granger) to a hospital. Later, she finds him in the general's house and learns that he is Lark's nephew. As time goes on, they start falling in love. When Pax receives his orders, he asks her to marry him, but she is daunted by the uncertainties of war. As Pax is leaving, Rollo hands him a telegram addressed to him; it announces that Lark died the month before. Rollo persuades Grizel not to throw away the chance for love as he did. She runs after Pax in the middle of a bombing raid and embraces him. While she is away, a bomb demolishes the house and kills Rollo.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Movie - The Wizard of Oz (1939)

  My views Plot In rural  Kansas ,  Dorothy Gale  lives on a farm owned by her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, and wishes she could be somewhere else. Dorothy's neighbor, Almira Gulch, who had been bitten by Dorothy's dog, Toto, obtains a sheriff's order authorizing her to seize Toto. Toto escapes and returns to Dorothy, who runs away to protect him. Professor Marvel, a charlatan fortune-teller, convinces Dorothy that Em is heartbroken, which prompts Dorothy to return home. She returns just as a  tornado  approaches the farm. Unable to get into the locked storm cellar, Dorothy takes cover in the farmhouse and is knocked unconscious. She seemingly awakens to find the house moving through the air, with her and Toto still inside it. The house comes down in an unknown land, and Dorothy is greeted by a good witch named  Glinda , who floats down in a bubble and explains that Dorothy has landed in Munchkinland in the  Land of Oz , and that the Munchkins are cel...

Movie - Bastille Day | The Take (2016)

  My views Plot On the eve of  Bastille Day  in  Paris , American drifter and  pickpocket  Michael Mason steals a woman's handbag, not knowing that it contains  explosives . After taking the cash from the bag, he discards it, caught unwittingly on  CCTV  as he does so. The bag then detonates and kills four people. Upon being captured by  CIA  agent Sean Briar, who is being reprimanded for irresponsible conduct on the job, Mason protests that he is not a  terrorist  and tells Briar that the bag contained a cellphone owned by a woman named Zoé. The bomb was set up by a group of  corrupt policemen , all of them members in the  French special police RAPID unit  led by Rafi Bertrand, who intend to pull a robbery at the  Bank of France . Zoé was told to plant the bomb at the office of the  French Nationalist Party  (as part of a diversion for the heist), but after seeing the night cleaning crew arri...

Movie - The Gorge (2025)

  My views For 80 years everything was ok ... until they sent a woman For sure is DTV ... really bad Inside the gorge is clearly designed and written by a gamer Plot Two elite  snipers  receive identical missions: travel to an undisclosed location and guard the West and East sides of a deep gorge for one year without any contact with the outside world nor their counterpart on the opposite side. Levi Kane, a former  U.S. Marine  and current  private contractor  accepts the offer to guard the West tower. Drasa, a  Lithuanian  covert operative frequently employed by the  Kremlin , agrees to guard the East side. Upon arriving, Levi relieves his predecessor, J.D., a  British   Royal Marine  of duty and asks for specifics about the mission. J.D. explains that in addition to the towers on the East and West, there are automated turret defenses to the North and South, a powerful signal ‘ cloak ,’ and  explosives on the walls ...