Catching this film is a bit funny. I had wanted to review every Taming of the Shrew movie around 2018 and now a TotS film has found me! Enchantment is an adaptation of the Shakespeare classic, though it takes quite a few very large liberties. It does have the shared element of “Taming a Shrew” and there’s even a scene where the main family watches a production of the thing. The film starts strong with Marion Davies as Ethel Hoyt being very selfish and inconsiderate to her family. Davies plays these scenes with confidence and a comedic wink to the audience. She digs into the character and seems to be having fun being so ridiculous. She steals screen time from everyone else and rightfully so. This opening promises a lot of comedic potential as to how she’ll be removed from her high horse.
Featured here is one of the most tragic examples of a problem that plagues many Davies films. A character is introduced to a new situation and instead of taking the time to familiarize the protagonist in the environment with many scenes of development, we time jump to after that, where the characters are just in a different dynamic without ever seeing how. The rest of the film is very shaky because of the time jump. Ethel has certain relationships with characters that feel like the aftermath of development and thus it’s all baseless. It could almost be believed that the film had lost scenes, though that’s not the case. It also has a problem essentially the opposite of a time jump. Like in Buried Treasure, there’s a decent portion of the film focused on something irrelevant to the plot. Treasure’s tangent was more entertaining than the rest, but Enchantment’s isn’t, dragging the pace to a halt.
The other actors are serviceable though not exceptional. Ethel’s parents aren’t even named, to show how cared for they are. One highlight of the secondary cast was when Ethel’s mother had a look of shock on her face. It initially seemed like this would be the best Marion film of the eleven I’ve seen so far thanks to its slightly madcap energy; Ethel having an army of Harvard gentlemen to carry her things; her father asking, “How long since Ethel has been spanked?”, outdated as that is, it gave me a laugh; and two characters making a cruel deal, with cigarettes appearing in their hands between shots, as if to exemplify the unruliness of their actions, though that was probably just a continuity error.
SPOILERS
The film doesn’t care for subtlety. Ethel writes in her diary about how she could get any man very directly. It feels like a description of how she feels about herself, not being written in a way someone would actually write if they were in this situation. Perhaps Davies could deliver them as lines better, but they seem poorly thought out as written text. One moment of Ethel being inconsiderate is when she brings a few of her suitors with her family to see The Taming of the Shrew. Ethel’s dad apparently knows one of the actors in the play, Ernie, and persuades him to make Ethel fall in love with him, only for him to break her heart. Before their conversation ends, the dad reminds Ernie that their plan is just acting and makes him promise he’ll walk out on her… I wonder what’s going to happen?
Another highlight is when Ernie meets Ethel. She acts like she’s too good for him and one ups his attempts to get her interested. Both have amusing facial expressions and body language. This scene is in tandem with being a character moment for Ernie and Ethel, who is trying so hard to seem interesting and uninterested in Ernie. Despite this, she touched up her makeup in preparation of his arrival and doesn’t really act pompous in the way she does here during the rest of the film, being slightly more down to Earth usually. Ernie is shocked that she isn’t already infatuated with him and gets progressively more desperate, giving remarks to try to collapse her fort. Ethel seems honestly disinterested in Ernie. She defeats him so hard that he tells her father that he is giving up. The competition of one-upping each other is ultimately won by Ethel’s father. He tells Ethel she is forbidden from seeing him, and thus she starts dating him.
Ernie and Ethel dating is mostly skipped over. Many moments of the film don’t land at all because the audience doesn’t know much about these two together. One scene features Ethel being loud and inconsiderate at rehearsals for a play, having her friends over and talking to them as others rehearse. Ernie snaps at her. His frustration would come across stronger if there were scenes of Ethel acting like this and him just putting up with it. Admittedly, there was a scene or two of this before they started dating, but not after. More egregiously, Ernie says he’s in love with Ethel in the second-next scene they appear in. There were no moments where they seemed to love each other. It could’ve been so funny and powerful to include them. Ethel is initially pompous, but softens overtime, but will remind herself to be rude. Ernie puts up with it, at first because he agreed to, and then because of those moments when she is genuinely kind. To demonstrate her independence, Ethel brings her friends to the rehearsal to prove a point. Queue the aforementioned scene.
After the rehearsal, the next scene is a lengthy sequence of the play featuring Ethel and Ernie playing out. Nothing of consequence happens until the moment he “breaks her heart”. When they are on-stage and Ethel is playing an unconscious woman, he kisses her without consent. This depresses her and also accomplishes her father’s goal of “taming her”. How did that “tame” her? You’d think that would make her more rowdy, because she was taken advantage of. Ernie returns and reveals her father’s plan to Ethel, who is understandably furious at everyone involved. There’s a nice moment of her yelling at everyone for pulling this whole ploy on her. Having rightfully expressed anger at the injustices that happened to her, Ethel falls to tears. However, when she witnesses Ernie trying to leave, she goes up to him and says he and her father did the right thing and it’s better she was tamed, thus is the “happy ending”. The End.
Not only is this ridiculously unrealistic, but it plays into the sexism of the time. Thank God that woman is now wife material! Who cares she was emotionally abused and kissed without consent? The Taming of the Shrew ends with Kate comically proclaiming that women should be submissive. If that was intended to be shown here, this film fails. The ending of Shrew could be read as Kate pretending and/or to highlight the absurdity of the perception of women, or any number of things. Here, there’s no wink to the audience or comedy. The movie has to sand off her edges and get her to be “tame” no matter how suddenly it has to happen or how unfortunately its implications are for how one should treat real life women. Ethel tamed over basically nothing and with almost no gradual transition. Also, Ernie sexually assaulted Ethel. That is not a recipe for a likable relationship. If given the ability to change the ending, Ethel would realize that this manipulative behavior is unhealthy and not be part of it. Leave!
OVERVIEW
While the first half of the film can be commended for giving good comedic material to Marion, the poorly landed second half makes the affair unsatisfying, though with some good moments here and there. Those who like silent comedies should give it a watch, despite its flaws. The positives are solid enough to make Enchantment worth your time. Fixing the ending alone would make the film better, so perhaps ignore the tail end. Perhaps a fan editor could scruff up the whole thing.