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The Enchanted Cottage, based on a screenplay by Ayn Rand [no, see the correction below], is being broadcast by TCM on 2/22/16 at 7:45am Eastern time.
The film is now available on DVD as part of the Warner Bros Archive DVD on-demand program. It can be purchased via the Warner Bros Archive site or amazon.com. I purchased it from amazon.com and I’m happy with the quality of the print.
Love Letters, also an Ayn Rand screenplay, will be broadcast on TCM on 2/3/16 at 8pm Eastern time. My understanding is that TCM rarely shows the film because they don’t have as much access to the Universal Studios library as they do Warner Bros, MGM, and RKO based on their current licenses. Love Letters is a Paramount picture, but that library is now owned by Universal.
Love Letters is also, finally, available on DVD through the Universal Vault Series (similar to Warner Bros Archive). I purchased the DVD via amazon.com. There are some brief issues with the sound on the DVD, but I don’t know yet whether this is from the film print they digitized or my specific DVD.
I recommend both.
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Hi Don,
The Enchanted Cottage was not based on a screenplay by Ayn Rand. I believe you are confusing it with You Came Along which was with a screenplay by her.
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Hi Ken,
Many thanks for the correction, and apologies to HBLers. I’m not sure where I made the association between Miss Rand and The Enchanted Cottage.
I still recommend the film for it’s elevated sense of life.
DT
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In thinking “The Enchanted Cottage” to have an Ayn Rand screenplay, Don T. may have been thinking not of “You Came Along” but “House of Mist.” Never filmed, “House of Mist” was written for the same Hal Wallis who produced the two aforementioned films with Ayn Rand screenplays, “Love Letters” and “You Came Along.”
Just as “The Enchanted Cottage” has fairy-tale story elements coupled to a situation of a romantic-love relationship which complicates the lives of two adults, so too would have “House of Mist.” In not having been filmed, “House of Mist” shared the same fate as “The Crying Sisters,” “Top Secret” (about the development of the atomic bomb), “Life of Tchaikovsky” (a dramatized biography of the composer), and Ayn Rand’s work on what eventually became “I Walk Alone.” I understand that Paramount owns the unfillmed drafts, and could make films from them whenever these wish (subject to any rights issues on the underlying story sources); given that Paramount also owns “Red Pawn” from a yet-earlier purchase, that studio could become put out a succession of Ayn Rand projects.
It is true that the bulk of the Paramount library of that studio’s 1929-1949 sound feature films is now owned by Universal, through Universal’s predecessor MCA having bought 700+ Paramount films from Paramount circa 1954 for $50 million. “Love Letters” was in that package, but numerous films of the late 1940s were not included. “You Came Along” was among the films which remained with Paramount.
Those wanting to know more about the screenplays which Ayn Rand worked on during that decade will find information and documentation at a web page I created: http://actorsInAynRandRoles.dhwritings.com/Roles-page3.html.
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David,
Very impressive research!
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