Word: niven
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...greatest love story ever filmed" is the modest encomium reserved by MGM for its latest romantic outburst. David Niven and Teresa Wright are the protagonists in this cosmic match, and they are backed up by a talking house, a war, and 60-odd years worth of flashbacks...
Enchantment (Goldwyn; RKO Radio), a film version of Rumer Godden's novel Take Three Tenses, is a tear-squeezer which shuttles back & forth between blitz-time London and the gay old '90s. The link is an aged general (David Niven) come home to dream-and to warn the young 'uns against making the same mistakes he did. This leads to so many flashbacks that Enchantment might have sent its audiences into St. Vitus' dance, had it not been for Cameraman Gregg Toland, who completed the picture a few weeks before he died (TIME...
Toland's subtle transition shots make the jumps seem as smooth as cold cream. Sample: in the '90s, Niven's older sister (Jayne Meadows) stands in the hallway of their house holding a large brass key. He has just sworn never to touch it again (or enter the house) as long as she lives. The camera narrows its focus to the key; the key turns in a lock-in the hand of Niven's grandniece (Evelyn Keyes) half a century later...
...livelier passages of this tale are all in the '90s and have to do with waltzes and schottisches, gay guardsmen and ruffly romance. When the old general harrumphs his warnings to his niece, the advice seems wasted on a relatively insipid pair (Keyes and Farley Granger). Niven and his lost sweetheart (Teresa Wright) steal the show so completely that in the end it becomes a plea for the past tense, on almost any terms...
Married. David Niven, 37, sparrowy, Scottish-born cinemactor (Raffles, The Bishop's Wife), and Hjördis Demberg Tersmeden, 27, red-haired Swedish ex-model; each for the second time (his first wife died in 1946 from an accidental fall); in London...