Enchantment (Silent)

Marion Davies plays Ethel Hoyt, a spoiled flapper who fancies herself a modern-day Cleopatra. Her wealthy father, Will, is alarmed by the girl's capricious ways, which includes having six boyfriends (who all happen to be seniors at Harvard.) On the old man's birthday, father and daughter attend a staging of The Taming of the Shrew. Will becomes convinced that the play's star, Ernest Eddison, is just the man to teach Ethel a lesson in obedience. He arranges for them to appear together in a local production of Sleeping Beauty. Ethel promptly falls in love with her leading man, and is shocked when he rebuffs her advances. Little does she realize that his aloofness is all her father's doing. Discovering the deception, Ethel vows to put aside her bed-hopping ways and win Ernest's affection fair and square.

Enchantment is a showcase for the oft-neglected talents of the lovely Marion Davies (1897-1961). Raised in poverty in Brooklyn, Davies' trim figure got her work as a Ziegfeld girl when she hit her late teens. Discovered by a movie producer, she was cast in her first film, Runaway Romany, in 1917. Roles in The Burden of Proof, Beatrice Fairfax and Cecilia of the Pink Roses followed the next year, during which Davies gained a reputation as a comedienne. She also began a relationship with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who started Cosmopolitan Pictures solely to finance Davies' films. Even though the actress preferred comedic parts, Hearst preferred to see her in elaborate costume dramas, much to Davies' chagrin. Enchantment sees Marion's natural inclinations towards comedy winning out, while the stunning 'Sleeping Beauty' sequence (with sumptuous sets designed by Joseph Urban) satisfied her benefactor's fixations. The next year, Davies would re-team with Enchantment director Robert G. Vignola on the historical drama When Knighthood Was in Flower, the most expensive movie production to date (thanks to Hearst's bankroll). Afterwards, Davies divided her time between extravagant dramas she felt unsuited for and hosting parties at Hearst's mansion in San Simeon. Frustrated with the career path that Hearst had dictated, the actress eventually retired from film altogether after the advent of sound. Hearst and Davies' relationship later inspired Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane (1941).

This restored print of Enchantment is from the collections of the Library of Congress.