oscaralbert Review of Enchantment

Enchantment (1948)

When two brothers are in love with the same girl things can get ugly . . .

[7/10 · 27 December 2020]

. . . but it's only in England that the object of this rift is often (if not usually) a younger sister, ENCHANTMENT confirms. Ham and Egg grow up hating their cold older sister Selena, but doting upon their snake-bit younger sibling, Lark. The latter plays favorites, telling Egg "When I'm kissing Ham, I'm kissing a brother--but when I kiss" or make love with you, all my bells are ringing. As anyone who's familiar with the rampant family be-headings ranging through such famous British households as those of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I well knows (remember ANONYMOUS?), this sort of in-breeding constitutes the bedrock of beleaguered island morality. If the Greek Tragedy dramatists wished to update Oedipus Rex as a simulation game, they'd doubtless name it "England."