The Enchanted Forest

John Litel is a successful logger. He is preparing to cut out another huge swath of old growth, when his daughter, Brenda Joyce, visits him with her newborn son, and promptly loses him in a storm. This upsets her mind, and Litel puts off his plans to take care of her. However, the baby isn't dead. He's rescued and succored by Harry Davenport and his menagerie of animals living in harmony with nature.

Three years later, the baby has grown into seven-year-old Billy Severn, and Litel and Miss Joyce are back in the area, along with psychiatrist Edmund Lowe, planning to build a sanatorium and help Miss Joyce get her marbles back. The people working with them threaten Davenport and company.

There are certainly good intentions here, and the adults often do well with the stilted dialogue, although Davenport has trouble with his conversations with Master Severn, because the younger actor is not very good. Even with others, the rhythms of the performers are odd. In addition, the Cinecolor used on the production has faded in odd ways.

However, this was clearly a case of good intentions triumphing over everything, resulting in a decent assortment of actors on a PRC release, play dates in the major chains, and the highest gross in that studio's history. I don't think it's particularly distinguished, but it is watchable with no major flubs, it's always good to see Davenport, and for PRC, that's as good as it got.

I've always had a soft spot for PRC Pictures. Producers Releasing Corporation was frequently referred to in most books about the Golden Age of Hollywood as "the lowest rung on the Poverty Row ladder". While on the surface that statement is correct, PRC did manage to produce a number of memorable low budget offerings such Edgar G Ulmer's DETOUR, Frank Wisbar's STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP, and Lew Lander's THE ENCHANTED FOREST all on the tiniest budgets and the shortest shooting schedules. Unlike the other two (and most of PRC's output), FOREST was shot in an inexpensive color process known as Cinecolor.

The company existed from 1939-1947 and churned out 179 movies during that time (that's 22 movies a year!) most of them being Westerns, horror films, or crime melodramas. THE ENCHANTED FOREST was something different. It was an allegorical children's fantasy which plays better today than it did in 1945 thanks to its messages of back to nature, forest conservation, and the evils of encroaching development. The success of THE ENCHANTED FOREST ironically helped to lead to the demise of PRC as the company attracted outside investors from England who transformed it into Eagle-Lion Films in 1948.

The movie tells the story of Old John, a hermit living in the California Redwood forests , who communes with Nature and talks to animals and understands what they are saying. He rescues the 2 year old grandson of a timber baron after a train wreck (his mother and grandfather think he died in the accident) and raises him in the forest teaching him to appreciate and respect Nature. Three years later the contractor returns with his daughter who's still grieving and a doctor who wants to build a retreat there. Harry Davenport shines as the hermit while Brenda Joyce as the mother and Edmund Lowe as the doctor give sincere performances.

The movie hearkens back to an era of innocence and it proudly wears its naivete on its sleeve. Despite its obvious low budget the film is quaint and full of charm and manages to overcome the shortcomings of the script and uneven characterizations. Child actor Billy Severn is annoying but the animal performers (an eagle, a mountain lion, a German Shepherd, and especially a trained raven) more than make up for him while veteran director Lew Landers skillfully balances studio shots with actual footage of the Redwood forests of Humboldt County, California while moving the film along. THE ENCHANTED FOREST clocks in at a little over an hour and doesn't wear out its welcome.

This movie is fondly remembered by those who saw it as children but unfortunately for today's audiences the film is in the public domain and the only available print for viewing has a number of issues including muffled sound and faded color. It would be wonderful to see THE ENCHANTED FOREST be given a full restoration the way that fellow PRC offering DETOUR was so that its simple virtues can be fully appreciated. Back in 2000 there was a decent print available from Image Entertainment but that version appears to be long gone. The current DVD-R from MR FAT-W will do until something better comes along.

UPDATE 2024: There is a currently a print available for viewing on You Tube which is the best this movie has ever looked...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

"The Enchanted Forest" is a film produced by lowly PRC, among the worst of the tiny so-called 'Poverty Row Studios' making B-movies. Normally, this would pretty much guarantee that the movie would be poor...at best. Oddly, however, here they had a genuine hit and it was the biggest grossing film the studio made.

The story itself is incredibly strange. Not necessary bad...just strange. It's almost like a fairy tale set in modern times. On one hand you have many people who want to cut down the forests and exploit nature. On the other, you have an odd old man who loves nature and is very kind and gentle. In fact, Old John (Harry Davenport) can TALK to the animals as well as hearing nature talk to him...making him almost like Dr. Doolittle and John Muir combined.

Old John's life is changed one day when he discovers a baby lost in the wilderness. It seems the child was aboard a train that was struck by a landslide....and the child was assumed to have died. Instead, Old John raises the boy and teaches him his love of the wild. Later, the boy's mother, who survived the accident, returns to the forest. What's next? See the film.

Strange...but good. It hard to say much more because the plot is so unusual. And, unless you are the cynical sort, you'll probably enjoy this unique and engaging film.

I'd never so much as heard of this when I first saw it, frankly I don't think most people would have, but like with so many gems that can spring out of the blue I'm so glad I happened to discover it because it can really lighten my spirits. I don't usually take to films that are so old, but this one was definitely a new gem to me because it was just so warm and moving, the old man's dialogue and the way he delivered it and the beautiful forest setting, it really touched my heart. I loved the visuals that the cinecolour technique gave the movie, it was almost dreamlike I thought. And that coupled with just how old a picture it is makes it feel like you're looking through a shimmering window into a world from long ago, which I suppose it is now, but I feel we could still learn something from it. Some might just dismiss it as antiquated sappy hokum, and yeah it is indeed a little schmaltzy, but it's also very sincere and sweet and heartfelt and it's got some very well defined and expressed deep themes about how important it is that we preserve the preciousness of life and nature, and of peace of the heart attained through living in harmony with it. The wonderful performance of Harry Davenport as kindly Old John makes the movie, and his beautiful philosophy on life as well as his relationships with the animals around him was all very soothing to me, he talks to the animals because he trusts and understands them and they do him, and you really believe that he loves them all and his forest home very deeply. And the quaint story plays out satisfyingly enough as he takes care of a child that he found washed down the river one day, and he teaches him the lessons that he's learned while doing what he can to protect his world from the destructive encroachment of loggers, and eventually reunite the shrill but cute little boy with the mother that never stopped looking for him. If there's one thing I didn't like it's the ending, it's so rushed, oversimplified and wrapped up but it fits so it's no big deal.. This beautiful little forest fable is well worth discovering if you have a fondness for vintage family films. It has a bit of a rough weathered look to it but trust me, this is one hidden treasure of a film that truly lives up to its name... "Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees."

I only saw it once, when I was around 5 or 6. It was beautiful and I loved it, would like very, very much to see it again. I had seen Bambi and the sense of the forest and wild animals in Bambi was amazing and wonderous, the film full of the beauty of nature and life. And then The Enchanted Forest was beautiful--and quite frightening, too, in what it spoke of life's sadnesses as well--much as Bambi had been. I don't think I ever saw, as a child, any other films that brought forth the raw glorious beauty and power and tenuousness of life to anywhere near the extent that these two movies did. And now one can find Bambi sometimes playing somewhere, or on an old disk, or streamed, but where can one find "The Enchanted Forest'/