jacobs-greenwood Just prior to Brief Encounter (1945), director David Lean and screenwriters Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan adapted producer Noël Coward's droll play about a widower husband whose deceased wife 'haunts' his current marriage, taunting his current wife (also a widow) in this Technicolor comedy. Neame was also its cinematographer. Using many of the same techniques found in Topper (1937), it also earned Tom Howard the first of his two Oscars for Special Effects; the other was for Tom Thumb (1958).It stars Rex Harrison as the widower Charles Condomine, Constance Cummings as his current wife Ruth, and Kay Hammond as his first - now deceased wife Elvira, essentially the title role. Margaret Rutherford plays a marvelously entertaining quirky character named Madame Arcati, who's a spiritualist or medium if you will, with the 'expertise' that summons the ghostly Elvira to the here-and-now, where her presence plays havoc with Charles's and Constance's relationship ... especially since no one can see or hear Elvira except Charles.Charles has very little conversational discipline - he's unable to control his harsh repartee with Elvira - such that Constance believes he is insulting her, which causes their estrangement. After Charles convinces Elvira to make her presence known to Constance (by moving objects in the room), the situation is further exacerbated when Charles becomes all too comfortable with the arrangement: having both his wives around. But neither Constance nor Elvira like the status quo, which leads to a most unfortunate event, when one of Elvira's schemes to change the situation backfires, making it worse for her.

ksf-2 SPOILERS *** This one won the Oscar for best special effects.. the seance scenes, and Charles' ex-wife, as a ghost. This was one of David Lean's earlier directing gigs. He would go on to win TWO Oscars much later... River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. I had never seen this 1945 version of Blithe Spirit. Usually, movie channels or Turner shows one of the more recent ones... it MUST be a good story; they remade it so many times in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. The 1945 version has a YOUNG Rex Harrison (Charles), Constance Cummings (Ruth), and of course, Margaret Rutherford (was Jane Marple, for MANY years.) She will also get an Oscar for "VIPs". In the story, we meet the medium, Madame Arcati, at dinner, and she's already an odd character. At a seance, Elvira, the ex-wife, talks to Charles, but he's the only one who can hear her. and now that she has been summoned, she won't go away. and the current wife doesn't like it. she FINALLY admits that the first wife has actually come back. It's all pretty good. A hilarious scene where Ruth pulls the door-ringer right out of the wall, and barely even noticing, Madame Arcati takes it from her and puts it right back. Stuff happens, and the two wives antagonize each other. Another thing -- Hammond, the first wife, has a strange way of pronouncing the letter "S", so that's a little distracting. It's noel coward, so of course, the story itself is great. Apparently, Coward did not appreciate Lean's ending, so it does end quite differently than the play. Entertaining stuff. Several versions are available on DVD.

kenjha A couple is haunted by the spirit of the man's deceased first wife. Coward adapted his own play for the screen with the help of Lean and Neame. This was Neame's last credit as cinematographer before becoming a director. This was the third of Lean's first four films as director where he worked with Coward. It is an enjoyable farce with witty dialog, but never quite rises above the silliness of the subject matter (ghosts). Harrison and Cummings are fine as the couple, with him becoming bemused and her becoming exasperated after the appearance of the ghost of his first wife, a green-faced Hammond. Rutherford seems to be having the most fun as an incompetent medium.

Rob-120 I recently saw the Broadway revival of "Blithe Spirit" starring Angela Lansbury, Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersole, and Jayne Atkinson. It's a terrific production, and shows what good actors can do with a play that is less than perfect. Angela Lansbury is extremely funny as Madame Arcati.It was probably a mistake, then, to check out the film version of the play starring Rex Harrison. The movie does not have the energy or the laughs of a good stage production."Blithe Spirit" is probably one of those plays that works better with a live cast, in an audience full of people who have come to laugh. The actors can improvise, give touches and nuances to their performance and delivery of the lines, and involve the audience on a personal level that you can't get in a movie house, or with a DVD showing, where the audience is separated from the story by the "Fourth Wall." The story: Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison), a successful writer, lives with his wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) in a house in the English countryside. Seeking information for his next book, a book dealing with the supernatural, Charles invites Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford, reprising her role from the original 1941 London production), a local spiritual medium, over to his house to conduct a séance. Charles believes that spiritism is a sham, but hopes to pick up "the tricks of the trade." But then Madame Arcati brings back the ghost of Elvira (Kaye Hammond), Charles's first wife, who died of pneumonia seven years ago. Elvira refuses to leave, and develops a spitting rivalry with Ruth over Charles (complicated by the fact that only Charles can see or hear Elvira).On stage, the actors can give performances that invite laughs in this situation. But on the screen, the actors in "Blithe Spirit" tear through the lines as if they don't know that anyone is listening to them. They mumble lines that were designed to get laughs on the stage. The performances by Harrison, Cummings, and even Kaye Hammond are flat and lifeless. Only Margaret Rutherford seems to have retained her spark and humor as Madame Arcati.The Oscar-winning visual effects in the film are unimpressive -- not just by today's standards, but by the standards of 1946! They consist mostly of Kaye Hammond walking around in fluorescent green outfits and makeup, being photographed in special lighting to make her look like a glowing ghost.The cinematographer deserves some credit for creative lighting. But compare the dull visual effects of "Blithe Spirit" to the truly groundbreaking effects in Disney's "Song of the South" -- which was eligible for awards the same year. In "South," humans and animated characters share the screen seamlessly for minutes at a time. Compared to "South," the Oscar that "Blithe Spirit" received for special effects was completely undeserved.At any rate, I can only encourage you to catch the Broadway revival of this play with Angela Lansbury before it closes. As for the movie with Rex Harrison, skip it.