When BLITHE SPIRIT opened in 1941 it was a smash so Noel Coward chose David Lean to direct the 1945 film, their third collaboration after IN WHICH WE SERVE and THIS HAPPY BREED.
Coward hated that Lean and co-adapters Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan changed his play and rewrote the ending but still provided a voice-over introduction.
BLITHE SPIRIT was not financially successful but endures as a classic of High Comedy performance.
Repeating their original stage roles were Kay Hammond and Margaret Rutherford - Hammond is delicious as ghostly Elvira, a soigné but brittle performance of artifice which matches Coward's writing perfectly.
Margaret Rutherford made Madame Arcati her own; the medium who accidentally brings Elvira's glost back during a seance to create havoc with her widower Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth.
Rex Harrison is delightfully cynical as Charles and Constance Cummings is a no-nonsense Ruth.
Shelf or charity shop? Shelf all the way - remarkably this was David Lean's first screen comedy but he orchistrates his action to perfection without overplaying the undercurrent beneath the froth of regret and loss. Indeed when viewed often, the most sympathetic character is Rutherford's all-too human Arcati.
No comments:
Post a Comment