Watched two noteworthy films today, and will do a seperate review for each of them, though perhaps not both tonight.
The latest conquest of Lean Quest is another Lean adaptation of a Noel Coward play, Blithe Spirit, described aptly as "an improbable farce". Although Coward was reportedly dissatisfied with the end result, for my money it's Lean's first truly "great" film, after two entertaining but largely formative works, In Which We Serve and This Happy Breed.
Blithe Spirit involves an improbable love triangle between author Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison), his nagging wife Ruth (Constance Cummings), and his equally shrewish ex Elvira (Kay Hammond). Nothing too strange about that, except that Elvira happens to be, well, dead. A ghost, to be more precise, summoned after a silly seance by the eccentirc medium Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford). Elvira's specter drives Charles off-the-wall, and Ruth is, needless to say, not happy with the arrangement, particularly since she can't see her competitor. After Elvira accidentally kills Ruth, Charles is in even more of a pickle, and he must convince Madame Arcati to save him from this rather uncomfortable situation.
Although the premise is rather far-fetched and silly - it's the only straight fantasy film that Lean would ever make, not to mention one of Coward's only forays into the genre - Blithe Spirit is a fabulous film, a comedy of manners as much as it is a supernatural farce. Coward, the man who defined English wit, provides a screenplay full of lyrical, literate barbs and zingers, ever-so-British but also rather clever. Of course, nobody really seems all THAT surprised or frigthened by the ghosts in their midst - I guess it's just not that big of a deal, really. The film is surprisingly risque for a 1945 British film - dialogue includes Charles complaining that Ruth is "compiling an inventory of my sex life" (and doing a bad job of it), and even - gasp! - an actual profanity! The ending - which I'll not spoil - is perhaps predictable, but a wonderful bit of irony all the same. This is the kind of humor (or humour) that the Brits excell at, and it's a treat.
The film does have a smidgeon of depth, exploring as it does themes of class and romance. The movie pokes fun at the British middle class, who engage in frivolous leisure activities like seances to kill time, instead of doing things of actual value or import. More interesting, is the movie's witty take on romance. Is love really everlasting, or is it merely temporal? This a question that Charles has to face when confronted with his current wife and his long-dead first spouse. Although the romantic might wish to believe the former, the fact is that Charles and his battling brides fall under the latter category - and even then, in this case, love is nothing to really write home about. None of the characters are really likeable: Charles is something of a conceited misogynist, Ruth is a harping shrew, Elvira is possessive, mean, and something of a floozy, and the Madame is an inept charlatan. This, though, is very much the point, and it only adds to the fun.
Lean has his usual team (Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Roland Neame) and as usual, gets strong results. Again working in Technicolor, he and cinematographer Neame make much more creative use of it than in This Happy Breed, where the color looked nice but didn't necessarily add much to the film. The green lighting affect on the ghostly Elvira is quite interesting, and the use of shadows and lightings for the ghostly entrances and activities of her and her rival. The movie may not have a stand-up scene that grabs you and won't let go, but the whole movie is quite impressive technically, making it stand out from Lean's previous two works. Even if an atypical film for Lean, this film clearly shows him, in his third feature, already firing on all cylinders, his tremendous talent in full bloom. From here, we go straight to Brief Encounter, and then on to Dickens, and its only a matter of time before we're whistling Colonel Bogey or charging into Aqaba with 1,000 Arabs.
Rex Harrison is at his best in the role of George, both charming and arrogant at once, sinking his teeth into Coward's repartee (and baring more than a passing resemblance to a certain Professor of Linguisitics he would much later portray). Harrison is clearly having fun with the role, a condition which follows for the rest of the cast. Constance Cummings and Kay Hammond are perfectly cast, and are just plain fun to watch as the two battling specters. Margaret Rutherford steals her every scene with a lovably broad and humorous performance as the hapless Madame Arcati, a charlatan whose one success leads to disaster for all concerned.
Blithe Spirit is not a masterpiece, nor one of Lean's best movies, but it's the first of his movies which could be called "great". It's an excellent, beautiful, and wonderfully unique drawing room comedy, and all other considerations aside, it's a load of fun. 8/10
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