Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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.

preppy-3 "Comedy" about novelist Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison) and his second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings) inviting spiritualist Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford)to their house. It seems he's writing a book dealing with the supernatural and wanted to see firsthand what happens at a seance. They have one and think nothing happens. However Charles starts seeing the ghost of his first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond). However no one else can see or hear her. Her wants her to go...but how? I saw a restored print with a crystal clear picture, great sound and strong color...but I hated it. It's supposed to be funny but I didn't laugh let alone smile once. I heard the jokes but they just weren't funny. It was more whimsical than funny and I hate whimsical films. It was reasonably well-acted and directed and had great set design but I was bored. I actually dozed off towards the end! The only saving grace was Rutherford. She was GREAT in her role and tears into it with gusto...but she wasn't funny either. Good-looking but unfunny. Also this won an Oscar for Special Effects which are very dated in this day and age.

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.

jc-osms Fragrant, fresh and frothy cinematic realisation of Noel Coward's amusing and entertaining play by David Lean long before he got, well, longer. It is of course The "Master" Mr Coward's plummy voice-over at the outset which gets us underway here.Long before the great director Lean tackled heavier subjects requiring many more screen minutes and wider screens too, he knocked out this colourful and visually appealing confection. It's years since I read or saw the play but witnessed very little here to make me think that the original text had been much tampered with, which is just fine as it's a hoot anyway. The film is opened out only occasionally, usually to show cast members getting to and from Rex Harrison's grand house and of course can employ special effects impossible in the theatre, although whether lashings of pale green make-up and a few occasions where living characters physically pass through ghosts justifies the Special Effects Oscar it bagged is questionable.Better to concentrate on the high quality ensemble acting with Rex Harrison playing another variation of Coward himself, all urbanity and suaveness, he only lacks a cigarette-holder to complete the facsimile. His two wives are also very well played by Constance Cumming and Kay Hammond, while Margaret Rutherford as ever loses no opportunity to ham it up to fine comic effect.There's plenty of gay repartee, just occasionally nudging at the boundaries of risqué-ness and while the story seems a trifle extended to get to its predictable if still amusing conclusion and betrays some poor continuity at times, the actors play it with enough vigour so that the whole rarely drags.Lean in one of his first colour films displays his knack for cinematography but otherwise isn't extended much other than pointing the camera at his beautifully clothed, terribly posh cast and mixing in a few not-too-special effects as indicated above.No doubt this engaging light fantasy was a pleasant tonic for a cinema-going public fatigued by several years of war, its interest in the afterlife reflecting a trend to the fantastic (its contemporaries include "A Matter Of Life And Death", "The Ghost & Mrs Muir", even "It's a Wonderful Life").