Blithe Spirit [Region 2]
by David Lean
![Blithe Spirit [Region 2]](/images/Blithe-Spirit-Region-2-B00008YNFZ-L.jpg)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Constance Cummings, Hugh Wakefield, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford, Rex HarrisonDirector: David Lean
DVD: Region Code 2
Audio: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Mono; English (Unknown), Mono; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Mono
Format: PAL
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
Studio: Carlton
Movie Reviews of Blithe Spirit [Region 2]
Movie Review: "Over the top like a flash and skimming down the other side like a dragonfly!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Better to get the British version and import it while using a non-regional DVD then sit through the affront to the eyes that the American company is trying to sell us. David Lean's Technicolor is always exquisite, and never more so than in the complicated color designs of BLITHE SPIRIT, in which Charles and Ruth Condomine (Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings) sail through a variety of tweedy outfits that are so brilliantly detailed you can "read" every tooth in the houndstooth. (And Cummings has some wonderful period evening gowns that still look exquisite--she has a lovely figure here and always looks great, even when you're struggling to learn to like her.)
And then there's Elvira (Kay Hammond), summoned back from the dead by whom? (I won't say here, because that's the central mystery of the film, but it's a shocking solution.) Elvira, once Charles's first wife, was a serial flirt and cheater but she had life to her--more so than Ruth, and at first when she returns you tend to like her and her sodden attitude towards everything romantic and divine. In comparison, Ruth suddenly seems ultra middleclass. Hammond, not often seen on screen, makes an indelible impression--she's sort of squat and round, but sexy, she's like Joan Blondell gone rotten--and her wardrobe and makeup add to the impression, for her skin is painted a pale yellowy green and her blonde curls seem waterlogged, squishy, and yet her scarlet nails and mouth are still vibrant and "jungle red," like Kylie Minogue's in her video for her new single "2 Hearts." I wonder if the brainstorming design team always buzzing around Kylie caught a glimpse of Kay Hammond in BLITHE SPIRIT and decided that was the look they want to recreate. Anyhow it's almost like a miasma of death that surrounds Elvira, who is also lit in white, blue and yellow lights so she possesses an altogether different reality than the living mortals she goes around smirking at. It's not horrible but it plays close to it, closer than one ordinarily thinks wartime UK film capable of.
Margaret Rutherford meanwhile is in her own dimension as Madame Arcati, half Girl Guide, half elemental herself, always swinging two or three sets of beads around her neck, always in motion, her tufts of hair swirling all points of the compass as she's always on the lookout for the otherworldly. When Elvira obliges Charles by blowing air onto Margaret Rutherford's cheek, then her bare elbow, and Rutherford explodes into a near carnal ecstasy, it's the most obviously sexual moment in all of Lean's film work.
Summary of Blithe Spirit [Region 2]
Great Britain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: English (Mono), English (Subtitles), SYNOPSIS: The Noel Coward/David Lean combination which turned out such dramas as Brief Encounter and This Happy Breed sets its sights on the viewer's funny bone with Blithe Spirit. Rex Harrison plays a novelist, newly married to straight-laced Constance Cummings. While researching a book on spiritualism, Harrison is teased and tormented by the mischievous ghost of his first wife, Kay Hammond. Believing that Hammond wants to ruin his marriage, Harrison enlists the services of local medium Madame Arcati (Margaret Rutherford in her funniest performance). When Arcati fails to exorcise Hammond's spirit, Harrison decides to kill himself so that he can be reunited with her and spare wife number two the aggravation of being haunted. But Harrison's plans go awry: His second wife is killed, and now he has two playful spirits on his hands! Technicolor is used throughout Blithe Spirit, with the ghosts' shimmering paleness providing contrast to the plain, everyday colors of Harrison's conservative country home. Blithe Spirit was later transformed into the Broadway musical High Spirits, with the original script bent out of shape to turn the character of Madame Arcati (played by Beatrice Lillie) into the leading role. SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu,Noel Coward's favorite play was certainly a departure for David Lean, best known for adapting Dickens in the '40s. While it's the director's only comedy, the result is a delightful gem. Rex Harrison is an acerbic author haunted by the ghost of first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond), who tries to seduce him all over again. This throws his second wife (Constance Cummings) into a panic, second-guessing her lack of passion. It's a celestial sex romp that hasn't lost its bite. Margaret Rutherford, as always, steals the show as the sardonic medium. --Bill Desowitz
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