Blithe Spirit

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. Via a seance, Harrison accidentally summons ...more

Light, clever drawing-room comedy may have reached its zenith in this 1945 film of the hit Noël Coward play about a cynical novelist who has just settled down with his second wife when the unhappy spirit of his first wife returns to haunt him. The play was an instant success when it debuted in London in 1941, and director David Lean, who repeatedly collaborated with Coward on film versions of his plays, brought the movie version to even greater popularity. Many films that followed used various ...more