Blithe Spirit

Starring:Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond, Margaret Rutherford, Hugh Wakefield, Joyce Carey, Jacqueline Clarke, Noel Coward, Ken Richmond, Marie Ault, Johnnie Schofield
Director: David Lean
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
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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
Description
Director David Lean's delicious adaptation of Noel Coward's comedy stars Rex Harrison as celebrated novelist Charles Condomine, a newly married man haunted by his long-dead first wife. When a medium and Charles' new wife try to send her back, they don't realize she has devised a scheme to keep Charles with her forever.

Blithe Spirit [Import]
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Blithe Spirit [Import]

Manufacturer: LW Editora
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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High Spirits

Product Features:

Cover in Portuguese.

Audio in English.

ASIN: B000I7YR1S

Product Description

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.

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Blithe Spirit
Starring: Rex Harrison , Constance Cummings , Kay Hammond , Margaret Rutherford , and Hugh Wakefield
Director: David Lean
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Classic Comedies | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Comedy | Kids & Family | Genres | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

In Which We Serve
The Agatha Christie Miss Marple Movie Collection
The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection
Heaven Can Wait (Criterion Collection)
Unfaithfully Yours (Criterion Collection)

ASIN: 6305186340
Release Date: 1998-11-24

Amazon.com essential video

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

Description

Director David Lean's delicious adaptation of Noel Coward's comedy stars Rex Harrison as celebrated novelist Charles Condomine, a newly married man haunted by his long-dead first wife. When a medium and Charles' new wife try to send her back, they don't realize she has devised a scheme to keep Charles with her forever.

Average customer rating:

Blithe Spirit [Region 2]
Starring: Rex Harrison , Constance Cummings , Kay Hammond , Margaret Rutherford , and Hugh Wakefield
Director: David Lean
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

In Which We Serve
The Agatha Christie Miss Marple Movie Collection
The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection
Heaven Can Wait (Criterion Collection)
Unfaithfully Yours (Criterion Collection)

ASIN: B00008YNFZ

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Blithe Spirit [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain ]

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Blithe Spirit [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain ]
Director: David Lean
Manufacturer: Carlton
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B000LQN1BI

Product Description

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,

The Wicked Lady [NON-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]

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The Wicked Lady [NON-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]
Starring: Margaret Lockwood , and James Mason
Director: Leslie Arliss
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

An extraordinarily racy movie for its time, The Wicked Lady was and still is as notable for its acres of heaving bosom as for its radical challenge to female stereotypes. This bodice-ripper about a bored aristocratic woman who turns highwayman just for kicks became a huge box-office success in post-war Britain, but Margaret Lockwood's eloquent bust proved a bit too expressive for Hollywood, so the film was expensively reshot for a sanitised US release. (From 1945 right up to Janet Jackson at the 2004 Superbowl, American audiences apparently have an enduring problem with those prominent parts of the female anatomy). This is the definitive Gainsborough picture, a period romp crammed with cads, in which the camera gazes lasciviously down (it's all shot from a male eyelevel) at the low-cut ladies' dresses. But this time the female anti-heroine gives as good as she gets... and then some. Lockwood's Lady Barbara Skelton is quite gleefully amoral--more so even than Thackeray's arch-manipulator Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair--failing even to pay lip service to the moral standards of the 1940s, let alone those of the 17th century. It is she who wears the trousers (quite literally, in her highwayman guise) while the weak-chinned and weak-willed men around her crumble under the weight of their conventionality. Only James Mason's handsome dandy highwayman can keep up with her, but even he has to draw the line somewhere. Ultimately, social mores reassert their grip and Lady Barbara gets her comeuppance, but not before she's overturned every contemporary movie convention about femininity. "She was the wickedest woman ever seen on the screen", trumpets the original theatrical trailer on this otherwise bare-bones DVD release: it's still probably true even today.

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Blithe Spirit
Starring: Rex Harrison , Constance Cummings , Kay Hammond , Margaret Rutherford , and Hugh Wakefield
Director: David Lean
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

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( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

In Which We Serve
The Agatha Christie Miss Marple Movie Collection
The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection
Heaven Can Wait (Criterion Collection)
Unfaithfully Yours (Criterion Collection)

ASIN: B0002CR018

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