As a cinematic archive, "Blithe Spirit" preserves a certain style and era of the British stage, and Noel Coward's writing, that otherwise would be lost.
I've personally never quite understood the popular "rage" Noel Coward's plays are said to have been. I appeared onstage (early in my short-lived acting career; yes, I'm a member of SAG and Equity) as Charles Condomine, so I'm familiar with "Blithe Spirit." And while I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton onstage in Coward's "Private Lives," and Joan Collins in the same play, I was more intrigued by the movie stars' stage performances than by the actual script.
Coward's dialogue is SO arch and precious (and of its period) that it absolutely requires an upper-crust British accent to work, and a fairly rapid light touch to disguise how studied and artificial it really is. No American ever spoke this way. (Of course, Shakespeare's dialogue was also of its period and nobody ever spoke in iambic pentameter, either: yet it's anything but arch and precious.) "Blithe Spirit" gives Margaret Rutherford and Kay Hammond the chance to recreate their stage roles for the camera, and Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings the opportunity to perfectly embody the rarefied world of the Condomines. (Miss Cummings, incidentally, was American. She married a British actor, moved to London and enjoyed a long and successful stage career. She was London's original Martha in Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") The actors in "Blithe Spirit," even the minor characters, are flawless. One example (and for me perhaps the funniest line in the production) is Hugh Wakefield's response (as Dr. Bradman) to Madame Arcati's (Rutherford) pronouncement that as a young girl following in her mother's footsteps as a medium, she always used to be sick before going into a trance. "How fortunate that you grew out of it," Bradman deadpans with perfect throwaway aplomb.
Cummings and Harrison are utterly believable and droll as the Condomines: the very embodiment of British drawing-room comedy of the '40s.
But Rutherford and Hammond steal the show. Rutherford in particular exhibits really astonishing emotional and vocal range in a role that can easily be one-dimensionally comic. Kay Hammond somehow manages to seem to "float" slightly off the ground (watch how she uses her hands to achieve that effect), and her slightly exaggerated upper-crust diction relishes and milks the most out of her every syllable: "'Twasn't a punt; it was a launch," sounds flat on the page but listen to what she makes of it on the stage. Or her vocal rendering of her dalliance with "Captain Bracegirdle" on her honeymoon with Charles in "Budleigh Salterton." Priceless! While Cummings and Harrison are the two "normals" in "Blithe Spirit," Rutherford and Hammond can -- and do -- take every advantage of their characters' over-the-top renderings, physically and vocally as actors, demonstrating once and for all how Coward SHOULD be played.
Repeated viewings yield deeper appreciation for these performers' historic expertise as artists.
I've personally never quite understood the popular "rage" Noel Coward's plays are said to have been. I appeared onstage (early in my short-lived acting career; yes, I'm a member of SAG and Equity) as Charles Condomine, so I'm familiar with "Blithe Spirit." And while I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton onstage in Coward's "Private Lives," and Joan Collins in the same play, I was more intrigued by the movie stars' stage performances than by the actual script.
Coward's dialogue is SO arch and precious (and of its period) that it absolutely requires an upper-crust British accent to work, and a fairly rapid light touch to disguise how studied and artificial it really is. No American ever spoke this way. (Of course, Shakespeare's dialogue was also of its period and nobody ever spoke in iambic pentameter, either: yet it's anything but arch and precious.) "Blithe Spirit" gives Margaret Rutherford and Kay Hammond the chance to recreate their stage roles for the camera, and Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings the opportunity to perfectly embody the rarefied world of the Condomines. (Miss Cummings, incidentally, was American. She married a British actor, moved to London and enjoyed a long and successful stage career. She was London's original Martha in Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") The actors in "Blithe Spirit," even the minor characters, are flawless. One example (and for me perhaps the funniest line in the production) is Hugh Wakefield's response (as Dr. Bradman) to Madame Arcati's (Rutherford) pronouncement that as a young girl following in her mother's footsteps as a medium, she always used to be sick before going into a trance. "How fortunate that you grew out of it," Bradman deadpans with perfect throwaway aplomb.
Cummings and Harrison are utterly believable and droll as the Condomines: the very embodiment of British drawing-room comedy of the '40s.
But Rutherford and Hammond steal the show. Rutherford in particular exhibits really astonishing emotional and vocal range in a role that can easily be one-dimensionally comic. Kay Hammond somehow manages to seem to "float" slightly off the ground (watch how she uses her hands to achieve that effect), and her slightly exaggerated upper-crust diction relishes and milks the most out of her every syllable: "'Twasn't a punt; it was a launch," sounds flat on the page but listen to what she makes of it on the stage. Or her vocal rendering of her dalliance with "Captain Bracegirdle" on her honeymoon with Charles in "Budleigh Salterton." Priceless! While Cummings and Harrison are the two "normals" in "Blithe Spirit," Rutherford and Hammond can -- and do -- take every advantage of their characters' over-the-top renderings, physically and vocally as actors, demonstrating once and for all how Coward SHOULD be played.
Repeated viewings yield deeper appreciation for these performers' historic expertise as artists.