Did you know that before director David Lean made the epics he’s known for - Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago - he cut his teeth on Noel Coward works? His first four films were all Coward plays adapted for the screen; alright, the first one, In Which We Serve, was an original screenplay (all four will soon be released by Criterion in a lovely restored box set). I seem to be watching them in reverse order. I reviewed his fourth, Brief Encounter, a while back, and here we have the third, an adaptation of one of Coward’s most known and successful plays.
This delightful 1945 screwy comedy stars Rex Harrison as a novelist, who invites a local medium over to his house to ‘entertain’ his dinner guests and allow him to research for a mystic murder story he’s working on. Unfortunately, the medium appears to have risen the ghost of his late wife. As he’s the only one who can see or hear her, the antics that follow are assured. His current wife, especially, does not enjoy it one bit.
The film is notable for a few reasons. Coward’s razor-quick witty dialogue is front-and-center. The film was shot in brilliant Technicolor (no doubt, the choice to shoot in color was made to allow Lean to more easily distinguish the ghost - all in grey clothes and make-up - from the living)*. And the film won an Oscar for special effects, mostly standard stuff now like double exposure (to allow the living to ‘pass thru’ the ghost) and floating items, that back then was quite smartly done. As a film, it’s quite ‘stage-y’, but the performances are fun, the premise ridiculous, and the dialogue so fast you’re out of breath (in a good way) just keeping up.
*A fun little ‘goof’ of sorts; Lean’s camera exits a room and zooms in on a mirror. Then there’s a hidden cut, and you can see the DP’s hand cranking the camera in the reflection, just for a bit. Ah, the hand crank days.
