Blithe Spirit (1945)
Back in olden times when dinosaurs still walked the Earth and everyone wanted a Teddy Ruxpin for Christmas, Noel Coward was supposedly this giant star. Author, singer, fancy lad - he did it all and did it in what us open-minded folk would call "British style." What that means is that he was the sort of chap to smoke his cigarettes in those long holders that I thought were reserved for Eurobabes like Marlene Dietrich and vapid posers like Madonna.
I'm sure some of you are getting red in the face as it looks like I'm about to drop the hammer on one of your idols of sophistication and wit, but really, this Blithe Spirit thing wasn't all that awful, it was just inordinately bland. I understand that this play is still performed today and frequently turns up as the subject for community theatre and the like, but what I'm saying is that the only people who find this thing anything more than a piffle of a show is the type of people who think that community theater is actually something worthwhile.
We should probably review my position on community theater. Your local community playhouse is kind of like those adult softball leagues, only for self-indulgent nerds instead of alcoholic boobs. No one wants to see her banker get up and sing about the HMS Pinafore or his grocer shouting "Stella" at the top of his lungs. Hell, most of us don't want to see the professionals even do that. Besides, if I wanted to watch the local school teacher do Glengarry Glenn Ross, couldn't I just sneak into the teacher's lounge and listen to him rail against the school administrators for restricting his use of sick leave to days when he is actually sick?
I had high hopes for this one when it all started. It was directed by David Lean who knows his way around a decent film or two whether it be an epic like Lawrence of Arabia or something a little more intimate like Summertime. It's also got Rex Harrison who was Dr. Doolittle as well as starred in My Fair Lady. Those of you into supernatural romances will no doubt fondly recall his turn as the ghostly and gruff sea captain in the sappy, yet vastly more entertaining The Ghost And Mrs. Muir. With a pedigree like that, (plus all the hoopla about Noel Coward), I couldn't see how this thing could miss.
Well, I sat through about two-thirds of the movie just waiting for it to catch fire, but it just sort of sat there, like a pissed-upon newspaper , all damp and vaguely smelly. It did pick up a bit toward the end when we get one of those "buy one ghost, get the second one for free" deals and whenever the old lady psychic was on screen, but most of the time, the bickering between Charles and his various wives came off as somewhat stilted and managed to elicit only the weakest of smiles every so often.
The problem is apparent right from the get go with how the characters are portrayed. Harrison plays Charles, an author who invites the psychic Madame Arcati over to a dinner party so that he can watch her do her little seance tricks and use it for a book he's writing. Charles is one of these guys with a very cool demeanor who has a quick word about anything that is said. The problem with him is that the stuff he says isn't that funny.
Harrison also plays this character as such a blase, aloof sort that you grow to wish that he would display some emotion besides classy indifference. This is especially maddening when he initially deals with the ghost of his first wife, Elvira. He is pretty much nonplussed by the whole affair and alternately finds her presence bothersome and amusing. I sensed some deep hatred for his current wife, because the more the current wife, Ruth, gets P.O.ed about all this, the more Charles likes the fact that his wife has come back. That's very healthy and probably very English, as well.
So they get this old bat over to do her stuff and this is where the movie shows its only signs of life. Whenever Margaret Rutherford's Madame Arcati is playing around trying to summon spirits or trying to send them back, the film picks up the pace and delivers the kind of wacky supernatural hi-jinks that this movie tricked me into thinking was its focus. Arcati is one of those psychic old lady types that plays by her own rules, riding her bicycle seven miles out to Charles' house instead of using a car as well as gleefully reciting her past triumphs. Indeed, her description of her first materialization or trip to the other side or whatever sounds like she's describing the first time she had an orgasm! Funny stuff - less Rex and his shrewish wives and more of the old biddy!
During the seance with Charles, Arcati uses a little dead girl as her medium with the other side and through a series of table thumping is able to carry on a conversation with whatever person they've summoned up. Arcati runs around, plays music, falls down into trances and does all sorts of crazy crap, yet nothing seems to have happened. After everyone leaves though, the spirit of Elvira, Charles' first wife shows up!
The afterlife hasn't done much for her complexion because she's a sickly green, but then I don't suppose you get much chance to get out in the sun over there. Charles takes her appearance in stride and talks to her in his current wife's presence even though Elvira is only visible to him. This leads to some scenes that should have been funny where he is saying things to Elvira but Ruth thinks he's talking to her. Instead of being funny, they just come off as being um, unfunny, I guess.
Well, as you might imagine, Ruth is quite put out that Charles keeps talking to and about his first wife. She runs around pouting, demanding that he come up to bed and twists her already homely face into scowls of fury. And what about Elvira? She's pretty much a jerk. You would think that in a movie like this, we could build some interest by having Charles be torn between the two of them or something, and apparently Elvira's plan is steal Chuck away from Ruth, but since both women are mouthy punks and Chuck doesn't care one way or the other, none of this is that interesting.
It was apparent from the beginning that Ruth was probably a shrew, what with her haughty tone and dark hair. I expected the first wife to be a real goody-goody or at the very least charming. Instead, she's as boorish as Ruth, firing off snotty comments whenever she can (it's real easy to do that when no one can hear you, missy) and making demands on Charles to drive her places. (What kind of ghost is that?)
Even though it may seem like this three member Bickerson family will go one forever taking pot shots at one another, Elvira plots to kill Charles. This is so he will be with her in the afterlife. Plans go awry when Ruth takes the car that Elvira has tampered with and ends up getting killed instead. This leads to Ruth haunting Elvira and the ghosts now harass each other.
Charles, apparently tired of all these ectoplasmic domestic dramas finally enlists the aid of Arcati to ship these two broads back to Satan or where ever they came from. In true comedic fashion, she has no idea how to send them back. This leads to a series of scenes where she's drawing symbols in salt, going into a trance, putting on some Barry White, and reading stupid verses from some magic book. Watching Arcati get all giddy when she finally gets to "meet" the ghost she conjured up is another one of those moments that saves this movie from being a total loss.
While Arcati is trying to figure out how to get UPS to pick up a couple of ghosts, Elvira and Charles talk and pretty much figure out that their storybook marriage had been a sham and that both had run around on the other. She also mentions that Ruth had ruined him, his books aren't any good, and she doesn't even want him anymore. Eventually the ghost materialize at a bridge that Charles has a car wreck at and he ends up joining them in the afterlife, presumably bothered by them for all eternity. Wah, wah, wah, waaaaaah.
Usually I applaud a lack of sentimentality, but in a movie like this dealing with love and death, an antiseptic treatment of the subject matter merely distances the audience from what's transpiring instead of shedding new light on it. Surely no one is so callous that the arrival of his dead first wife's ghost wouldn't evoke some type of visceral emotion. And surely you wouldn't be such a cad that her arrival wouldn't stir up confusing feelings about the woman you once loved versus the woman you have pledged to love now.
But old Charles just kind of wanders through it all, an observer more than a participant, only getting involved when he and the kitchen help start getting injured because of the ghostly shenanigans. A dry wit is all well and good when it's actually funny, but when it's not and that's all you have going for you, things get sluggish in a hurry. I'm all for sophisticated comedy, but somebody should remember that sophistication by itself is more than a tad dull at parties and downright turgid in a movie.