It’s Lean’s third film, one before Brief Encounter (also 1945) and one and three years before his beautiful Dickens adaptations
It’s more a Noel Coward film than a Lean film (though it’s beautifully shot) as evidenced in the opening credits when Coward gets the last title after “directed by David Lean”- weird seeing that when you watch as many movies as I do
It’s great Coward—sophisticated and witty- Cheeky and cocktail humor-y—and both Rutherford- and especially Rex Harrison are perfectly suited for it- dry and pointed
It’s color- in England and 1945—that’s very rare (love that the Brits are forced to spell color correctly because it’s “technicolor”- and it’s not by the Archers – Powell and Pressburger- who could get the color pulled off
Rutherford does the “Great Scott” line stolen for Back to the Future and used routinely by Christopher Lloyd
Breezy, innuendo, cheeky, double entendres, high society,
Rutherford is a vibrant character- a bit of a bitter beer face, baggy eyes
Harrison is always hiding his teeth- different than the 1964 more confident My Fair Lady Harrison
The same joke gets dull—It’s of Harrison talking to his ghost ex-wife and his current wife thinks he is talking to her—it’s funny—but not the 5th Similar work in 1950’s Harvey with Jimmy Stewart and Topper– both great comedies
Lean isn’t given much to do but there is a very nice tracking shot as he glides through the house like a ghost and then bounces the actors off a window
I adored a fight between the two couple at the table done through editing in a two-shot—Citizen Kane before it and up to Chazelle’s La La Land– great execution
Another shot of clever direction comes when we cut to Harrison’s current (alive) wife’s POV by taking the camera over her shoulder (where she does not see the ghost)
[…] Blithe Spirit– Lean […]