Trailer for Blithe Spirit with Dame Judi Dench

Looks like they've ruined a tricky property

Isla Fisher looks much younger than mid-forties

Lansbury was offered the role, but hightailed it after Leslie Mann joined, so they swapped Dames.

Madame Lansbury literally induced roars from the Broadway audience. Dame Judy, not so much.

is that true r3?

Dame Angie is holding out for the movie version of "High Spirits" so she can sing the bicycle song.

I was excited to see Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit in San Francisco in 2015 (or so, it seems like longer ago, but that is what the newspapers say was Angela's last foray in the production).

I actually felt it was insufferable. Angela played it very broadly, and did a lot of tiptoeing around the stage with her hands up like a rabbit.

SF productions sometimes fall flat, sometimes are a roaring success. For example, Legally Blond opened in SF and it was hysterical (I was initially embarrassed that I had bought tickets). It was very camp and the audience loved it. Of course, people appreciated Angela, but as far as theatre goes, it was a mere novelty.

The trailer above looks fun. Angela has said she would not be playing the role anymore.

was Blythe Danner ever in any production of Blithe Spirit?

I saw Angie do it on Broadway and she garbled half of her lines (the ones she could remember).

[quote] with her hands up like a rabbit

I'm sorry -- like a what now?

yes r8

Geraldine Page died during the run

Unfortunately Judi is that same no matter what role she is playing.

^the same

How was Erin Strauss as Ruth?

I saw her in London in 2013 and Angie was fucking terrific. Funny and charasmatic. Real lady to her fans outside too.

Can't believe it's been 7 years!

I'm sick of Dench. Maybe because of what R13 says.

The classic film is available on HBO Max...wow, it's bad. The main character is played like a sociopath...

There was a stage production early this year (not sure if it got to the stage or not before Covid) with Jennifer Saunders as Madame Arcati. That seems to me completely perfect casting.

I love Isla Fisher, but her British accent is atrocious.

The reason Dench gets most of the old hag roles in films is that she puts out. That's what you learn being too close to Harvey.

I'm passing on this. Love the David Lean production from the 1940s and I'll stick with that. Apart from Isla Fisher who I adore I can't stand the rest the cast.

As Maggie Smith once famously said, all the good roles goes to Jude first. (She was referring to the Shakespeare roles, but could very well fit for movie roles as well.)

Maggie is so superior to Stench.

As are virtually every English (and American) actress from the 1960s. Stench only became a movie star because of Harvey. She is damaged goods like M.

I saw that production with Geraldine Page. She was AWFUL, hamming it up and making a feast of the scenery. Surprisingly, Blythe Danner, who seemed very right for the role, was just okay as Elvira, and Chamberlin was blah as Charles. The person who ran away with the show was Judith Ivey as Ruth, who was dynamite. Her "breakdown" scene before she goes off in the car was the best.

I know Page was often hammy but I always loved her.

Funny I've never been able to take to Blythe Danner. I'm probably the only person on the planet that prefers GOOP to her mother.

R22 Dench is too mushy and emotional for most comedy roles.

Maggie knows better how to do brittle Coward.

Dame Judith was a great Judith Bliss in Hay Fever.

Dame Maggie was a very good Myra Arundel.

oh gags, leslie mann, she soils all she touches.....how disappointing.

Is Mann married to a producer? how could she land this part??

angie was fun, saw her on bway with chamberlain....tre fab!!!

Maggie Smith can often be too much in her own way. She's tolerable in small doses only. I think many of the older British actors and actresses tend to get praised by Anglophile Americans no matter how pedestrian their performance.

Since this has become the Mdme Arcati thread, nobody get her right since Margaret Rutherford. She is supposed to be the antithesis of a traditional medium- completely "jolly hockey sticks" tweeds and brogues, not Oriental robes and flowing scarves.

Miranda Hart should play Madame Arcati.

Isla Fisher must have a portrait in the attic.

R32, excellent choice!

R29 She's made to director Jon Apatow. Hence her being in his movies and getting pushed everywhere else.

Isn't Mme Arcati a role that can, should, MUST and WILL be played by a TWoC?

Here's a link to the 1945 version, with Dame Margaret Rutherford as Arcati. I'm watching it right now!

Someone posted the TV version with Coward, Claudette Colbert, Mildred Natwick and Betty Perske over on one of the theatre threads. It was enjoyable. Betty was surprisingly fun as Elvira.

[quote] the 1945 version

We can assume it's performed according to Coward's wishes. But it includes a woman from the stage production playing Elvira who (speaking frankly) is too ugly for the big screen.

[Quote] it includes a woman from the stage production playing Elvira who (speaking frankly) is too ugly for the big screen.

-- Blushes --

R39, you assume incorrectly. Coward HATED the 1945 film.

Did Joan Greenwood ever play Elvira?

[quote] TV version with Coward, Claudette Colbert,

Coward's letters reveal that Claudette was an unco-operative cow during the production. Coward said he wanted to wring Claudette's silly neck— but unfortunately Claudette didn't have neck.

Claudette is better than Coward in that production. He's at quite a remove.

If this was released last year with Dame Angela, she could have finally won her desired Oscar. BSA 2019 was a joke, with Laura Dern winning for 10 minutes of being a "fiesty" lawyer in hooker heels.

Angie is much like Donna Pescow, star of TV's "Angie": A Tee Vee Actress.

Angie is much like Donna Pescow, star of TV's "Angie": A Tee Vee Actress.

I'd like to see another Dame play Arcati.

Kristin Scott-Thomas would make a fine fist of the role.

[quote] BSA 2019

I spent 4 minutes on Google to find BSA = Best Supporting Actress

Sorry R49, I spent about as much time writing that post as the writer of Marriage Story did developing Dern's character.

Kristin Scott Thomas is a Ruth.

Evelyn Waugh said Noel Coward has 'a simple, friendly nature. No brains and a theatrical nature.'

He also said Coward was excellent at song lyrics and some play scenes but HOPELESS at psychology and plotting.

The plot of 'Private Lives' dribbles away in the second half.

Too many of his brittle, thin plays involve a main character, a stylish man (much like himself) expressing a great deal of exasperation and irritation at the kooky people surrounding him.

'Present Laughter' is the worst example of this irritating thin-ness. And so is 'Blithe Spirit'. Madam Arcati has to be extravagantly kooky.

I could of done it better, in fact I did!

Lansbury was a good working actress, though one who often strayed into her own limited shtick. She always benefitted from a STRONG director. She was also very savvy about show business and played a star for so long that some of you silly queens began to believe she was one.

The old woman is 95. FAR TOO OLD for Madame Arcati. Far too old to be riding a bicycle through the English countryside. Any of the other characters who would let her leave on a bicycle would be guilty of elder abuse. You can't do things like that to a frothy comedy without killing it.

She is now too old to bet on her surviving to the end of the filming schedule. It is absurd to think she could be capable of doing something as rigorous as this.

Judi ain't exactly in fine fettle either.

[quote]Far too old to be riding a bicycle through the English countryside.

There goes her dream of playing the definitive Sister George.

Agree, leslie mann sucks bad. a tv sitcom actress and a poor one at that.

Wasn't Judi Dench reported to be going blind a few years ago?

Dodgy knees too.

I wish Isla Fisher & Sacha Baron Cohen would make a film or TV series together.

R54 fuck off ageist prick! She was and is a star! And she can pass for 80!

Evelyn Waugh must have been an idiot.

80 is too old for Madame Arcati. She's done at about 65. Cast the role older than that and you pervert the play.

No where does it mention that they emptied the Old Folks' Home to get here there. Margaret Rutherford was in her late 40's when she created the role in the West End. Mildred Natwick was 36 when she played it in Blithe Spirit's original Broadway run.

Charles calls on Madame Arcati because she is a famous medium. Not because she's a retired medium.

What about Imeda Staunton as Arcati?

Difficult colour, green... Very tricky

Emma Thompson?

There is no end of dotty English character actresses to play this silly role. Cast a strong and charismatic man and woman as Charles and Elvira. Let them lead the play. Then cast two wonderful working English actresses as Ruth and Arcati.

Brenda Blethyn would be great. Joanna Lumley would be fab. Anne Reid would be, too. Who would not want to see Julie Walters as Madame Arcati? Arcati is the easiest role in the world to cast.

Penelope Keith, Julie Walters, Penelope Wilton could all handle it

[quote]Wasn't Judi Dench reported to be going blind a few years ago?

You might be thinking of Dame Plowright.

Joan Plowrite is, she was when they did that 4 Dames programme with Atkins, Smith and Stench.

[quote] Brenda Blethyn would be great

No, she wouldn't. You need an English sensibility to play Coward. His management company (up until the 70s at least) had the right to veto actors in his plays

He shouldn't be played by 21st century amateurs (such as the Lavarious Slaughter Theatre Company of os, Orlando, Florida.)

The wigs in this new film are ATROCIOUS! How did they get by the director, the costume designer, the producers and the actresses?

Dame Judi was smart to insist on turbans and headscarves.

R21, do you even know who Brenda Blethyn is or any of the roles on her resume?

They asked Lucy if she would do the Elvira role. (There was a seance in California.) She was ready to do it -- "I don't have to sing, do I? Last time that happened I was savaged!" After assurances that singing wasn't involved, her daughter was ready to sign the contracts, as the deceased can't legally sign anything. Anyway, we were all ready when the ghost of Gary talked her out of it.

I suppose here is the most appropriate place to note that this day is the birthday of Margaret Natalie Smith.

She is 86 today and I'm sad to think she won't be getting another major role on screen.

I wish someone enterprising could get her to remake this now she's the appropriate age—

Is this movie coming out on Netflix or HBOMax? It seems everything else is....

Dame Judi isn't the right choice. Still waiting to see Dan Stevens flash his big cock.

Leslie Mann? I’ll pass.

R38 It is back, like herpes. Noel does seem strangely passive.

I saw a production where they kept pronouncing Elvera as Elvira. I got the giggles.