Originally, Coward had mentally cast Keith Michell as Charles, Gwen Verdon as Elvira, Celeste Holm as Ruth, and Kay Thompson as Madame Arcati, with Bob Fosse as director. Other major musical nominees that same year (1964) were Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly! and most major Tony wins went to the latter. The production was nominated for eight Tony Awards, but did not win any. Fred Werner was music director, scenic and costumes design were by Robert Fletcher, lighting design was by Jules Fisher, and Tammy Grimes' costume was by Valentina. Gower Champion aided Coward in directing the musical. The musical opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on April 7, 1964, and closed on February 27, 1965, after 375 performances and 14 previews.
The playwright was delighted with their adaptation, then entitled Faster Than Sound, and agreed to direct it himself.
Martin and Gray adhered closely to Coward's original text, although they expanded the medium's character to make it the star role. High Spirits is best viewed by those who enjoy watching failed efforts from interesting directors and fans of pleasant but not particularly remarkable 1980s comedies (being a fan of O’Toole, D’Angelo and/or Neeson probably doesn’t hurt either).High Spirits is a musical with a book, lyrics, and music by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, based on the play Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, about a man's problems caused by the spirit of his dead wife. Stock characters and bland leads are (somewhat) made up for by the occasional decent effect, gag, or inventive ghost moment (the scene where the 2 dimensional theater scenery comes to life, for example), and moments of life by the supporting cast. None of the elements gel, or is done particularly well, and too few characters get enough screen time to develop much of a personality, and the ones that do are played by Guttenberg and Hannah, which dooms them to be cardboard.Īll of this being said, if you grew up on 80s effects driven fantasy/comedy films, especially if you saw this during its days as a cable staple, you could do a lot worse than to revisit it.
Whatever the details of Jordan’s “director’s” cut, the film as commonly available goes for too many elements at once-farce about quirky locals fleecing rich Americans, light spoof of ghost stories and feuds, odd sex comedy with ghosts, horrible attempt to make another Splash–for it to work.
#High spirits cast movie
Emphasizing the leads blandness are the devilish Sharon and Martin, making this yet another movie where the “villains” (though everyone gets a chance at redemption by the end) are more interesting than the heroes.
#High spirits cast free
One suspects that Jordan’s version (and Jordan does claim that the version released is completely different from the version he shot) might also focus more on Peter Plunkett and his band of locals, who don’t get a terribly large amount of screen time, while at the same time the Jack/Mary relationship is also very sketchy, hinging on “instant love”, which isn’t a problem in a fantasy story, exactly, but when your leads are the chemistry free and wooden Guttenberg and Hannah the formulaic nature of the relationship becomes more apparent.
For the last two hundred years the pair have re-enactd Martin’s murder of Mary every night, but Jack’s interruption breaks the spell-and it isn’t long before Jack and Mary are falling in love, generations of Plunketts are haunting the guests, and Martin is eying Sharon… When Plunkett’s efforts are exposed, all seems lost, until a drunk Jack interrupts the ghosts of Mary Plunkett Brogan (Daryl Hannah, Roxanne) and her murderous husband Martin Brogan (Liam Neeson, Rob Roy). Soon he’s welcoming (and planning to scare the pants off) a bus load of American tourists, including unhappily married yuppies Jack (Steve Guttenberg, Police Academy) and Sharon Brogan Crawford (Beverly D’Angelo, Maid to Order), spacy Miranda (Jennifer Tilly, She’s My Girl), conflicted soon-to-be priest Brother Tony (Peter Gallagher, While You Were Sleeping), and parapsychologist Malcom (Martin Ferrero) and his wife and children. With his creditors beating down his door, a remark from his eccentric mother (Liz Smith) about the ghosts of the castle gets him scheming. Peter Plunkett (Peter O’Toole, Club Paradise) is the lord of a very badly declining castle in Ireland.
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