Once upon a time, in the magical, cynical land of Noel Coward, author Charles Condomine (Rex Harrison) lived contentedly with his second wife Ruth (Constance Cummings), giving scarcely a thought to first wife Elvira, seven years dead. But past romances don't expire as easily as all that. Thanks to a bicycling, martini-guzzling medium played by the indomitable Margaret Rutherford, Elvira (Kay Hammond) blows in the window, looking greenish; while Charles works out his confusion over this unexpected apparition, the old green-eyed monster haunts the second Mrs. Condomine. Lean adapted the play with a minimum of effects-just floating objects and slamming doors-the better to focus on Coward's wicked script. The moral of this ghostly tale may be that if sexual jealousy transcends mortality, domestic annoyance is a force even harder to exorcise.