The Astonished Heart (film) The Astonished Heart (film) The Astonished Heart is a 1950 British drama film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Celia Johnson, Noël Coward, and Margaret Leighton, and is based on Coward's play "The Astonished Heart" from his cycle of ten plays, "". Inspired by the great success of the 1945 film "Brief Encounter", which also had been adapted from "Tonight at 8:30", Coward agreed to have "The Astonished Heart" produced as a motion picture. As with the previous film, Coward also wrote the screenplay. Production began in 1949 and featured not only Noël Coward in one of his rare film
Blithe Spirit (play) his own view of things on the brute facts of existence," and Michael Billington of "The Guardian" wrote of Coward's influence on Harold Pinter. In 2004, Charles Spencer of "The Daily Telegraph" wrote, "With "Hay Fever" and "Private Lives", "Blithe Spirit" strikes me as being one of Coward 's three indisputable comic masterpieces. [It is] the outrageous frivolity with which Coward treats mortality that makes the piece so bracing." "Blithe Spirit" was made into a successful film in 1945, adapted by Coward and directed by David Lean. The cast included Rex Harrison as Charles, Constance Cummings as Ruth, Kay Hammond