Long before Patrick Swayze haunted Demi Moore in Ghost, and Alan Rickman haunted Juliet Stevenson in Truly Madly Deeply, there was The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. When my young son and I sat down to watch the The Ghost and Mrs. Muir on cable a few evenings ago, it stirred up memories of my first viewing of it.

Back in 1974, when I was an unruly 14-year-old living in Windsor, Ontario, near Detroit, on weekday afternoons my mom used to watch a show called Bill Kennedy at the Movies. Bill was this gruff old codger who had been a Hollywood bit player through the 1940's and 1950's. When he finally gave up on his movie career in the late 50's, he picked up a gig hosting TV presentations of movies in Detroit. 15 years later, Bill was still at it, playing vintage movies, and peppering them with his personal insights about the productions, cast and crew. Between my mom's enthusiasm for these movies of her youth, and Bill Kennedy's commentary, I began to develop a love and appreciation for old movies and Hollywood lore. It was Bill Kennedy who introduced me to Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Humphrey Bogart, All the King's Men and Broderick Crawford, White Heat and Jimmy Cagney, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir with Rex Harrison.

Set in England at the turn of the twentieth century, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is the story of a young widow, Mrs. Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney). Seeking to cut the ties to her in-laws, strong-willed Lucy sets out to find a separate home for herself, her daughter and her maid. She insists on seeing a particular cottage by the sea, which the real estate agent is particularly reluctant to show her. On touring it, Lucy hears the laughter of the ghost of its former owner, Capt. Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). She decides to rent the cottage anyway, feeling that the ghost will add character to the home. When days of noisy haunting fail to diminish her resolve, the Captain reveals himself to Mrs. Muir. She asks him about the circumstances of his death, and his reasons for haunting. The Captain is captivated by her strength and her beauty, and he agrees to peacefully share the home with her.

Later, when Mrs. Muir runs into financial difficulty, to save her from eviction, the Captain strikes upon the idea of dictating his memoirs, for her to publish. During the process of preparing the bawdy manuscript, they get to know another better, and become romantically attracted. They recognize the futility and inadequacy of their situation and agree that Lucy should seek mortal companionship. When she brings her manuscript to a publisher, she catches the eye of a suitor (George Sanders). The jealous Captain must decide how to deal with the dilemma of watching the woman that he loves, court another man.

Rex Harrison plays Capt. Gregg in a brassy stagy way that works perfectly. At first, Gregg seems a parody of a sea captain, but the memoir dictation scenes and the emotional conflicts that unfold, allow Harrison to round out the character and establish his charm.

Like others of his generation who came to Hollywood from the British stage, Harrison really knew how to read a line. Listen when he bids farewell to a sleeping Lucy, about two-thirds of the way through the movie: "... Oh, the things that we could have seen together ... how the ocean turns from blue to green in the Caribbean, the white foam of the Falklands ..." The obvious approach would have been to say these lines softly. Harrison starts softly, but gets progressively louder until finally he is yelling. It is stunning, and it works beautifully. If you know Rex Harrison only from the silly Dr.Dolittle, rent the The Ghost and Mrs. Muir or My Fair Lady and watch how he could apply his stage mastery to tear up the screen.

Daryl Zanuck called Gene Tierney "unquestionably the most beautiful woman in movie history." If you think that sounds overstated, you probably have not watched a Gene Tierney movie. She is best known for her title role performance in Otto Preminger's 1944 classic Laura. In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Tierney exudes both a china doll delicacy and a playful sexiness. As an actor, she successfully persuades us that Lucy Muir is an uncommonly self assured woman, and she holds her own in her scenes with Rex Harrison. If her diction is a little flat, and if in places she adopts the corny 1940's Hollywood romantic acting style - "Oh Miles, you mad foool, I love you veddy veddy much!!" - her incredibly magnetic presence compensates for it. For the romance of this story to work, Gene Tierny has to make us believe Lucy Muir is so compelling and alluring, that she could make a ghost stop haunting, that a life-long seaman would love her more than the sea, and that a spirit would wait a lifetime just to be with her again. She succeeds completely.

George Sanders turns in a stock performance as the charming cad who pursues Lucy. Natalie Wood plays Lucy's daughter (she appeared the same year in the more famous Miracle on 34th Street.) Many of the other characters in the movie - the real estate agent, Lucy's in-laws, the publisher - are caricatures that add a touch of levity.

The incomparable Bernard Hermann, whose darkly evocative compositions enhanced great movies from Citizen Kane through Psycho to Taxi Driver, provided The Ghost and Mrs. Muir's excellent score, which strengthens both the maritime and supernatural feel of the movie.

Black and white photography lends itself so well to moody films like this, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir makes particularly effective use of chiaroscuro. Many important scenes in the movie take place in the Captain's bedroom, with big weather visible outside its great bay window. Always the images are crisp, and the lighting and contrast perfectly balanced. For his efforts, cinematographer Charles Lang received The Ghost and Mrs. Muir's only Academy Award nomination.

The effects are commendable too. Ghostly presence is suggested mainly through creative use of lighting and sound, supplemented by basic mechanical effects - windows banging and gas lights dimming. During the first 15 minutes of the movie when Capt. Gregg was doing his worst, my normally fearless 7-year-old, a veteran of Jurassic Park, repeatedly had to dive under a blanket for cover. There is just one optical ghost effect in the entire movie, near the end, and it is used not to frighten but to create a sense of remorse.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of the movie is the carelessness of its attempt at recreating England. Rex Harrison and George Sanders provide a solid British underpinning. New Englander Tierney is passable as an Englishwoman, but many of the supporting players including Natalie Wood as Lucy's daughter and the actors playing Lucy's in-laws make feeble or negligible attempts at an accent. It was a maddening consequence of the studio system of the forties, that contract actors would often be cast in supporting roles regardless of their suitability.

The time period, at least, is nicely recreated through carefully detailed sets, props and costumes, by vintage vehicles, and by a decent matte painting in an opening shot.

I was surprised by how much gentle sexual innuendo The Ghost and Mrs. Muir contains. The screenwriter managed to include countless sly references to voyeurism, loss of virginity, promiscuity, conception, and infidelity. Unfortunately the script is plagued by clichéd dialogue and overwrought references to the sea. At one point, the Captain tells Lucy, "You must make your own life amongst the living and, whether you meet fair winds or foul, find your own way to harbor in the end." It is a testament to the talent of Rex Harrison that he very nearly makes that line work.

The scripted dialogue may be dodgy, but the story, from the 1945 novel by R.A. Dick, is probably The Ghost and Mrs. Muir's greatest strength. More than the performances or music or cinematography, it is the movie's story that stuck with me most over the quarter-century since my last viewing. The novelist created a classic romantic situation ripe with dramatic and comedic possibilities that she harvested with great imagination.

Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz did a fine job of bringing the story to the screen, nicely balancing the drama, comedy, romance, and supernatural. (Three years after The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Mankiewicz wrote and directed his masterpiece, All About Eve, and cast George Sanders as the male lead, the best role of his career.)

To me, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is the consummate film of paranormal romance. Sure, 1980's Ghost had niftier effects, but in every other respect - story, mood, star power, music and cinematography - 1947's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir beats it hands down, and to this day is still the pace-setter in its sub-genre.

While researching this, somewhere out there on the 'net I read that Sean Connery now owns the screen rights to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Sean Connery as Capt. Gregg? Would that work today? Who would play Mrs. Muir? She can't be too young - Entrapment with Catherine Zeta-Jones proved how creepy that can be.

Twenty-seven years ago, ex-B-movie actor Bill Kennedy introduced me to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, throwing in his opinions and some Hollywood lore. Now I do the same for you. As Bill might have said, there are lots of vintage movies deserving of your attention and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is certainly one of them.



References and Resources

• The movie is available on VHS, not yet on DVD.

• The novel by R.A. Dick has been reprinted by Buccaneer Press and Lightspeed Press, and is available from online booksellers. R.A. Dick was the pseudonym of Josephine Leslie, who wrote several other novels.

• The soundtrack featuring Bernard Herrmann's score is available on CD.

• There are several sites on the 'net dedicated to the 1968 TV series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. That show was more comedic than the movie. It starred Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare, and was set in contemporary Maine. The most obsessively devoted and complete site is at http://members.nbci.com/mrsmuir/

• A lovingly rendered online momument to Gene Tierney is at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7178/. This is where I picked up the Zanuck quotation.

• The Detroit Free Press pays tribute to Bill Kennedy in an obituary at http://www.freep.com/news/obituaries/qkenn28.htm


Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12