The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
By paranominal
Published: December 8, 2009
Tagged with: Captain Gregg, Gene Tierney, Ghost And Mrs Muir, Heart, Love, Lucy, Master Bedroom, Natalie Wood, Rex Harrison, Romance, Sea Captain, Seaside, Spunk, Straitlaced, Stubborness, Wee Hours, Young Widow
The DVD froze on scene 15 and it was a gift so I had to get it from a different source-I was not happy at all.
Rating: 1 / 5
For a romantic comedy, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has a decidedly melancholy feel to it, especially toward the end. The movie starts better with determined widow, Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney), leaving her mother-in-law’s house in search of some independence. She arrives in remote Whitecliff-by-the-Sea with her daughter, Anna, servant, Martha, and a small income from a gold mine. Given her financial situation, a certain cottage appeals most to her, but the estate agent is surprisingly reluctant to show it to her. Turns out, it’s haunted, and he can’t keep a tenant in it. Lucy stubbornly decides it’s exactly what she needs and insists on moving in. Immediately the haunting begins. The ghost, a certain handsome sea captain (Rex Harrison), has decided not to share his house with anyone. But Lucy stands up to him, and he decides he likes her so she can stay. Unfortunately, very soon after Lucy’s gold mine peters out, and she is left without an income. But Captain Gregg decides to help her; they will write a book together – his biography, Blood and Swash. He will narrate, and she will type it. Rather predictably, Lucy finds a publisher on her first attempt, and the book is a success. She now has enough money to stay in the house and has acquired a writer admirer – of whom Captain Gregg doesn’t approve – in the process. Now Lucy must decide whom she will love, her ghostly captain or her all-too-human writer friend, Miles Fairley (George Sanders).
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a rather long film, 100 minutes in all, for such a straightforward story. The first half is the most enjoyable as Lucy and Captain Gregg meet, squabble, and fall in love. Though he is only ethereal, they have palpable chemistry. Some of their dialogue is quite funny too (the best line being when she orders him to “decompose” instead of “dematerialize”). Though Captain Gregg is brusque and a bit misogynistic, he does like and respect Lucy and they have something in addition to attraction – true friendship. He is aware, however, that Lucy needs more than just a ghost friend, and urges her to get out socially.
When the love triangle emerges, the film goes downhill. George Sanders, so interesting and perversely appealing in All About Eve, has a one-note character to play here – the too smooth writer on the make. Had his part been more ambiguous, it would have packed more emotion into the film. As it is, everyone but Lucy sees through him immediately, making her character seem rather stupid and the late plot conflict a bit meaningless.
SPOILERS HERE:
Sensing that she wants Fairley, Captain Gregg bows out of her life and (rather paternally) arranges for her to remember their time together as a dream. But soon afterward, Lucy discovers for herself what a cad Fairley is and now must live her life without Fairley or Captain Gregg. There are a couple of Time Passes segments in which Lucy ages rapidly until she is very old. She then has a heart attack and Captain Gregg comes for her. They step out of the house into the gleaming sunset.
There are a number of very unsatisfying things about this ending. First of all, Lucy appears to lead a purposeless life after Captain Gregg shoves off. She does nothing creative, and seems to live on the revenue of Blood and Swash (how long exactly could that have generated a livable income?). Ultimately, this means that Captain Gregg supported her for the rest of his life, as her husband did before that – Lucy is neither capable of supporting herself or of coming up with a meaningful vocation or charitable way of filling her days. What a waste.
Secondly, as Lucy sadly narrates to her daughter, she lived a 50-year lonely life. The film, with its “romantic” ending suggests that her happiness could only come from being with a man – Captain Gregg. But they only knew each other for a year, and she could barely remember him after he erased her memory of their time together. She had much more time for a friendship with Martha, her servant, but Martha, loving and caring throughout the film, hardly rates a glance back from Lucy on her way out into the sunset with Captain Gregg. If what Lucy and Captain Gregg had was True Love, perhaps this would be understandable. But Lucy, when presented with the opportunity for human love with Miles Fairley, plunges in without giving Captain Gregg much of a thought. This would suggest less than True Love. Which makes the walk into the sunset just wrong. Captain Dan deserves it, but Lucy does not.
Besides the melancholy “happy” ending, the film has one more flow – as a ghost, Captain Gregg breaks all of the rules of specterhood. He appears anywhere he likes – in the house and out of it, miles away. He is not tied to location, and he’s not even haunting for a real purpose. He also decides to stop haunting the house of his own volition. What kind a ghost comes and goes as he likes regardless of vocation. Essentially he haunts Lucy whom he never knew before his death. This allows him a great deal of freedom within the plot, but makes no sense at all.
For all of these reasons, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ultimately disappoints. Lucy, Captain Gregg, and Miles Fairley are all handsome and well played, but in attempting to inject conflict and yet retain a sense of True Love the story’s writers make Lucy into a silly, pointless woman undeserving of her ghostly lover.
Rating: 3 / 5
I’m sure that this was a good film at the time of its release. I found it a bit long and I was unimpressed by Rex Harrison–talk about over acting and big close up soliloquies that are syrupy sweet. There was nothing romantic about him. The side story with Mr. Fairley was about as transparent as it could get. The music was good. The last act breezes by at warp speed and it’s just a little disconcerting to watch this woman just content to give up on looking for real love and settle for the day that she can truly be with the Captain again. A real Wuthering Heights sort of ending. Decent film but nothing to write home about.
Rating: 3 / 5
A wonderful movie. I have loved it since I was a child. A beautiful love story between two stubborn beings. If you like old movies, this is one to watch.
Rating: 5 / 5
…, imagine my knocked-to-my-feet surprise when I discovered this earlier, period, version of the same romantic charmer!! As another critic so masterfully captioned earlier, the true beauty of GAMM is that its romance is fully realized, courted, and even consummated without its two protagonists ever having physical contact. How *can* they, when one of them is flesh and the other isn’t. But they do court- first in genteel, witty, one-upmanship banter between the sexes, then in gradual, verbal revelations of their most private and personal thoughts, all the while realizing that their individual stubborness and fire is exactly what attracts them to one another. (Listen especially to passages like Lucy describing her late husband- but not with much affection, or the Captain first talking about his rite of passage with an older woman.) Every time they speak they truly enjoy each other’s company (the conversation on the train is especially fine) and there is an unspoken yearn to take their friendship to the next level. When Lucy finally utters the sad line “what’s to become of us,” you realize that their relationship can never really materialize. The later epilogue, where an older Lucy tries to remember the Captain for her teenage daughter- and the daughter’s revelation that she knew about him too- is at once lovely and bittersweet. Bernard Herrmann’s score? No words are adequate.
Rating: 5 / 5