FILM: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

[karelm 2,912]

Over the weekend, Turner Classic Movies channel had the charming 1947 film, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  The film was directed by Joseph Mankiewicz and stars Rex Harrison as the Sea Captain and Gene Tierney as Lucy Muir, a recent widow.  Also notable for an adorable performance by a very young Natalie Wood in what I believe is her film debut.

 

I had been very familiar with the outstanding score by Bernard Herrmann that beautifully captures melancholy, magic and mystery, the sea setting, and romance, though I hadn't seen the film itself.  The film is basically a romantic comedy but emphasis can be placed on romance between the recent widow (Lucy Muir) who moves into a house that is haunted with the ghost of its prior owner, a sea captain.  Trying to scare her away as with all other tenants of his secluded ocean home, the grizzly captain fails to frighten the independent Mrs. Muir.  They slowly form a bond and friendship with some humorous moments when other suitors or pesky in laws visit and must be shewed away.  The Captain asks/tells Lucy to help him write his autobiography hoping to help sell it to help support Lucy's debts which she reluctantly agrees to.  Through this experience, the two find themselves to be kindred souls.  The books publisher immediately falls for Lucy leaving the Captain initially disgusted by their relationship, but he decides to leave, as he considers himself an obstacle to Lucy's chance at happiness with a living man. While Lucy is asleep, Captain Gregg places in her mind the suggestion that she alone wrote the book and that his presence was merely a dream. He then fades away never to bother her again.  The brief courtship with the publisher falls apart and Lucy lives a long life alone, always wondering what happened to the ghost.  Many years later, now ailing and under a doctor's care, Lucy is under the care of a caregiver and dies that night.  The Captain's ghost finally reappears and reaches out to Lucy, whose young spirit takes his hands and leaves her aged body. They gaze lovingly at each other, then walk arm in arm out of the house into an ethereal mist.

 

I really enjoyed this charming film.  The performances are fine, nothing exceptional, but full of warmth.  The music, art direction, and script are all excellent.  The pacing is swift with hardly a scene or shot that lingers too long.  At the first reveal of the Captain's portrait, there is a nice camera trick making it hard to tell if its a real person (the ghost of Rex Harrison) or just a portrait as we see it to be in a longer take.  It's a sweet film and I could understand why it would be seen as a classic. 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,053]

Wasn't the score re-recorded by Varese?

[karelm 2,912]

3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Wasn't the score re-recorded by Varese?

 

Correct.  A very fine re-recording by Elmer Bernstein.

 

[bruce marshall 1,315]

I have both versions!

[Yavar Moradi 2,597]

On 9/21/2020 at 1:33 PM, Jurassic Shark said:

Wasn't the score re-recorded by Varese?

 

Nope. It was re-recorded by Elmer Bernstein for his own Film Music Collection series in the '70s (released complete as a box set by Film Score Monthly, but a few of the recordings premiered on CD earlier, including this one, on Varese -- they sub-licensed the recording just as FSM later did).

Yavar