Skip to main content

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Feature film. (1947, 104 mins) IMDB

...a classic romance...

R

ecently widowed, Mrs. Muir bolts from London for a new life on the seacoast of England. When she moves into a house there, she does so knowing it's haunted. The ghost of its former owner, Captain Gregg, haunts it. He doesn't want any visitors, and to date, has succeeded in keeping the place vacant until Mrs. Muir arrives. She's not frightened by his presence and survives the first night.

The film is a love story with the ultimate barrier separating the two from each other--death. She can see and hear him but others can't.

There are no such things as ghosts. They simply don't exist. Usually I would use that against any story because they want us to believe they exist and usually to scare us. This film is different. We know ghosts don't exist even though Rex Harrison appears as one in this film and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because while he appears in the film, we don't see him as a ghost. It doesn't matter because of the wonderful, foul-mouthed character that he is. It doesn't matter because we can watch the lovely Gene Tierney go toe-to-toe with him and win. It doesn't matter because it's a love story. It's meant to float us away from the moment for ninety minutes to a world that doesn't exist. It doesn't matter because even the story and characters in it know that ghosts don't exist. In fact, what we see in the film could very well have been the fancy imagination of Mrs. Muir living in isolation. With no husband, no companion, she invented these interactions with the captain who died four years earlier.

Act II is filled with a growing love between the two. He's less cranky towards her. She's more appreciative of who he is. In an effort to generate income for her, he dictates his life story to her to write up as a book to be published. While at the publishers, she meets the suave and charming George Sanders. He goes after her with the determination of black flies. It isn't long before she gives in to his charm and they plan to marry. Those marriage plans are thrown out the window when she discovers he's already married with children. Ouch!

That heartache and the disappearance of the ghost brings us to Act III where life continues in a mundane way and flashes forward ten years when her daughter announces her engagement. And forward even more years where Mrs. Muir, grey-haired and ill, dies. In her death, the captain returns and they walk hand in hand off into the distance.

It's hard to imagine how this film could have been better. It has a stellar cast with a top-notch crew. It's a film to watch and enjoy.

Posted 2009/04/14 at 18h30ET in Movie Commentary.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If Only We Could Agree

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read
2 comments
Read more

Days 9-108: Writing a Novel—The Deep Blue Hold

November 25th, 2016 to March 5, 2017 Note: Unedited writings from my notebook for this novel. Square bracket items represent added comments. At 15:53 Office ... And so began a three month odyssey away from writing this novel, The Deep Blue Hold. ... W herein I try to explain why I stopped working on this novel. The shortest answer is I gave up. The short explanation is I struggle with mental health issues (MDD, GAD, PTSD) that paralyse me at times. When it happens, I’m not able to do much of anything. Don’t want to do anything and that includes things one might expect to enjoy. For a while I spent time trying to create some thirty-second videos that would play a word puzzle like a crossword. Here’s the clue. Here’s the blank spaces. And after an interval, one of the letters would appear until all the letters appear. A bit of a crossword puzzle in that sometimes you come to a word where crossover words give you certain letters and you have to fill in the rest. A
Post a Comment
Read more

Words: BONE—GONE—LOAN—BOAN

Friday, March 31, 2017 You’d think BONE would rhyme with GONE but no. This is the English language after all. But BONE does rhyme with LOAN so we’ll spell it BOAN. It will take some time to update all the existing writings but it can be done. Meanwhile, if you smash up your car, the insurance company will allow you to get a LOANER and if you happen to meet the right person you may get a BOANER. boan Post comments on facebook page Posted 2017/03/31 at 17h28ET in Words .
Post a Comment
Read more