by R.A. Dick
Twentieth Century Fox
NB: Welcome to Flashback Friday! We’re re-running this awesome guest squee of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as a palate cleanser for those who aren’t fans psychological thriller movies like The Girl on the Train. It’s also a pretty fitting movie to watch in October. This post was originally published August 17, 2015.
SB Sarah: Kay Layton Sisk emailed me about her love of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and since I didn’t know much about it at all, I asked if she’d write about the movie and the book for us here. So if you haven’t enjoyed this classic yet, there’s major swoonage ahead.
I fell in love with the 1947 movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir in all its black and white, Saturday-afternoon-on-the-independent-channel glory, the first time I watched it. Rex Harrison as the deceased ship captain Daniel Gregg, Gene Tierney as the lonely widow Lucy Muir, a Love That Could Never Be, what was there not to sigh over?
But, as Sarah pointed out to me, not everyone (really?) is familiar with The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. How can it be that not everyone has sat glued to the TV on Saturday afternoons enchanted with old movies? (This is not to dismiss the TV show of the same name from 1968-70, but it’s not part of this discussion.)
But if there are gaps in the Bitchery’s movie knowledge, I must be about closing one of them.
The movie: England, early 20th century and Lucy Muir has spent her adult life under someone else’s thumb. First, that of her husband Edwin, a so-so architect, then, once he dies, her sister-in-law Eva (boo! hiss!) and her mother-in-law (not as bad as Eva, but still—boo! hiss!)
One year after “dear Edwin’s” death, Lucy declares her independence and shocks the in-laws by taking her daughter Anna and moving out. She also takes the cook Martha, who had come with her to their household. One almost gets the feeling that they will miss Martha more than Lucy and Anna, although they beg her to stay. She doesn’t go far, a fact she rues, but far enough. She intends to live on the earnings from Edwin’s gold shares.
She takes a house by the sea, Gull Cottage, a residence, she quickly finds out, that is haunted. Where this fact has frightened other renters, Lucy is fascinated.
![TITLE: GHOST AND MRS MUIR, THE ¥ PERS: TIERNEY, GENE ¥ YEAR: 1942 ¥ DIR: MANKIEWICZ, JOSEPH L. ¥ REF: GHO001AH ¥ CREDIT: [ THE KOBAL COLLECTION / 20TH CENTURY FOX ]](https://i0.wp.com/smartbitchestrashybooks.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/GhostMrsMuir-portrait.jpg?ssl=1)
And what’s not to fascinate? The “cottage,” actually quite a house, was built by Captain Daniel Gregg. Local lore has it that he haunts it because he committed suicide. Once acquainted, the Captain quickly dispels Lucy of this myth. His death had been an accident. He had meant to leave the house in his will for the use of retired seamen such as himself, but due to the quick and unexpected circumstances of his demise, a cousin in South America inherited instead.
Money is always an issue and Lucy dwells on the rim of poverty once her in-laws delightfully inform her that her gold shares are no longer paying a dividend. But she refuses to move back in with them and they exit the plot.
Throughout, we watch a gentle affection bordering on love grow between Lucy (or Lucia as the Captain insists upon) and Daniel. Her loneliness abates and we watch him care for her, tucking blankets around her while she sleeps, and opening the window so fresh air will ensure that she doesn’t die due to fumes from the gas heater as he did.
When finances become desperate, the Captain suggests she write his memoirs, Blood and Swash. Keeping his name out of it (“The Story As Told To…”), she takes the book to a sea-friendly publisher and it becomes a scandalous bestseller. The income allows her to buy the house and will it to retired seamen. All should be well at this point, but…
Lucy’s money may be secure but her heart is in danger. Through her publisher, she meets Miles Fairley, portrayed by George Sanders, an author of children’s books. She falls rapidly under his overly solicitous spell. The Captain does not approve of him, but he loves her too much to stay around and confuse her. He won’t stand in her way of being happy, of having a real life. He quite dramatically (and literally) fades away while he watches her sleep, disappearing from his Lucia’s life, whispering to her that he was but a dream.
Alas, Miles is a cad, a very married-with-children cad. Once Lucy finds out the Awful Truth, she is lonelier than she has ever been and without the benefit of knowing why.
Years pass as the ocean beats on the shore. Anna grows up. Lucy and Martha grow old. At Lucy’s death, Daniel reappears and she, as a young, beautiful woman, rises to meet him. They walk hand and hand away from Gull Cottage.
Be still my heart. Love has conquered all. Sigh.
Recently, I decided to read the 1945 book. Luckily, Vintage Books has done us the favor of reissuing it as part of its Vintage Movie Classics series. Even better, Turner Classic Movies featured Gene Tierney movies recently on a Saturday (and GMM as part of its Essentials viewing) so I was able to renew my acquaintance just as I finished the book.
First things first. R. A. Dick was a pseudonym for Josephine Aimee Campbell Leslie (1898-1979), an Irish author, who must have thought, as have women writers before and since, that the best route to publishing was through a pair of initials hinting at masculinity. A recent article on Jezebel highlights that this hasn’t changed.
I liked Josephine’s voice. Really. She’d describe things for a paragraph, give you the sense of it, then on with the story.
The clouds were indeed rolling away, leaving a pale golden sky in the west. The sun’s rays slanting down made a shimmering curtain of the drops still dripping from the sodden thatched eaves of the cottage. On the beach below the sea was coming in with crested green waves, curving over like powerful steel springs before they shattered themselves in a flurry of white, swirling froth, that sucked and dragged at the grey pebbles, rattling the loose stones back into the hidden engine of the seas
Of course, to translate a book to the screen, things have to be rearranged. In the book, Lucy has a son and a daughter. For the movie, exit Cyril, the prig of a son, leaving only a young Natalie Wood as Anna. Eva, her sister-in-law, never really goes away in the book, continuing to pop up and annoy Lucy at all the wrong moments. Also, in the book, Martha goes home after they move in, leaving Lucy to her own devices and the Captain’s dubious help and advice, and doesn’t show back up until the end when the children are grown and each—for their own reasons — wants her to live with them.
The movie moves the selfish cad Miles Fairley (Miles Blane in the book) from a fling at home before Blood and Swash is written to a fling after it’s finished. Here, I like the movie version better. Lucy is still devastated, but it made more sense that he’d meet her through the publisher rather than find her along the cliffs. That said, I found her heartbreak in the book more wrenching than in the movie.
The book concentrates more on the relationship between Daniel and Lucy and less on the writing of his book, which doesn’t even make an appearance until near the end. Daniel never really leaves Lucy. As she ages, they bicker like an old married couple. As to the Captain’s advice, here’s a prime piece of it as he is “consoling” her on the loss of Miles.
“…Like most women you are riddled with the missionary instinct, that always seeks to change a man’s nature and make it a little higher than the angels; whereas a man knows he can’t remake any woman, and if his wife doesn’t suit him, he accepts her as she is or goes out and finds another—”
But the biggest change from book to movie is that Lucy only hears Captain Gregg in the book. She never sees him except for his portrait which dominates any room she moves it to. Of course, if they’d kept him voice-only, poor Rex would have been out a role and, in his Captain’s uniform, he certainly adds a bit of swash to the screen. And vibrancy to Lucy’s (and the female audience’s) blood.
I’m glad I read the book. It in no way diminished my love for the movie, which is now recorded on my DVR along with the 1944 Gene Tierney movie Laura. (Cue a moment-in-time apartment and clothes.) Laura is adapted from a book written by a woman under her own name, Vera Caspary. And, I’m happy to say, available for my Kindle.
This Guest Squee comes from Kay Sisk, an author and blogger. Her latest book is One Year Past Perfect, and she has a six book series about the love lives and redemption of a rock band. She also put the first book of my rock band series, T’s Trial, for free on Kindle.
Thanks, Kay. The movie has always been a favorite of mine, glad to see another aficianado. Plus, your description of the Saturday afternoon, b/w, independent channel section totally describes how I found the film. I did not know there was a book, so now I have to go buy it!
Thank you, Kay – I had no idea there was a book! I remember the 1960s TV show (which was a comedy), then found the movie (and discovered Gene Tierney).
Love, love, love this movie. You get an amazing romance between a couple who cannot touch one another. And I’d add one major element to your review: the magnificence of the Bernard Herrmann score. It sells the romance and heartbreak that Lucy cannot mention in an unforgettable way. And Rex Harrison was never sexier. His farewell to a woman who’s basically ordinary but to him is extraordinary gets me every time.
In an effort to save her own sanity, my mother turned me on to this more than 30 years ago. At the time, I was all over My Fair Lady (to the point that I knew both the dialogue and the songs). She was successful. The movie is delightful and I hated when the Captain left her but when he came back for her at the end? *swoon* Great film. One I believe is sadly overlooked. Thanks for this- it reminded me of something I quite enjoyed and haven’t seen in some time. I’ll be remedying that posthaste.
I haven’t read the book, but I would seriously worry about anyone who did not love this movie. Truly romantic.
Loved reading about this because to me The Ghost and Mrs Muir has always represented what romance should be, something pure and tangible and dreamy and impossible and I could waffle forever. I am also am an all-time fan of Gene Tierney. What a beautiful actress she was with those eyes and smile. Between Mrs Muir and Laura she pretty much rocked the screen.
Fabulous website!
Ah, yes, The 3:30 Movie, Saturday Afternoon Classics and, of course, Family Classic with Fraser Thomas. Okay, so Saturday Afternoon Classics were usually some form of 50’s horror movie, but still so much better than the various lowest common denominators filling out screens with their low end morals and worse manners that passes for local programming now.
Like Kay I had a TMC re-encounter with The Ghost & Mrs. Muir as well. I love everything about it. The writing the soundtrack the way it interplayed with the lighting and set to create atmosphere. And the scene were he fades form her life? Why don’t I own stock in Kleenex? WHY? More that 40 years since the first time I saw it and I still weep like a baby.
I have loved the book and the movie for years. I can’t remember the order in which I watched them, but I was enchanted by both.
I love this movie. Gene Tierney’s husband Oleg Cassini (a couple of decades before gaining fame for dressing Jackie Kennedy) designed the costumes for her. My only quibble is that wouldn’t “Lucia” have been better off and less lonely all those years if the Captain had stuck around? Even an incorporeal soulmate is better than none at all.
My mother introduced me to the film. I recall her tell me a great aunt looked like Gene Tierney. I spent much of the movie thinking, “I wish I’d inherited those drop dead gorgeous genes.” Thanks for reminding me — think I might rewatch this soon!
This movie made me ugly cry in college.
Gene Tierney was so gorgeous! Laura is one of my favorite book/movie pairs. I’ve had a paperback copy for years, which has become worn from rereading. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a few errors in the ebook version – mostly minor, but at least one where, if you didn’t know that something was left out, the paragraph either doesn’t make sense or the reader won’t know what the narrator is describing. It is only $1.99 now (down from $8-$11), and the story is so good that I recommend it even with the few errors.
Thank you for awakening all the lovely memories.(sniff, sob, sigh…)
I went through a phase where I actively sought out stories like this. I have always been vastly disappointed that there is no movie version of Elswyth Thane’s “Tryst”.
I am also a huge Gene Tierney fan–“Laura” is one of my favorite movies and Many years ago I found a hardback of the book(it’s on my keeper shelf).
Another Gene Tierney fan……Laura is an unforgettable film and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is lovely. I would recommend Greer Garson too. Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest are wonderful films.
Thanks for the review!
Oh yes, this was great, even though I am not a huge Rex Harrison fan. And the black-and-white cinematography is so beautiful, we’ve lost something there with digital. For more in this genre, I recommend “I Know Where I’m Going”(heroine dumps her wealthy industrialist fiance for a poor Scottish laird), and it also takes place by the sea.
This movie, An Affair to Remember, and Waterloo Bridge are, I’m pretty sure, the only movies that made me cry actual, roll-down-my-face, think-I-need-a-tissue tears. I’m getting teary now just thinking about it!
Oh dear! My mother, who just passed away, loved The Ghost and Mrs Muir and I Know Where I’m Going. I’m not a huge Rex Harrison fan, but I always thought Gene Tierney was exquisite and I adore George Sanders – such a lovely villain with a voice that would melt bricks. And you mentioned a couple of my other favourite weepers: Random Harvest and Waterloo Bridge.
This is one of my favorite B&W romance movies. I also love Enchanted Cottage (1945)with Robert Young and Dorothy McGuire and Random Harvest (1942) with the luminous Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman. Coleman doesn’t do it for me but I could watch GG do her thing. Marvelous tear provoking stuff!
The forties was full of lovely romantic movies. I think it was cause they were doing so many films that they could do a lot of romantic books to movies that aimed for a mostly female audience. Now it seems they’re aiming films for young males who want things to blow up every five minutes and need to have more than 1/2 the world to pay to see it to make money.
Thanks to all for the great comments. I’m reading Laura now and can’t help but picture the actors in the book’s roles. I, too, love Enchanted Cottage and now I have others to look for, Random Harvest and Waterloo Bridge. I’ve seen all the iterations of An Affair to Remember, but Deborah and Cary are still my favorite.
Another Gene Tierney fan here. To see a different side to her from Laura and Ghost and Mrs Muir, I’d suggest Leave Her to Heaven, she received a Best Actress nomination for this role.
I will add Portrait of Jenny to the list of old B&W very romantic films. I love that one and the book it’s based on. I also agree with <b<Barb in Maryland Tryst by Elsweth Thane should have been made into a movie. It breaks my heart every time.
My two favorite ultra-romantic movies (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and I Know Where I’m Going) have already been mentioned (as with many other posters, the scene where the Captain says goodbye to “Lucia” absolutely makes me sob heaving sobs every single time – and I’ve probably seen it 15 times). One more should be mentioned – Roman Holiday. A genuinely wonderful, touching romantic comedy, with an absolutely perfect, bittersweet ending. Another one that leaves me teary-eyed.
My first acquaintance with The Ghost and Mrs Muir was as a radio play many many years ago (pre television) and even without pictures, it was wonderful.
I know where I’m going….love it!!! Just saw Ghost again this weekend. Enchanted Cottage love it! newer movies just don’t do it for me. Goodbye Mr. Chips and of course Casablanca.
I LOVED the TV series as a kid. I didn’t see the movie until much later but loved it too. Thanks for bringing back good memories. (And yes, to Enchanted Cottage too!)
I love this movie. I don’t remember the first time I saw this but it has always been a favorite of mine. Rex Harrison (sigh) is wonderful. He was why I watched the movie. Why I still do. I didn’t know there was a book. I must read. Gene Tierney was a great actor. She did a beautiful job in this movie.
Adore this movie, and have it on DVD and the book now. It helps that I’m a totally tragic George Sanders fan.
Also, it seems someone’s done a Harry Potter fanfic of it… The Ghost and Mrs Weasley.
OK, it was me…
I love LOVE this film! I’m a complete sucker for older movies and this one is such a classic. I love the pacing of it,the aesthetic òf the set and costumes and I bawl like a leaky faucet when the captain comes back for her
Thank you or sharing…this movie is one of my favorites and have not seen it in years. It’s time to watch this movie again and read this book.
I’ve never seen it/read it but now i HAVE TO! It may redeem Rex Harrison for me. I didn’t like the male character in My Fair Lady at all. At. All.
I just finished reading Laura and will now watch the movie. Again. The book I read was published by The Feminist Press and had a wonderful look at author Vera Caspary’s life and work at the end. Plus, TCM ran the 1931 Waterloo Bridge a few nights ago and it is now on the DVR. Fun movie watching ahead!
Kay Sisk just sent me down the rabbit hole looking at Vera Caspary’s books.
I adore this movie, I love Gene Tierney, she is one of my favorite actresses. She is so, so beautiful-it almost hurts to look at her.
Someone up thread mentioned Leave Her to Heaven, one of my all time favorite movies. She is amazing in it! Also The Razor’s Edge is wonderful, she gives a great performance.
Many have mentioned I Know Where I’m Going-I discovered this movie about 4 years ago, and it is top of my list of most romantic movies ever. The scene at the Ceilidh? Where she is on the ladder and he has his arms on either side of her?? I swoon…
Absolutely adore The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (and now I’m going to read the book — thanks so much for advising me that it exists!), and second the recommendation of Random Harvest. My mother adored Random Harvest so much that in the old days, before VHS and DVDs, when you had to watch movies only when the television stations chose to air them, she would get up at 2 in the morning if that movie was playing. A five handkerchief movie indeed.
My one quibble with the end of the Ghost and Mrs. Muir is that I wanted him to kiss her before they walked out, but it’s a small quibble indeed.
Thanks to the Bitchery for re-running this. I could sit down and watch it again (and again).
If I might have a moment of indulgence, since this first appeared, I have published two other books, A Suite Deal and King of Paradise, both available in ebook format. Also, this month, I’m doing an Amazon Giveaway (enter for a chance to win) for C’s Comeuppance, the second of the rock star series.
Wow. I haven’t thought of that movie in years, but reading your review instantly brought back how much I adored it. I used to watch it in my grandmother’s living room on her old black and white set, but I know at some time I tracked down a copy (maybe VHS?) and made my young daughters watch it, but that was probably 10 -15 years ago. Thinking about the book I’m writing now, I realize the movie probably imprinted on me far more than I ever realized, because it, movies like “Somewhere in Time,” and books by Anya Seton set me well on the path to believing that true love means never having to say good-bye.
Basically the only thing I liked Sexy Rexy Harrison in. He can come off as a bit of an asshole, although one with great comic timing, in his portrayal of Henry Higgins of My Fair Lady, and I get the feeling he could be like that in real life. And speaking of movies, you all must watch Pygmalion which has Leslie Howard, of Ashley Wilkes fame, and Wendy Hiller, who should be better known, as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. I loved it, and could totally see them together in this version–I hope that’s not a spoiler. And I couldn’t agree more about
random Harvest. I think I suggested it when you all were taking romantic movie suggestions for your movie matinee series.
By the way, Sexy Rexy is not a name I can take credit for making up. It was given to him by the media because of all the affairs and marriages he had. I don’t think he was a fan of it. Fun to say though, if a bit silly.
Stefanie Magura you are abslolutey riht about Wendy Hillier being not well known enough, she was a brilliant actor. I think Rex Harrison was probably best when he did things like Dr Dolittle, mostly interacting with animals!
I haven’t seen the film or read the book, but loved the series which I saw some of when in the US as a child during 68/69. I don’t think it got broadcast in the UK, or if it did I never found it and haven’t met anyone else whose ever heard of it, s it’s lovely to read this.
I loved Wendy Hiller in “I Know Where I’m Going”! Another great romantic British movie.