L'aventure de Madame Muir

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was a very original story; The authoress, Josephine Aimee Leslie Campbell was the daughter of a sea captain. The study of the two main characters is very interesting; you have a rather gruff sea captain, who has led a man's life and is proud of it. He makes no excuses for himself; he is a man who takes responsibility for his actions. He is an honest man. Marriage is not for him- although he has two demanding mistresses; his ship and the sea. Mrs. Muir is a true product of her time; she has done what society expects of her; she has married, and bore a child. Her husband is a respected man. She has fulfilled her obligation. We see that Mrs. Muir is more than an average fin de siecle woman. She is deeper; we can see from her brief description of the late Mr. Muir that he was mediocre. From here the love story begins; we see the mutual respect and admiration that Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir have for eachother.The love is pure and true,on a higher plane; not hindered or comprimised by sexual intimacy.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a love story that like its characters transcends time.

Delightful is the best word I can think of to describe The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It's got everything - drama, comedy, romance, fantasy, good acting, solid direction, interesting cinematography, a beautiful score, atmosphere, nice sets, and a well-written script. It's taken me a while to finally get around to watching The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. From what some friends of mine (whose opinions I am now highly suspicious of) warned me that it was a sappy, sentimental movie and not my kind of thing at all. They couldn't have been more wrong. In short, it's very nearly a prefect movie.

While I could write pages about most every aspect of this film, I'll instead just mention a couple of areas that really stood out to me. First, the acting. Over the past couple of years I've become something of a Gene Tierney fan. I've still got a way to go see all of her films, but I sincerely doubt I'll enjoy her performance in anything as much as I did The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (and that includes Laura). I can't imagine anyone doing a better job of bringing life to Lucy Muir. It was easy to forget I was watching a character on a screen and not peeping into the life of a real person. Well done.

The second area I'll mention is the score. Bernard Herrmann's music fits every frame of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir flawlessly. The music adds immensely to the emotional roller coaster that is the plot. There are very few scores I would rate any higher than this one.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz was the right choice for directing this film. He created a film that survived the passage of time. The R. A. Dick's novel was adapted by Philip Dunne. "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" is blessed with one of Bernard Herrmann's best film scores. The music greatly enhances what one is watching on the screen. Charles Lang's cinematography gives the illusion we are somewhere on a remote spot of England, when in reality the film was shot in California!

"The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" gave its star, Gene Tierney, one of the best roles of her career, after "Laura". Ms. Tierney had the fragility to portray Lucy Muir, the plucky young widow that decides to move to the coast against her in-laws wishes. The idea of the film plays well as it unfolds because obviously, it's all in Mrs. Muir's mind all what she is experiencing.

Rex Harrison's Capt. Daniel Gregg was also one of his best opportunities as a leading man in the movies. Mr. Harrison is perfect as the crusty old seaman that refuses to abandon his beloved home overlooking a beautiful view of the sea. Mr. Harrison plays well opposite Ms. Tierney; their chemistry works well because it combines his rugged good looks and her beauty.

The supporting players are good under Mr. Mankiewicz' direction. George Sanders, Edna Best, Natalie Wood, Robert Coote, Vanessa Brown, all give good performances and enhance the film.

This film will always be a favorite for fans, young and old.

Lucy Muir, a widow of one year, decides to start life anew, with daughter and faithful housekeeper, in a cottage by the sea, despite the warnings by the real estate salesman that the house is haunted by the ghost of its former owner, a seaman, Capt. Gregg. After Mrs. Muir encounters the ghost, the two strike an eerie, yet deep relationship, which grows even more when Lucy, forced to earn the money for payment of the cottage, writes a book about the captain's sea encounters. When Lucy sells the manuscript, she meets and falls for a fellow writer, a relationship, which does not sit well with the housekeeper, the daughter, and especially the captain. Will Capt. Gregg have to roam again to find eternal happiness? A beautiful film from all standpoints, with brilliant performances by Tierney and Harrison, who play extremely well off each other with tender, humorous, and bickering encounters, and Sanders, who is as usual, his charming self. A touching and romantic ending set this film off as one of the all time great cinematic love stories. Rating, 9 of 10.

After her husband dies, Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) decides to move away from London to a small seaside resort. She has to persuade the real estate agent, Mr. Coombe (Robert Coote), to show her the home that sounds most attractive to her--Gull Cottage. At first she can't figure out why he's so reluctant to pursue the home with her, but while she's looking at the "cottage", she experiences an apparent haunting. Both she and Mr. Coombe go running out of the house. To Mr. Coombe's surprise, Lucy decides to rent the Gull Cottage anyway.

Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz' The Ghost and Mrs. Muir combines a number of genres in an unusual way, gently poking fun at the conventions of each as they arrive in turn. The film begins as if it will be a somewhat traditional 1940s horror story. The setting is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) and Lewis Allen's The Uninvited (1944). Mrs. Muir's first visit to the home has classic understated "eerie" moments, with Mrs. Muir dressed in a creepy, Gothic black veil, coat and dress (ostensibly, she's still in mourning).

Shortly after, the film quickly moves into more comic territory. A more straightforward dramatic section follows, then romance, back to drama, and finally it ends as a fantasy film. That might sound like a bit of a mess, but Mankiewicz easily unifies the proceedings so that the genre tour is really only apparent on analysis. In a book about the film by Frieda Grafe, published by the British Film Institute, Mankiewicz is quoted as saying that he considered the film to be "hack work", and that his intention was primarily to show the studio that he was capable of delivering efficient craftsmanship. While a quick glance at my rating confirms that I wouldn't denigrate the film as "hack work", the genre parade is interesting in light of Mankiewicz' stated intent.

A central theme throughout The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, directly hinted at a number of times by dialogue about progressivist attitudes in the twentieth century, is that of gender roles. The theme is most overtly realized when Mrs. Muir pens a salty seafaring book and takes it to a publisher. She is dismissed at first with an assumption that she must be presenting shallow, sappy "women's literature", but is quickly published once Mr. Sproule (Whitford Kane) realizes the novelty of the book. Of course, he assumes that she must have been shopping it for her husband, or some other gentleman friend.

The theme is worked throughout the film in countless more subtextual ways, also, and leads to an interesting interpretation of the bulk of the film--is Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison) real? Or is he a figment of Lucy and her daughter's imaginations? There is a strong suggestion that he was just imaginary, sparked in Lucy's mind by his portrait, the house, and the maritime décor still present. Literally, the film suggests at one point that Lucy and her daughter are fooling themselves into believing he was imaginary, but it could be read as a double cross (or a double negation)--we are fooled into believing that they're just fooling themselves, and the reality is that Captain Gregg is a catalyst for allowing the gender role changes exhibited by Lucy and her daughter, who even basically asks her boyfriend to marry her, rather than the other way around.

At any rate, real or not, Captain Gregg is an enjoyable character in an enjoyable, lightly comic film that pleasantly mixes a variety of genres. Fans of the film should be aware that it was based on a novel by R.A. Dick, and spawned a television sitcom with the same title that first aired in the U.S. in 1968 and ran for 50 episodes.