On 2010-02-08 bittersweet, witch city salem ma wrote: my heart just sings whenever i get the chance to watch the ´THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR´
a gentle lovely tragic delightfully dark and thoughtful work of art and movie magick*...
the ghost and mrs. muir..1947...london at the turn of century.... ...filmed in a small central california town called carmel by the sea....interestingly enough carmel still retains all of the charm and flavor that we see in our movie setting.
our primary characters are....the angelic faced yet feisty mrs. lucy muir played sweetly yet firmly by a young ms. gene tierney....crusty old sea captain daniel gregg played by crusty elegant abrupt imposing mr. rex harrison and dashing author.... miles fairley played by mr. george sanders (who..incidentally..eventually committed suicide)...a young natalie wood plays the precocious daughter of mrs. muir and lastly...we have lucy´s trusted maid/ companion martha who faithfully takes care of lucy and her daughter throughout the many years
after her husband edwin has been dead for a year..lucy decides to confront his mother and sister eva with news that she is leaving and taking her daughter anna to start a new life and live by the sea
i´ve always loved the dialogue from that scene when lucy says to this disagreeable pair in a calm yet sarcastic tone..´im not leaving him...i´m leaving you´ after that most amusing and strangely satisfying encounter..lucy anna and martha depart on the train in great anticipation of a long overdue new beginning in the coastal seaside town of whitecliff by the sea..
things that draw me so to ´the ghost´ are it´s warm endearing quality and tragic story of a true love that can never be realized in life...as i watch i can definitely pick up on the wonderful use of light and bright and dark shadows and then sometimes a curious grainy quality that helps create the feeling of antiquity...our story is full of wonderment for an era of propriety and values long since abandon...there are dark rainy windy ghostly nights at the cottage...there are peaceful evenings of gentle slumber...there are moments of strange occurrences and tender moments of sweet emotion...ever present is the scene setting music by mr. bernard hermann who creates moods of ominous and threatening all the way to sweet serene lighthearted and airy
our trio arrives in this charming seaside village....poor lucy a feminist way before her time must endure the short-sightedness and bravado of the supremacy of men in virtually all her business dealings... she must be gently forceful and insistent in obtaining gull cottage for her own from her realtor who tries to discourage her every witch way
the moment lucy sets eyes on it...she is drawn to it and will settle for nothing less...´a haunted castle´ lucy smiles and seems to love the idea... i love that reaction myself
soon after moving into gull cottage...mrs. muir becomes fixated with a portrait of the sea rugged captain daniel gregg that hangs on one wall in her bedroom
curiously enough...i don´t seem to find that much appealing about the interior of the captain´s cottage...filmed in black and white doesn´t do a thing to warm the rather austere environment for that of a lady but seems well suited to a rugged old seamen...i imagine... lots of cool hard angles...an abundance of nautical influences as one can imagine...for instance...an imposing brass telescope stands in front of lovely old french doors.
our crusty old sea captain slowly but surely becomes less bitter about his fate...dying...and after careful study of this interloper in his house he finds himself curiously falling in love with this woman and wanting to reveal himself to her more each day...when he finally does so lucy is not the least bit afraid of him...i believe she always knew he was standing right there beside her anyway
there is a sub-plot here as well... lucy retains the services of a small publishing company in the city to take charge of publishing her short stories...at one of the meetings she is introduced to the dashing and debonair miles farley...the attempted love relationship that ensues between these two is most irritating to me and in my opinion grossly interferes with our love story between daniel and lucy!
time passes and lucy and martha both age gracefully while anna reaches adulthood and leaves gull cottage to find a love of her own
in one of the most unforgettable and heart wrenching scenes daniel tells lucy one night as she lie sleeping that she will only remember their love in a dream...he won´t destroy her life by staying...he says to her that he is going away and she must make her own life...´whether you meet fair winds or foul...find your own way to harbor in the end´...and then he gently whispers goodbye and barely touches her lips with a sweet kiss goodbye
years pass and lucy grows old and fragile while martha still tends to her every need
one dark night lucy falls asleep in her chair...in her hand she is still holding the glass of warm milk that martha had ordered her to drink earlier...we see the glass leave her hand and fall to the floor...lucy dies in her sleep at long last...the music grows dramatic and poignant as daniel reappears to finally reunite with his love
as lucy awakens to daniel´s voice...he reaches down to take her hand in his we see lucy as that young girl again as she appeared when she first met the captain so many years earlier...they walk together hand in hand down the imposing circular staircase and as the front door opens wide...they walk out into the bright heavenly light together hand in hand
. And summed up by saying THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. Currently The Ghost and Mrs. Muir has an overall rating of 10 over 10.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir can also be found in the following searches:
Charles Lang claimed A romance between a young widow and a sea captain´s ghost weaves a magical tale of immortal love. Determined to live her life the way she wants, newly widowed Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) declines her straitlaced in-laws demand that she live with them and moves with her daughter (a young Natalie Wood) to the seaside into a cottage haunted by the handsome, blustering Captain Gregg (Rex Harrison). A deal is struck between the two in the wee hours of the morning allowing Lucy to stay in the house and the captain to materalize only in the master bedroom. As they gradually get to know each other better, Lucy´s spunk and stubborness gains first the captain´s grudging respect, then his heart. But when another man woos Lucy, both must face that her future lies with the living, not in the spirit world.
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