Smear On Your Own Varnish: The Romance of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
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By Trevor Ruth
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a drama from 1947 that has—since its release—been largely forgotten, though it is without a doubt one of the most jarringly lovely films to deconstruct its genre, especially given that the film is nearly seventy-five years old. It was directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, who would later go on to direct more impressionable films like All About Eve (1950) and Cleopatra (1963), and stars Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney as the two titular leads. The film follows Lucy Muir, a recent widower from London who decides to move from the city to a secluded home off the Gulf of Whitecliff with her daughter, before befriending the cottage’s (I use the term cottage loosely, the house is huge) previous tenant; the apparition of a deceased seaman (not a sailor, mind you) by the name of Daniel Gregg. Unlike the ghost stories of its era, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is not a gothic film, nor is it a product of early expressionism; but instead, it is a romance that chronicles the exoneration of a woman from the dejection of her solitude. In many ways, it is for this reason that the film is so timeless, even with its simplistic approach to filmmaking.
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Let’s just get this out of the way: the meat of the film rests within its lead performances. The screenplay by Philip Dunne, based on the novel of the same name by Josephine Leslie, is brilliantly verbose but it’s the actors who pull off this quasi-romance well. Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison have an electric chemistry that begins with mild chastising and grows into an intimate, though purely platonic, relationship (or so I like to believe). There’s nothing scary about Daniel and the film is quite aware of this. The first time we experience him is when Lucy and the realtor go to visit the cottage and are met with sinister laughing from all around. This is the peak of the film’s terror, if you so wish to call it that; the rest of Daniel’s appearances are subtle and sometimes hint at being eerie, but his voice and demeanor are much too normal for the audience to find scary. Besides, Daniel is funny. When he finally shows up, he simply appears in human form with a surly, clear-headed attitude. Harrison does well to offset Tierney’s prudish, yet inquisitive spirit with his own sophisticated sense of boisterousness. Throughout the film, Lucy is always looking for the romance in things: a haunted cottage on the edge of the sea only interests her in its historical resonance, just as Daniel’s seaman history steals her heart as well. Perhaps this is in part of her recent widowhood: “I feel so useless. Here I am, nearly halfway through life, and what have I done?” Now that she is without a husband, her loyalty and drive are redirected: there’s this inclination that she leaves London with the notion of overcoming the grief of her dead husband, however Mr. Muir is never really mentioned in the film and the relationship between Lucy and her daughter, while perfectly serviceable, is pretty shallow. Instead, we get Martha—a humorous servant for Lucy to consult every once in a while—and Lucy’s sister and mother-in-law, who are quickly disposed of once they come to inform Lucy of her dwindling income. To amend this latter predicament, Daniel suggests that Lucy write a novel based on his experiences as a seaman, which she might use to pay off the house (if only it were that easy today). Lucy goes along with it, though whether she goes along with it because it is financially viable or because she finds a sense of accomplishment from having a story to tell is up to the viewer, I believe. For the longest time, a part of me wondered if Daniel was simply a figment of Lucy’s imagination; perhaps a recollection of her past husband that she carries with her through the grieving process and uses to give her a sense of belonging, to give a sense of direction. However, the history of Daniel is known by the realtor who sells Lucy the cottage and people are able to hear Daniel speak, so I guess he has to be real.
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Once Daniel’s story is finished and Lucy sells the manuscript to a London publisher, she is approached by the foppish Miles Fairley (played by George Sanders); a children’s author who goes by the name of Uncle Neddy. Miles arranges a couple of run-ins with Lucy, desperately attempting to swoon her, though in rather questionable fashion; if a man that I had met once, in the city, found his way back to the coastal domain of my current dwelling and painted a picture of me on the beach, from afar, I would ask questions. Apparently, however, Lucy finds this charming. I look at Lucy’s journey through this film with a much more dependent sense of reproach than one might afford: the more a man asserts himself in her life, the more she is likely to connect with that man. Upon moving into the cottage, she moves Daniel’s portrait into her bedroom, as if to consistently keep him a part of her life; to a point of sharing her most intimate space with him. Whenever she spends time with the realtor, she is questioned by Daniel as to what draws her to him and she declines to answer. When she falls for the charm of Miles, her only real argument is that Miles is actually there: he is a living person whereas Daniel—should you accept his and Lucy’s relationship as a romantic one—is dead. Obviously it doesn’t quite make sense for Lucy to fall in love with a ghost, though I saw their relationship as more like intimate friends than anything else. After much contemplation, Daniel understands Lucy’s attraction towards Miles and decides to leave her so that she might live a happy life with a man that she can call her own; a man that she can physically be with and that she feels a sentimental connection towards. Too bad Miles is a cheating son of a bitch. Oh yeah, he’s been courting Lucy this entire time but fails to mention that he’s already married and has children of his own. Also, he apparently does it quite often, as his wife confesses to Lucy that she isn’t the first to fall for his spell of infidelity, by any stretch of the imagination. Clearly heartbroken, Lucy lives the rest of her life as a recluse, steering clear from lovers and enjoying the life that she gets to share with her daughter and Martha. As time goes on, Lucy enjoys her life of solitude in her lavish, oceanside home and peacefully passes away in the night, only to be escorted into the ethereal realm beyond her front door by Daniel; her friend and truest love. It almost makes me wonder why she didn’t see Mr. Muir once she died, but who cares at this point?
The filmmaking is deceptive in its simplicity: symbols such as Lucy switching out the portrait of Daniel for Miles’ painting of her—and vice versa—are obvious in their inference, however subtler image such as the driftwood on the beach marking the passage of time is clever and the set design draws on a kind of illustrated realism akin to a Victorian novel. The film takes place in England but was largely shot in Monterey and parts of Southern California, giving it a warmer, natural feel that offsets the dreary nature of a typical England coastline. This benefits the film immensely given that it is, above everything else, a romance. One that does not try to bend the rules of cinema to a point of experimentality but, instead, utilizes it to impress a sense of comfort and simplicity for the audience; a comfort that comes from one’s sense of self-preservation. There are a few impressive camera moves in the film but otherwise, the cinematography is quite simple: the close-ups on Daniel and Lucy give a warm, intimate feel to their interactions and the editing by Dorothy Spencer is top notch. Bernard Hermann’s score is also soft and evocative; at times memorable, but mostly nostalgic. As much as the audience sympathizes with Lucy and her loss, there comes a point where that sympathy devolves into complacency. Throughout the film, it seems as if Lucy has to serve some greater purpose, something beyond herself, but the story asserts that her existence is enough, that she alone is capable of her own sense of affirmation. Surely Daniel is a facilitator of her growth as a character, but she makes the decision to live her life on her own: “You can be much more alone with other people than you are by yourself, even if it’s people you love. That sounds all mixed up, doesn’t it?” Indeed it does. However, it is through this understanding that Lucy ultimately wins the love that she deserves with her eventual passing and her return to Daniel. Her life of solitude gives way to an afterlife with a soul who understands her as much as she understands herself. In other words, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir reminds us that the most important person that we have to look forward to in our life on this planet is our own, and though we might choose a life of solitude, we are never truly alone.
Trevor Ruth is a writer from Livermore, California, whose work has previously appeared in Occam’s Razor, The Southampton Review, and other literary journals. He writes fiction and poetry that utilizes slipstream to subvert genre ideals, as well as critical essays on film and art.