Customer Reviews
A nice gentle yarn - By: Mr. Derek R. Osbourne, 23 Nov 2007 
A lovely gentle way to spend the evening. Rex Harrison is marvellous as the ghost with his deep & expressive voice. George Sanders is splendidly caddish with the voice that my 11 year old daughter immediately recognised as Shere Khan. Gene Tierney was very decorative but put into the shade by the other two leads.
The cinematography was lovely & deserved its oscar nomination.
A nice gentle story.
What is life but love? - By: Plug, 26 Aug 2007 
I challlenge anyone to engage fully with this movie & not be moved to tears. Forget George Sanders in his trademark cad role - wonderful though he is. The real heart of this movie is the relationship between Gene Tierney's determined widow & Rex Harrison as the ghostly sea Captain. There's something about this etheral love that simply transcends description & touches the immortal nature of love as a meaning for life. Watch it. Get involved. But keep the tissues to hand.
A beautiful love story - By: Gretchen Ümlaut, 31 Oct 2006 Mrs. Muir has lost her husband & apparently also something else (this is what her mother-in-law thinks), because she wants to move with her daughter & maid into a haunted house, far away from everything. But Mrs. Muir doesn't see it in that way. She feels lonely without her husband & there's something in that old house by the sea, which makes her feel better. She even manages to start a nice little relationship with the ghost of the house... A realtionship that gets deeper & deeper...
Gene Tierney, as lovely as always, is the leading lady & Rex Harrison, with a huge charisma, plays the ghost. Harrison overacts in some scenes but his character is still the funniest one in the flick. George Sanders, who plays Mrs. Muir suitor, is surprisingly good in his role. He is not using his worst manners but does something new.
With Bernard Herrmann's terrific score & Charles Lang's Oscar nominated cinematography this is one of the best movies from 1940's.
Classic 40s film - By: Greg Farefield-Rose, 03 Jul 2006 Classic old film in which a determined young widow & her daughter take up residence in a house which is thought to be haunted. Very soon the ghost appears. An old sea captain, he is surprisingly a benign, calming presence who finds his way into Mrs Muir's affections & helps expose a fraudster who tries to take her hand. The captain then disappears for a generation & is touchingly reunited with Mrs Muir at the end of the film.
Most critics & my wife consider TGAMM to be a charming piece of 40s sentimentality. I found it strangely quite disturbing & frightening but still well worth seeing.
Brilliant. - By: , 03 Dec 2005 The idea that love lives on after death has always appealed to the imaginations of cinema-goers as has been shown, in recent years especiallly, by the success of such movies as Ghost & Truly, Madly, Deeply, but fifty- odd years before these supernatural love stories were released, there was The Ghost & Mrs Muir.
Released in May 1947, & based quite closely on the 1945 book of the same name, The Ghost & Mrs Muir tells the story of Lucy Muir a young widow who decides she's had enough of having her life led for her by other people & sets off to make her own way in the world. Choosing the Cornish coastline as the location in which to begin her new life Lucy rents the charming Gull Cottage claiming the stories of its being haunted to be nonsense. However, when the ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg manifests itself in her kitchen Lucy is forced to start believing in the supernatural and, despite their differences, she & Captain Greg strike up a friendship which eventuallly turns to love.
The Ghost & Mrs Muir is an utterly enchanting film with much of its magic lying in the stunning performances given by its top-notch cast. Rex Harrison's plays the surly & argumentative Captain Gregg whose temper & demeanour softens as his friendship with Lucy grows. Harrison is wonderful as the Captain playing him as a strong masculine figure, a genuine man's man & man of the world, although his seaman's accent is a little over the top at times. Gene Tierney's Lucy Muir is beautiful & headstrong yet gentle & naive; the perfect foil to Harrison's Captain Gregg & the chemistry between the two is a joy to behold. George Sanders, too, is ideallly cast as Lucy's smarmy suitor Miles Fairley.
However, despite their excellent performances, the actors take second place in this film to Charles Lang's gorgeous cinematography which earned him a well deserved Oscar nomination. The views of the foam topped waves crashing against cliffs which marks the passage of time in the film & the shots of the countryside surrounding Gull Cottage are given a moody, eerie beauty by the two colour Technicolor in which The Ghost & Mrs Muir is filmed & it is scene like these which make this film truly special. Together with Bernard Herrmann's haunting score, which echoes the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs, these scenes give the movie a wonderfully atmospheric feel.
The Ghost & Mrs Muir is by turns comic & tragic; comic because of characters like Mr Coombe the superstitious estate agent & tragic because we watch the relationship between the Captain & Lucy grow into something more than friendship, yet alll the while we are aware that nothing can come of their relationship for, as the Captain himself says, he 'is spirit' & the scene in which he leaves his Lucia (his pet name for Lucy) is heartbreakingly poignant. Ultimately, however, The Ghost & Mrs Muir is romantic, though the romance is beautifully understated as the love between the two protagonists is never confessed or confirmed but merely implied through glances & gestures.
Despite it's few minor flaws such as the fact that it does not follow the book on which it is based quite as closely as it could have, Rex Harrison's rather grating accent & the long drawn out sea metaphors sometimes used by the Captain, The Ghost & Mrs Muir is a touching romance, lovingly made, which tells the story of two people perfect for each other who were never given the chance to be together in this world. It is a tale of impossible love, a love which can never be consummated & it is this which makes that final scene alll the more moving & The Ghost & Mrs Muir a true classic.
