Have I watched this before? I have vague memories of The Ghost And Mrs. Muir. The book was written in 1945 and this film version was released in 1947. The story would be then turned into a television sitcom in the late 60s. Widow Mrs. Muir (Gene Tierny) moves away from her ex-in-laws and finds herself in a new small town on the coast. The house she has rented is haunted by Captain Gregg (Rex Harrison) and their relationship is the focus of the story – as you might expect from the title.
A few other names that appear in the film include a young Natalie Wood, Edna Best, and George Sanders (the voice of Shere Kahn in Disney’s The Jungle Book). This isn’t the most taxing of acting jobs for all involved, but they all do a solid job. The story itself is fun enough and were it not for the actors it all could have easily gone downhill quickly. Alright, so Rex Harrison is a bit bombastic as Captain Gregg, but it can be forgiven for the character is a bit of a blowhard.
20th Century Fox has released this film on Blu-ray with two audio commentary tracks. I sampled both and they each seem to have their own focus and merits. There are four different participants and none seem less authoritative than the other. I was surprised to see two audio commentaries, so this is a great treat for fans of the film. In the absence of any other special features, this is a decent offering.
It may not be the first (or second) choice for film fans, but The Ghost And Mrs. Muir is a good film. Part character drama, part unrequited romance, part comedy, the film could easily have fallen apart from a lack of focus but since it was based on a book there’s a definite story here with a good ending. The middle bits are also good and only help to make the ending that much more satisfactory.