Ghost & Mrs. Muir, the

Gene Tierney gives a tender performance as the widow, Lucy Muir, who decides to leave the home of her stifling, controlling in-laws to make a new life for herself and her young daughter Anna (Natalie Wood). She chooses a seaside cottage, although she is warned not to take it, and when she visits the residence she finds out why she has been cautioned - the place is haunted by a grumpy sea captain, Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), who very much wants things his own way. Despite her delicate femininity, Lucy refuses to let Gregg intimidate her, and moves in. Their relationship, at first a bickering one, becomes one of mutual interest and it blossoms as Lucy (whom Gregg christens Luchia) finds that she is bankrupt and can't afford the house, so helps her write a novel based on his seafaring adventures. As they fall in love, it becomes very complicated, as he is a ghost and she is among the living, and when George Sanders' untrustworthy rake comes into Lucy's life, Gregg makes the painful decision to leave and tells Lucy as she slumbers that it was all a dream - she wrote the book, she dreamed him up, although there is regret as he takes one last longing look at her. Lucy resumes her life, having completely forgotten about Daniel, only to discover that her flesh and blood suitor has a wife and children, and Anna Lee shines brightly in her small role of Sanders' long-suffering but understanding wife.

As time passes, Lucy every now and then has a tinge of remembrance, but it's not until her now grown daughter (played by Vanessa Brown) comes home for a visit and talks of a handsome sea captain who engaged her in conversation when she was a little girl . . . . . . . .

Although she again dismisses it as a dream, Lucy appears to be serenely at peace, and time passes and she becomes elderly, she dies in her sleep in her favorite chair, only to be greeted by Daniel, who extends his hand to her, and her young and vibrant spirit exits the cottage with him . . . . .

I can't think of a lovelier ending for this movie, or a better revelation that young Anna also made Gregg's acquaintance. Bernard Herrman's score, somewhat echoing some of his work for Hitchcock, fits the story beautifully. You can't help but love Daniel's references to his monkey puzzle tree, and the sense of humor when he advises Lucy to tell her in-laws to "shove off!". Everything in the film echoes the influence of the ocean and its romantic associations - even the surname of "Muir" is symbolic, since translated from Gaelic it means the sea. I don't think that was a coincidence, and the fact that Gene Tierney was of Irish descent makes this film all the more perfect . . . . . . . . .

Into the sea of love divine, where it is no longer a dream . . . . . .

I had an interesting experience with this film. I was cajoled into holding a movie night at my home for a church youth group. I agreed on the condition that I would get to choose the movie. The moans and groans were audible when I announced that the evening fare would be The Ghost and Mrs. Muir starring Rex Harrison and Gene Tierny.

After just ten minutes into the film the snide remarks ceased and you could have heard a pin drop so intent were the young guests upon the movie. And, no, they were not asleep. After the film ended I asked them how they liked it. One sixteen-year-old young man, an avid movie buff in his own right, said that he loved the film. I asked whether he liked it as well as Titanic, then very popular at the theaters. To my absolute surprise he said that he thought that the Ghost and Mrs. Muir was as good as Titanic.

You will never think of Rex Harrison in the same way again. Harrison's Captain Daniel Gregg is, as his character says in the film, "a man's man." His chemistry with Gene Tierny, as Mrs. Lucy Muir, is absolutely charming. A young Natalie Woods and George Sanders (you'll will remember him as the voice of the tiger in Disney's original Jungle Book) round out the cast.

If you haven't seen this film, in the words of Captain Gregg "Oh, what you've missed."