The Comfort of Loneliness

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) spoke to my healing heart. Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) has survived nearly a year of widowhood. She has decided to leave the home of her in-laws, which includes her mother-in-law (Isobel Elsom) and her maiden sister-in-law Eva (Victoria Horne), to take her daughter Anna (Natalie Wood [child], Vanessa Brown [adult]) and her maid Martha (Edna Best) to a home by the sea. Her sister-in-law treats this as a personal insult, insisting that Lucy has barely let her husband grow cold in the grave, and how could she possibly take her daughter and the maid! I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous than a woman being told she shouldn’t take her own child, or the maid that came into the house with her when she married, but I digress. Lucy has a small amount of money that she can live on monthly and she packs up her family and goes to Whitecliff-by-the-sea to rent a home.

When she arrives to look at homes she speaks to Mr. Coombe (Robert Coote) who has a selection of houses for her to consider. After seeing one house she feels like the home is calling to her, Gull Cottage. She quickly learns that the house is haunted by the former owner Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). Feeling that she is supposed to live in that house, and unable to argue with the pricing, she insists on renting it. I refuse to give away anything more about this movie and insist you all watch it for yourselves.

This movie is following this woman, only one year out of mourning as she raises her daughter in a new home. She faces struggles, and questions her choices, and wonders if she should pursue jobs or relationships. A concept that becomes clear around the halfway mark of the movie is she is ok with loneliness if it means she will not be used. After my divorce, when the truth came to light of all I didn’t know about the man I had married, I did wonder if it was better to live alone forever rather than put myself in a position where I may not be able to leave. If it had not been for many friends gathering around me, I doubt I would be alive today.

“It’s hard to explain. You can be much more alone with other people then you are by yourself. Even with people you love.” 1:35:25-1:35:34 Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) (The Ghost and Mrs. Muir 1947, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

Unless you’ve lived through that kind of loss, I doubt you can understand the fullness of that quote. It is a pain that if you know, you know. It remains indescribable, and constantly present, even through my current happiness.

I do want to talk about another character in the film, Miles Fairley (George Sanders). This man definitely leads to some of the choices that Lucy makes later in the film about living alone. From the moment I saw that man come on screen I thought, “Oh, that snake. What does he want?” With the roles of Shere Khan the Tiger (The Jungle Book 1967), Mr. Freeze (Batman the TV Series 1966-1968), and Thomas Ayerton (In Search of the Castaways 1962) to his name I do feel he got typecast at some point (I hope). Once I saw him I felt certain that things would fall a certain way and I am sad to say that they did. This movie follows Lucy all the way to the grave and was a pure joy to watch. I do not think it quite worth the $15 Amazon is asking for it but I am willing to donate to The Internet Archive in order to watch it. This movie gets 3.5 stars from me for its predictability but delightful story.