Line #17 Film/TheGhostAndMrsMuir


1	%%
2	%% Image selected per Image Pickin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16952524980.78919500
3	%% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.
4	%%
5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghostmuir3.png]]
6
7	->''"You must make your own life amongst the living and, whether you meet fair winds or foul, find your own way to harbor in the end."''
8
9	''The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'' is an American romantic fantasy film released by Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox in 1947, [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted from]] the 1945 novel ''The Ghost of Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir'' by R. A. Dick (the pseudonym of Irish author Josephine Leslie), directed by Creator/JosephLMankiewicz, and starring Creator/RexHarrison and Creator/GeneTierney. It is perhaps most notable for its lush music score, composed by Music/BernardHerrmann.
10
11	Lucy Muir (Tierney), newly widowed, has had it with her domineering in-laws and decides to settle the issue by moving herself, her daughter Anna (Creator/NatalieWood), and her faithful maid Martha (Edna Best) to Whitecliff-by-the-Sea, a small, charming coastal village somewhere in [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] England. Gull Cottage, a beautiful if slightly run-down house on top of the bluffs, is for rent, and the asking price extraordinarily cheap. The agent, however, is none too keen about the idea of someone living in the house, and it is not too long after moving in that Lucy finds out why.
12
13	The late Captain Daniel Gregg (Harrison), the builder and former owner of the house, has not quite gotten around to moving out, despite being... dead. A cantankerous and blustery ghost, his attempts to move Lucy and her family out prove futile and short-lived, as he quickly falls in love with the beautiful widow, and she with him. Their cozy, if unusual, domestic arrangement is threatened when Lucy meets Miles Fairley (Creator/GeorgeSanders), a suave author and veteran charmer. Fairley is interested, Daniel is jealous, and Lucy has a difficult decision to make.
14
15	''The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'' is hard to categorize: part romance, part tragedy, part supernatural fantasy, part drama, part comedy. There's loads of room for AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, but the plot is a permutation on a common story: boy meets girl, and they fall in love.
16
17	The film was loosely adapted into the 1968–70 FantasticComedy TV sitcom ''[[Series/TheGhostAndMrsMuir The Ghost & Mrs. Muir]]'', shifting the setting to contemporary Maine. Edward Mulhare starred as Captain Gregg, with Creator/HopeLange as his mortal love interest (renamed "Carolyn Muir"). Much was made of the comedic hijinks of Captain Gregg's surviving great-nephew, the venal and cowardly Claymore Gregg, played by Creator/CharlesNelsonReilly. Popular character actress Reta Shaw played the part of Martha.
18
19	----
20	!!Tropes used in ''The Ghost and Mrs. Muir'' include:
21
22	* AccidentalSuicide: [[spoiler:Captain Gregg eventually admits that he died by accident when he kicked his gas heater in his sleep, which opened the gas valve and suffocated him.]]
23	* AdaptedOut: In the original book, Lucy has a son as well as a daughter, but she has only a daughter in the movie. [[Series/TheGhostAndMrsMuir The TV series]] brings him back, though.
24	* BeautifulDreamer: Lucy when Daniel [[spoiler:alters her memory.]]
25	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Lucy finally ends up with Daniel, but she had to die first.]]
26	* BoyMeetsGhoul: Inverted. Lucy Muir, the new homeowner, meets Daniel Gregg, the ghost of a Sea Captain.
27	* CulturedBadass: Daniel quotes Keats and is quite eloquent while dictating his memoirs.
28	* CuteButCacophonic: How Lucy sort of ends up under Daniel's influence, especially what with picking up his swearing habits.
29	* DamselInDistress: Subverted. Lucy's not helpless, but Daniel thinks she is.
30	* DeagedInDeath: After the ghost of Captain Gregg moves on and erases Lucy's memory of him, she lives into old age, long enough to see her granddaughter engaged. When she dies and is reunited with Captain Gregg, her spirit appears as it did in her 20s when she first met him.
31	* DeadpanSnarker: Lucy and Daniel fit this trope to a T.
32	* DeadPersonConversation: Basically the entire movie.
33	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Subverted.]] It's commonly believed Daniel killed himself by locking himself in his bedroom with the gas heater on. It turns out [[spoiler: he had fallen asleep, and unconsciously kicked the lever for the gas.]] It's one of the earliest and most passionate points of contention for him.
34	* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: Lucy (though she does still have three freckles). This gives no hint about her character, though, as it was merely the favored beauty-type of TheEdwardianEra and the late 1940s.
35	* FriendToAllChildren: Years after Lucy warned Daniel to stay away from her daughter because she was too young to be haunted, she finds out that he and her daughter used to hang out and chat all the time. Might be why he knew her reading tastes, though he is a ghost and seems privy to all sorts of information nobody told him anyway.
36	%% * Getting Crap Past The Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
37	* HandsomeLech: Miles Fairley. Also turns out to be something of a {{Jerkass}}, considering [[spoiler:he's already married]]. Ironically, after this secret is revealed he comes off as much more pathetic, perhaps a CasanovaWannabe.
38	* HardToLightFire: Mrs. Muir attempts to light a candle, but the ghost keeps blowing out the matches. Her irritated outburst provokes Gregg's manifestation and their first conversation.
39	* HauntedHouse: The house Lucy selects is cheap because Daniel has been frightening away all potential tenants.
40	* HopelessSuitor: Mr. Coombe is clearly getting ideas about marrying Lucy; she's not interested, and Daniel subverts any such intentions by pushing his parked car back down the hill.
41	* InsultBackfire: After Lucy decides to take Hull cottage despite Mr. Coombe trying to warn her away from doing so:
42	-->'''Mr. Coombe''': In my opinion, you are the most obstinate young woman I have ever met!\
43	'''Lucy''': Thank you, Mr. Coombe. I've always wanted to be considered obstinate!
44	* InvisibleToNormals: Daniel is only seen and heard by the people he decides should. This causes some awkwardness when Lucy argues with him in front of her in-laws.
45	* IWillWaitForYou: Subverted. Oh so subverted. [[spoiler:Though Lucy has forgotten Daniel's existence, in her later years she appears to be waiting for him. Then, on her death, he does reappear -- so this may be a rare case of IWillWaitForYou from a man.]]
46	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: When Daniel sees that Lucy is falling in love with Miles Fairley, he's initially jealous but [[spoiler:decides to remove himself by making her forget that he exists, and that the biography she wrote of him really did come from her own imagination, because it's only right that she be with a living man rather than a ghost]].
47	* JacobMarleyApparel: Subverted. Daniel appears as Lucy sees him in the portrait, though that may well have been what he was wearing when he died. [[spoiler:Also Lucy, who dies an old woman in her nightgown and appears thereafter a young woman in one of the dresses of her youth.]]
48	* LadykillerInLove: Daniel mentions three women mourning his death. And then he meets Lucy.
49	%% * LastGirlWins
50	* LoveBeforeFirstSight: Lucy, if one subscribes to her AlternativeCharacterInterpretation.
51	* MentorOccupationalHazard: The mentor's already dead!
52	* MonsterRoommate: A cranky ghost of a sea-captain.
53	* TheMourningAfter: Invoked, averted, subverted.
54	* NeverSuicide: It's a point of honor with Daniel that he didn't kill himself. Not that what actually killed him is more noble.
55	* NoodleIncident: Daniel's memoirs. We don't hear much his actual dictation, just his laughter over it and Lucy's objections over the language he wants to include. (What we do hear is strongly implied to be the loss of his virginity.)
56	* ObnoxiousInLaws: Lucy's mother and sister-in-law. The sister is judgmental and domineering, while her mother-in-law is very much MyBelovedSmother.
57	* OppositesAttract: A prim and mannered widow with a rough (and dead) sea-captain.
58	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Daniel can throw objects, can only be seen or heard by people he chooses, and can use psychic suggestion on sleeping people.
59	* PluckyGirl: Lucy is brave and dogged, in her prim way.
60	* SeadogBeard: Daniel sports one.
61	* SecondLove: Daniel is Lucy's. What she says about her late husband suggests that she was questioning her choice of first love, too.
62	* SickeninglySweet: InUniverse, Miles Fairley's "Uncle Neddy" books. He considers them such himself and [[OnlyInItForTheMoney only writes them because they sell]]. Lucy claims that her daughter's a fan because she likes him, but Anna can't stand them.
63	* SilkHidingSteel: Lucy's proper exterior is a sheen over a determination to get what she wants and a willingness to lecture ghosts into submission.
64	* SirSwearsALot: Daniel (by Edwardian standards). When Lucy objects to his using the word "blast" as punctuation, he says that his thoughts are a good deal saltier.
65
66	* TimeSkip: A couple of them toward the film's end.

Context Film / TheGhostAndMrsMuir