A beautifully crafted piece of Hollywood fantasy, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a far-fetched but moving fable about a sea captain who haunts a widow. They fall in love as the grizzled captain dictates his real-life adventures to the widow, who turns them into a book. Enormously winning performances from the underrated Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison drive the film, and the direction of veteran Joseph L. Mankiewicz is almost flawless. Natalie Wood plays Tierney's daughter. Stylish craftsman Philip Dunne adapted the whimsical story from a novel by R.A. Dick. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a superb illustration of how post-World War II Hollywood could deftly handle a romantic fable during an era when the movies could deliver escapism without big-budget pyrotechnics. The film ended up being remade as a pedestrian TV sitcom in the late 1960s.
