I was kvetching about not following the latest films and what passes for television these sad days- a thousand High Definition channels and nothing on. I have been stuck in my chair or on the couch for a few days hoping vainly to shake whatever it is that is afflicting me. That and the great Nor’easter storm that was moving my patio table around with discernable scrapes and periodic upturning.

A pal reminded me of a classic black and white film called “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” I looked on Netflix but couldn’t find it, and threw a couple bucks at Mr. Bezos to rent it from Amazon. Well worth it.

It was released in 1947, so I am not going to issue any spoiler alerts. The short version is: defying her conventional in-laws, young widow Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) leaves London with her young daughter and moves away for a quieter life in a secluded seaside cottage. Lucy discovers the ghost of the deceased former owner, sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), is haunting the house, but she draws herself and gathers the courage to stand up to him and gains his respect. Times being what they were, a widow does not have much on an income in 1900’s Jolly Olde. Frankly, neither do insubstantial spirits. Faced with dwindling means of support, Lucy agrees to the Captain’s challenge to write the biography of his colorful life story on the waves.

I think there was a television show of the same name in the 1960s, but I found the original and watched it in between hysterical news shows. A bit hokey? Sure. But I had not seen an image of Gene Tierney in years and was stunned at her beauty. And Sexy Rexy Harrison? Amazing. You will not be surprised to find tthat Georg Sanders is a bounder and a cad.The film has everything.

Well, almost everything. It was 1947 playing 1900, after all.

Watching the black and white feature was a magical interlude, like time-traveling back to 1960 in Detroit watching the afternoon Million Dollar Movie broadcast fro CKLW broadcasting out of Windsor across the river to the south.

Gene Tierney may be among the most beautiful women who ever lived. I will not reveal any plot secrets beyond those which I have disclosed, though being a seventy-year-old film, I suspect you know everything works out fine in the end. Strange, but fine.

In this dreadfully earnest world that we now inhabit, this fantasy froth is well worth a watch, if only to hear Rex utter the scripted salty talk of a sea-faring man. Avast!

Vic

Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com