The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was a stupid movie

Yes, I do have political thoughts, but they are too roiled up right now, and they may change as results come in. Instead, I would like to complain about a movie.

Some time ago I thought of various movies that might work for Halloween for me. They were movies that had Halloween themes, but were not truly horror movies because I don't really care for that genre. Over the past few years I have watched Bell, Book, and Candle; I Married a Witch; The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and this year I have pretty much finished up with The Others and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Gaslight  was there, but is not really that spooky. What We Do in the Shadows could be spooky and will be watched soon, but it was never on that list. It got tagged onto the end of the Disney list after I saw Thor: Ragnarok and got a burning desire to see more work from Taika Waititi. (I know I am not the only one to have that reaction.)

Also, I can't find The Time of Their Lives. That's an Abbott and Costello film that came up in a discussion about whether or not Gordon Lightfoot's "Paperback Novel" is meant to be taken literally. (It relates to the "ghost in a wishing well" line, obviously.) I can't find it anywhere, but I do have a request in at the library for a collection that contains Abbott and Costello meeting Frankenstein, the killer, and the invisible man.

What is most important to point out with all of these movies is that they have been largely disappointing. A lot of the Disney ones were too, actually, so the problem could be me, though I have been pretty happy with the music documentaries.

Regardless, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir annoyed me in very specific ways which I am now going to complain about, INCLUDING SPOILERS!

If you haven't seen the movie, it starts with a young widow explaining to her husband's mother and sister that she is moving out, taking her daughter (Anna) and maid (Martha) with her. The mother is sad and the sister is resentful, but Lucy (played by Gene Tierney) is steadfast. She will use her inherited shares in a gold mine to live cheaply at the coast.

The cheapest house is haunted, which initially startles and then intrigues her. She refuses to be scared away by the ghost, sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison). He is haunting the house because he died unexpectedly (an accident that was interpreted as suicide) and did not leave a will specifying that he wanted the house to become a home for old seamen. They agree to coexist.

One of the minor annoyances here is that she orders him to not manifest to Anna so as not to scare her, and he promises, but later Anna has memories of him. She wasn't scared, so it could be much worse, but realistically it means he broke that promise early.

The gold mine gives out, which the in-laws think will bring Lucy back, but Daniel dictates his life story to her and guides her toward a publisher who will accept it. That would not be enough if a children's author, Miles Fairley (George Sanders) had not seen Lucy and liked her looks, giving her his appointment.

The book is sold, Lucy has an income and a new suitor, and - while she is attached to the captain - she is drawn to the realness of Miles. Only, he's not actually that real, because the cad has a wife and two kids. (Which she should have guessed the minute she saw that it was George Sanders.)

However, before Lucy discovers his caddishness, she and Daniel have a disagreement about him. While Lucy is sleeping Daniel tells her that she has chosen life - the only choice she could make - and that he was just a dream, and that is as it should be. She should be around people. Then he goes off, fading from Lucy's mind.

So, once Lucy is disillusioned with Miles she stays in the house by the sea, walking on the shore every day, until she gets old and dies and Daniel comes for her. Anna has grown up and gotten married and had at least one child, so it is just Martha and Lucy growing older in solitude. It has its compensations, Lucy tells Anna. Then she dies. That is not choosing life and people!

The worst part is that in the early parts of the movie Lucy talks about wanting to be stubborn and brave and to accomplish something. She takes no credit for Anna, and she married young on romantic notions but not really in love. To start out by standing up to her overbearing in-laws, not be dissuaded by a reluctant real estate agent, and to refuse to be scared by a ghost seems promising, but it ends with a quiet life where her one constant is Martha, to whom she acts peevishly right before her death.

No thanks.

That plot only serves male ego.

This is how it should have gone. In the process of taking Daniel's dictation, Lucy should have suggested better forms of expression, showing a knack for language. They only showed her objecting to an impolite expression once. She could have asked more about distant lands. There could have been fun interplay with the irascible ghost conceding sometimes that her ways of saying some things was better, and it could show the development of unsuspected talents.

Yes, it still makes sense that she would be drawn to a living man, and that the captain would see that it was better that way. It even works for Miles to be a cad, but let that be the beginning of her life, not the end of it. She comes home from London, has a good cry, and gets an idea for a new book. She feels an inexplicable urge to create a home for retired seamen. Maybe Martha could help, and have some romance of her own with a not quite so old seaman. Martha ends up running the home - for which she has the skills and energy - and Lucy begins to travel more, seeing more of the world and writing more about it. She begins to have the most interesting life, with at least opportunities for romance, even if none of them quite measure up to the ideal she wrote in her debut novel.

Then it would be okay for her to visit Martha when old, to take a nap upstairs, and to quietly slip away and be greeted by the captain. That would have had a point.

So at this point I guess my favorite kind of horror but not really movies are still Gotham and The Birds.