Time for a movie about creative collaboration! Except that this one is about a writing project between a recently deceased sea captain and a Edwardian widow.
First, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a part of a film education by my mom from a young age. I highly recommend it if you like character studies and unusual ideas of love. Gene Tierney plays Lucy Muir, a woman who feels suffocated by the family of her late husband. In a bid for independence, she uses money from a mine her husband invested in and moves into a seaside cottage with her maid and daughter (played by Edna Best and Natalie Wood respectively). Before even renting the house, Mrs. Muir discovers that it’s haunted by the previous owner, Captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), who has made it his afterlife’s mission to scare people away from his home. He’s bitter that his accidental death by gas was ruled as a suicide and wants to keep his swarthy, uncouth ways even with women in the house (there’s a lot of argument about the language he uses).
Instead of being frightened, Lucy finds her new living arrangements fascinating and calls out the ghost in an attempt to reason with him. Captain Gregg is equally fascinated by her quick responses and the demands she makes of him - a spirit. Their shared love of the house also allows them to start understanding each other, although Lucy still demands that the Captain not allow himself to be seen by her daughter Anna (by the end of the movie you find out that he broke that promise constantly in order to tell Anna marine-time stories at bedtime).
Before I go on with this and get to the part of the movie about books, writing, and publishing, I want to point out something strange to me. Several years ago a company reprinted the book by R.A. Dick which was the basis for the film. Naturally, I read it. And I did not like it! This very rarely happens that the movie was better but- Holy crap! THE MOVIE WAS BETTER! In the movie, Lucy craves independence and could survive on her own and the captain fosters that within her. At the same time, she very logical about her life. She loves her daughter and mourns her husband who was a good man, although she never really loved him, and wants her life to be on her own terms even with a ghost in the house. The book had this as a main idea at first, but as it kept going, she was constantly fighting with her son (a character left out of the film), almost abandons her life for a man she barely knows, and goes back to being passive about most decisions she makes. I did not like Lucy in the book, where as in the movie she was someone I admired as little girl. The movie was better. So there.
Back to the plot! Lucy finds out that her investment is no longer paying out and is likely the lose the house. Captain Gregg, deciding he wants her to stay, declares that they will write a book together based on his life experiences. His confident that his time at sea was sensational enough to become a bestseller and supplement Lucy’s income.
Their collaboration on the book is what I want to discuss first. It involves a great deal of the captain dictating while Lucy (whom he calls Lucia) types and gives criticism. This involves her having to use language she disapproves of (a mysterious 4 letter word that she declares conveys a meaning that she has never had to use a word for). Each time he gives an action, she will ask him questions, beta reading as they go.
Most collaborations involve both parties creating, but since she is essentially the ghost writer for the ghost Lucy is in the role of editor. Her comments and questions help keep him on track and make the story of his “unvarnished life” clear to a reader who has never met him (and never will since he’s dead and all). He tells her to “change the grammar all you please, but leave the guts”.
Writing and editing as you go is hard, but it’s but easier when there is another person in the room. The only problem with this is that when it’s time to argue about plot or sentence structure you are right there in it. You can’t take some breathing room. The difference her is that two fictional characters are falling in love as they write a book together and learning about each other. Most people who agree to collaborate on something already know one another and have an idea of each person’s styles and preferences. And even then collaborators argue. The movie make this whole process seem so nice and full of friendly banter. It’s the only “creation” they can have together and therefore the writing process is romantic endeavor. I have never found the writing process particularly romantic. More hair pulling. But, hey Hollywood. You do you.
Lucy takes the book to a publisher who refuses to see her, believing she has written a cookbook or something equally “feminine”. Enter the rake! George Sanders shows up as a children’s book author named Miles Fairley. He helps her get in the door as a way to flirt. Of course, when the publisher at last reads the manuscript Blood and Swash, he is instantly taken with it and reads it all in one sitting (because that’s realistic). He still doesn’t believe she wrote the book and Mrs. Muir doesn’t correct him and they credit it to the pseudonym Captain X.
This idea that women or people of specific backgrounds only write one genre is still around today. Most people expect a book written by a woman to be romantic which is why so many fantasy and science fiction writers use pen names that are male or simply made up initials.
Even Mrs. Muir thinks she must have dreamed the book when she questions her own sanity about the captain’s ghost. For how could a good Edwardian lady ever write anything so scandalous!
