Character Study - Hollywood and Ghosts (Copy)

For this first list, I'm mainly looking at a couple of ghost films. There's a reason for this. Keep reading and you'll see. Also, I only picked films that as a writer I could also recommend watching for character study reasons.

Hollywood and the history of film in general has a strange relationship with ghost stories. Today we think of ghosts falling into the genre of horror with box office and critical successes like The Conjuring, the Others, and the Sixth Sense. But it was not always like this. 

Ghosts in silent and early talking film were usually comedies. The spirits were slapstick foibles meant to be an excuse for the hero to do silly double takes. This continued into the 1930s and 40s where witty ghosts humorously tortured the only human who could see them such as in the Topper films.

The other type of early ghost films would be more serious mysteries or dramas where the ghost turned out to be a living man in a mask. Think Scooby Doo where the owner of the abandoned amusement park actually kills people. There were naturally some exceptions, but most of those were not from the United States, for example Swedish film The Phantom Carriage (1921) which inspired Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick to be creepy.

So what changed ghosts from being comic fodder and murderers in masks? In 1941 Irish author Dorothy Macardle published Uneasy Freehold, an atmospheric and eerie ghost story that sold extremely well. Three years later it was made into a film under the U.S. title, The Uninvited. It’s the story of a brother and sister, Ray Miland and Ruth Hussey, purchasing a gorgeous house atop an English cliff. In doing so, they get to know Stella (Gail Russell), the daughter of the people who built the house. She is drawn to the house, even in adulthood, and the new owners must solve a mystery to save her life. 

But this is a character study and I promised you ghosts. What makes The Uninvited a shift in the genre was the way it handled its ghosts - one who cries and one who brings the cold. I don’t want to give away the mystery, but let’s focus on how these 2 ghosts have distinct personalities while barely showing them on screen.

The ghost who cries is, besides clearly being depressed, is established as gentle and having a clear connection to Stella. The ghost who brings the cold is established as violent and bitter. All of this is shown to the audience/reader through actions and sounds, not facial expressions or jump scares.

As a writer, showing instead of telling can be one of the most difficult tasks. But it creates a better bond with the character for the audience. They get to figure out the character on their own and that stirs up emotions. 

The Uninvited is somewhat forgotten now, despite it causing a shift in how to make ghosts scarier and complex without the cornball. Comedy ghost movies were still prominent in the 1940s/50s, but by the 1960s movie goers got goosebumps from films like Carnival of Souls, The Haunting, and The Innocents.

There was one where they combined the two idea: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), based on the book of the same name (but I confess the movie was better). In this film the ghost is a prominent character who establishes his personality the first time he laughs to frighten potential buyers away from the house he haunts. While this gruff sea captain spirit provides chills at first, he also is a part of the comedy of the story and his relationship with Mrs. Muir, the independent single mom who moved into his house, reveals his softer side. This is not a horror movie, but the ghost is not a joke. He's a former human who still has clear emotions and motivations.

Now let’s get to 1 modern film from a director who was inspired by The Uninvited: Guillermo del Toro ’s Crimson Peak. Again I am only focusing on the ghosts as a character study.

Within the film there are multiple spooks but only some are really given clear personalities. Both are seen on screen, but their character traits are based on what isn’t told outright. The first is the ghost of the former mistress if the house, Lady Beatrice, who had been killed by an ax while taking a bath. She is described as a harsh, strict, and abusive woman, yet this could come across in a description of her ghostly face. The way she sits in the bathtub with wrists up suggests her uptight attitudes. Her only words in the film are accusing and in no way helpful to the main character.

The other ghosts who gets to show some personality are three young women named Pamela Upton, Margaret McDermott, and Enola Sciotti. Instead of explaining their traits as presented in the film, watch it for yourself. Pamela Upton and Enola Sciotti have the most revealed about who they were when they were alive. What character traits do you find?

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: Movies about Writing

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!

Character Study - Hollywood and Ghosts

For this first list, I'm mainly looking at a couple of ghost films. There's a reason for this. Keep reading and you'll see. Also, I only picked films that as a writer I could also recommend watching for character study reasons.

Hollywood and the history of film in general has a strange relationship with ghost stories. Today we think of ghosts falling into the genre of horror with box office and critical successes like The Conjuring, the Others, and the Sixth Sense. But it was not always like this. 

Ghosts in silent and early talking film were usually comedies. The spirits were slapstick foibles meant to be an excuse for the hero to do silly double takes. This continued into the 1930s and 40s where witty ghosts humorously tortured the only human who could see them such as in the Topper films.

The other type of early ghost films would be more serious mysteries or dramas where the ghost turned out to be a living man in a mask. Think Scooby Doo where the owner of the abandoned amusement park actually kills people. There were naturally some exceptions, but most of those were not from the United States, for example Swedish film The Phantom Carriage (1921) which inspired Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick to be creepy.

So what changed ghosts from being comic fodder and murderers in masks? In 1941 Irish author Dorothy Macardle published Uneasy Freehold, an atmospheric and eerie ghost story that sold extremely well. Three years later it was made into a film under the U.S. title, The Uninvited. It’s the story of a brother and sister, Ray Miland and Ruth Hussey, purchasing a gorgeous house atop an English cliff. In doing so, they get to know Stella (Gail Russell), the daughter of the people who built the house. She is drawn to the house, even in adulthood, and the new owners must solve a mystery to save her life. 

But this is a character study and I promised you ghosts. What makes The Uninvited a shift in the genre was the way it handled its ghosts - one who cries and one who brings the cold. I don’t want to give away the mystery, but let’s focus on how these 2 ghosts have distinct personalities while barely showing them on screen.

The ghost who cries is, besides clearly being depressed, is established as gentle and having a clear connection to Stella. The ghost who brings the cold is established as violent and bitter. All of this is shown to the audience/reader through actions and sounds, not facial expressions or jump scares.

As a writer, showing instead of telling can be one of the most difficult tasks. But it creates a better bond with the character for the audience. They get to figure out the character on their own and that stirs up emotions. 

The Uninvited is somewhat forgotten now, despite it causing a shift in how to make ghosts scarier and complex without the cornball. Comedy ghost movies were still prominent in the 1940s/50s, but by the 1960s movie goers got goosebumps from films like Carnival of Souls, The Haunting, and The Innocents.

There was one where they combined the two idea: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), based on the book of the same name (but I confess the movie was better). In this film the ghost is a prominent character who establishes his personality the first time he laughs to frighten potential buyers away from the house he haunts. While this gruff sea captain spirit provides chills at first, he also is a part of the comedy of the story and his relationship with Mrs. Muir, the independent single mom who moved into his house, reveals his softer side. This is not a horror movie, but the ghost is not a joke. He's a former human who still has clear emotions and motivations.

Now let’s get to 1 modern film from a director who was inspired by The Uninvited: Guillermo del Toro ’s Crimson Peak. Again I am only focusing on the ghosts as a character study.

Within the film there are multiple spooks but only some are really given clear personalities. Both are seen on screen, but their character traits are based on what isn’t told outright. The first is the ghost of the former mistress if the house, Lady Beatrice, who had been killed by an ax while taking a bath. She is described as a harsh, strict, and abusive woman, yet this could come across in a description of her ghostly face. The way she sits in the bathtub with wrists up suggests her uptight attitudes. Her only words in the film are accusing and in no way helpful to the main character.

The other ghosts who gets to show some personality are three young women named Pamela Upton, Margaret McDermott, and Enola Sciotti. Instead of explaining their traits as presented in the film, watch it for yourself. Pamela Upton and Enola Sciotti have the most revealed about who they were when they were alive. What character traits do you find?