The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Bernard Herrmann
In 1900, Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney), widowed for one year, decides to move out of her controlling in-laws' London home to the English seaside with her adolescent daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and their long-devoted maid Martha (Edna Best). Despite the rental agent trying to dissuade her, Lucy decides to rent Gull Cottage at Whitecliff-by-the-Sea. She learns firsthand before she makes the decision the rental agent's hesitance is because the cottage is haunted, supposedly by its now deceased former owner, seaman Captain Daniel Gregg (Sir Rex Harrison). After she moves in, she does meet the spirit of Captain Gregg face-to-face. Because she refuses to be scared away by his presence, the two come to an understanding, including that he will not make his presence known to Anna. As time progresses, the two develop a friendship and a bond, but Captain Gregg seems not to approve of any of the men that enter her life, including the most serious, children's author Miles Fairley (George Sanders).
It was well known that this one was Herrmann’s favorite score. He was tasked with supporting a complex narrative, which operated on many levels. The story offered a passionate and I would say poetic commentary on the nature of life, death, love and loneliness. He loved England, the heroine, the romanticism and the spiritual purification gained once the spirit if freed of its corporeal existence. Indeed I believe this score to be Herrmann’s most romantic, one in which we are bathed in dreamlike auras of the restless sea and the haunting mystery of Gull Cottage. It is also remarkable that Herrmann employed leitmotifs, which he usually eschewed. He would often comment in subsequent years that this was his “Max Steiner” score. “Prelude” is a beautiful highlight theme, which opens the film and features presentations of Herrmann’s primary themes.