Ghost and Mrs. Muir

AMG Review of Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Bruce Eder
All Music Guide

This CD release of the original music recordings from Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir -- as opposed to the 1970s re-recording by Elmer Bernstein -- is a welcome addition to the CD catalog. One suspects that this is an unauthorized release, given the lack of licensing or other credits, but the quality is first-rate -- astonishingly clear for half-century-old orchestral recordings, and the music is some of the best that Bernard Herrmann ever composed, adapted in part from his opera Wuthering Heights. Listening to it free-standing, one can hear not only the beauty of the material itself, but it is also possible to hear -- even in the renowned and impassioned theme referring to Mrs. Muir and the sea -- thematic elements that Herrmann would reshape completely into totally new forms, in scores such as Jason and the Argonauts, in later years. The playing of the Fox Studio Orchestra is a match for the work of any symphony orchestra of the period, and the only flaw in this 50-minute CD is that the end title music fades a little too quickly and seems a bit ragged. The price is right, however, especially compared to some of the immensely expensive limited issue Fox soundtracks that came out of Europe when CDs were first hitting shelves.