In order to gain research material for a new novel, the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine engages Madame Arcati, a spiritual medium and clairvoyant of uncertain talent, to conduct a séance in his home. Quite by accident, Arcati summons the spirit of Charles’ temperamental first wife Elvira, and of course is quite unable to make the disruptive spirit go away. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles’ marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who can neither see nor hear the ghost.