Socialite and novelist, Charles Condomine, invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant, Madame Arcati, to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when the séance calls up the ghost of his first wife, Elvira. She makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles's marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost. Her attempt to kill Charles so that he can join her "on the other side" goes horribly wrong and it is Ruth who ends up as a ghost.
