Scared Stiff (1953)
** (out of 4)
Nightclub singer Larry Todd (Dean Martin) and busboy Myron Mertz (Jerry Lewis) find themselves being hunted down by a gangster after they witnessed a murder. With the help of Mary (Lizaebth Scott) the two are able to get on board a cruise ship where they land in Cuba and before long they're in a haunted house.
Every comedy duo, at some point in their career, had to face horror elements. Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. Dean and Martin got their chance here in this remake of the 1940 Bob Hope film THE GHOST BREAKERS. For my money this isn't a very good movie and I thought it fell well short of that 1940 movie on a variety of levels but the biggest is the fact that there's really no story here.
We're basically introduced to the two men, we see them get in trouble with the gangsters, there's a romance between Martin and Scott and then we get to the horror elements. The problem is that the lack of story means that the 107-minute running time really drags to the point where I was bored out of my mind. Even worse is the fact that the story was so weak that it wouldn't have supported a sixty-minute movie from Monogram let alone something this long. For the life of me I couldn't understand why we were a hour into the picture and there still wasn't really anything going on.
As far as Martin and Lewis go, both are in fine shape playing the type of characters they were well familiar with. Lewis is that obnoxious clown who can't get out of trouble and often finds himself turning one bad situation into something worst. Martin gets to sing a couple numbers and do his romance thing and for the most part he's one of the highlights of the film. As for Scott, I personally found her to be a bit too bland in the part and there just wasn't any spark between her and Martin. There's a great cameo at the end but I won't spoil it for people.
SCARED STIFF is a pretty bland movie that has a few funny moments but certainly not enough to keep the running time from dragging on and on.
