The Ghost Goes Wild

I always hate seeing an IMDb page for a film without a review. Every films deserves some comments to show how it played, so readers can figure out if it may be worthwhile if available.

That being said, THE GHOST GOES WILD is a mild, standard old-fashioned comedy. It offends no one and goes down as easy as applesauce. For the same reasons, it is a rather bland film despite some excellent talents involved. Edward Everett Horton is always worth watching and the photography by John Alton is solid. James Ellison is pretty good in the lead and Anne Gwynne is good, but somewhat wasted. Ellison tries very hard, but he never had the personality like a Cary Grant, who would have added great flavor to this. Lloyd Corrigan adds some nice support as the only legitimate ghost in the film.

I got this to see the ghost angle and it was pleasantly done, if not inspired. The jokes are a bit repetitive, but the plot stays predictably amusing as Ellison pretends to be a ghost to avoid being sued by a wealthy dowager, who mistakenly believes he is dead. If you like these old-fashioned screwball-styled comedies then it should be enjoyable.

James Ellison is a cartoonist. He's happy to be engaged to Anne Gwynne, but her aunt. Ruth Donnelly, is suing him for a caricature of her on the cover of the magazine he draws for, and Grant Withers wants to shoot him for an imagined affair between Ellison and his wife, Stephanie Bachelor. So Ellison pretends he has died and is now a ghost. Then Lloyd Corrigan, the late husband of Miss Donnelly, shows up as a real ghost.

It's one of those comedies in which the humor is supposed to arise from people trying to cope with insane situations. Unfortunately, director George Blair seems to have a tin ear for comedy, and even such talented comics performers as Mr. Corrigan, Jonathan Hale, and Edward Everett Horton can't breathe any life into this movie. Neither does the script, in which Mr. Ellison's troubles are handwaved away at the end, provide much inspiration.

Mr. Ellison was one of those performers who looked good, memorized his lines and didn't trip over the furniture. He spent most of his career in B Westerns and as beefcake in programmers. This movie counts as one of the latter.