The Ghost Talks

When I was a kid and first saw this, it stymied me. What would a woman riding a horse be doing in a haunted house ? After several years of knowing who Lady Godiva is and the legend of Peeping Tom it now makes sense.Even then, the slapstick humor of the boys doesn't work well in a haunted house. If it was Curly, definitely, Stan Laurel or Lou Costello, absolutely, but the Stooges to me was always about three guys who were friends who fought with each other; otherwise, they would have killed each other a long time ago. The short does win points on the creepy atmosphere level. A skull flies through the air on wings flapping a sheet behind it and skeletons roam the house on their bony legs. Good images for a haunted house ! One note though, the Red Skeleton gag is a funny one, but the Southern black man accent isn't politically correct for the changing of the times.

Larry, Moe, and Shemp are movers. They arrive at an old mansion on a stormy night. Strange happenings are afoot. They find a talking suit of armor who tells them his story. He was a tailor who got caught as a peeping Tom on Lady Godiva and got beheaded. They insist on continuing the move but the suit warns them of bad luck.

I love the skeletons and the campy effects. It's one of the best Shemp Stooges short. The only thing I would change is the pie in the face. Of course, it's a Stooges classic move but a haunted mansion needs something spooky. It's impossible for it to be something gory but they could turn into skeletons in a flash of smoke. All in all, this is fun and campy.

In The Three Stooges first movie of the year, February 1949's "The Ghost Talks," the trio are furniture movers hired by the estate of a haunted house's late owner. Entering the house during a fierce rainstorm, the Stooges are startled by the creaky front door shutting itself. Shemp immediately goes into an 'Inner Sanctrum' spiel prompted by the famous radio show's trademark creaky door. They find a ghost inside the statue of an armored knight, voiced by actor Phil Arnold. After the Stooges calm down, the spirit tells the story of when he was Peeping Tom the Taylor centuries ago. Working in an upstairs dark room, he opened one of the window shutters to get more light as he's threading a needle. He got caught going against the edict the ruler of the town proclaimed that no one could see his naked wife riding a horse in protest of the high taxes. His fate is death, stuck in the knight's armor until this evening when Lady Godiva, played by Nancy Saunders, rides her horse into the castle to pick him up. In another memorable scene, director Jules White voices the skeleton playing chess with another, telling the Stooges he's Red Skelton.

The Stooges are in spooky Smorgasbord Castle, given the task, as employees of the A To Z Express Company, to move some of items out of the place. Included is a medieval suit of armor.....that talks!

After freaking out each of the Stooges separately, the armor tells him, "Have to fear, gentlemen. I am a friendly spirit."

It turns out he used to be sweethearts with Lady Godiva. Then he was accused of being a "Peeping Tom." He also had pies in his face every time he opened his shutters. Yes, this episode is as stupid as it sounds, at least until the last five minutes where we do get some "spooky" stuff, as advertised, when a frog jumps in Shemp's hat and runs down the inside of his pants; a skeleton comes alive and an owl flies into the skeleton's head and flies off in it. Some of those scenes are hilarious.

I also appreciated a lot of the puns spoken in here, some of them pretty funny.

I've always felt that when it comes to haunted houses, it's a setting that worked better for "Abbott and Costello." Not to say that this short is horrible, it's just a "middle of the pack" effort & most of the performers seem to be in "low gear" for this one.

Although I will say about Lady Godiva--whatever she may lack in acting ability--she certainly is a winner in the looks department.

I also find it funny how Jules White voices the various talking skeletons. Me, I'm red. Red Skeleton. It certainly is a short that has some vaudeville groaners in it.

The sets look authentic enough & Phil Arnold is great as the voice of Peeping Tom. That confounded shudder....