The Ghost of St. Michael's

I like all of Will Hay's films, but apart from 'Oh, Mr Porter,' this is my favourite. It is jam packed with funny one-liners and comic situations and gives Hay full reign to play his seedy music hall schoolmaster. A wee gem of a film.

Many of the other reviewers here seem pretty well versed on the star and these kind of films, but I'm approaching both Hay and British comedies from this era in general as a newbie. Judging from the plot synopsis written here, I was expecting a merging of comedy with old dark house horror along the lines of HOLD THAT GHOST (made the same year in the States), but this is pretty much just a straight comedy that happens to take place in a spooky setting. During WWII, St. Michael's school for boys has to move to a more secure location - a large, gloomy, remote, rat-infested castle located in Isle of Skye in Scotland. Staff and students show up and get settled in, and uppity, bumbling, fast-talking teacher Will Lamb (Will Hay) is immediately assigned the position of science teacher despite being grossly incompetent to handle the position. Lamb is quickly befriended by a goofy colleague (Claude Hulbert) and, because of his unconventional approach and manner, manages to win over the boys in his class. But soon enough, multiple problems arise for our hapless hero. For starters, nasty teacher Mr. Humphries (Raymond Huntley), who seems a little overly eager to climb the professional ladder, tries to convince the school headmaster (Felix Aylmer) to fire him. Secondly, because of its sordid history, the creepy castle caretaker (John Laurie) seems dead certain that the castle is haunted by a malignant spirit. Third, several people end up getting killed, with the ominous "phantom pipes" (bagpipes) signaling each death. Who's responsible; a vengeful human or a centuries-old ghost?

One noticeable difference between this and concurrent comedies from the States is the presentation of Hay's character. You didn't too often see (in American movies from this period) an authority figure/bumbling hero who flagrantly lies, is incompetent in his line of work, drinks whiskey with a bunch of underage students and acts like he's going to haul off and slap or kick his pupils when they say something he doesn't like. Yet somehow, Hay manages to come off as utterly charming and likable. You can see why the pupils take a liking to him. The entire supporting cast; particularly Aylmer and Charles Hawtrey, as the brainy and outspoken student Percy, was excellent. As far as this functioning as a murder-mystery, it does a fairly good job of that as well. There's a lively finale making good use of trap doors and secret passageways. When the killer's identity is revealed it's also a genuine surprise. Though obviously a low-budget and set-bound production, it's fairly well staged and has a decent screenplay with plenty of amusing dialogue and good comic situations to put our heroes in. All in all, it's a pleasant and entertaining way to spend 78 minutes of your time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this Will Hay comedy, which successfully combines the school story and the requisite nod to wartime concerns with the spoof haunting theme that had featured in some of his most successful earlier work. The old team of Graham Moffat and Moore Marriott are here absent, but Hay is teamed very effectively with chinless Claude Hulbert and a young Charles Hawtrey as a precocious schoolboy. Hay's protagonist treads a skilfully effective line between annoying (we relish watching him get taken down a peg, rather than wincing) and sympathetic, while Hawtrey's gadfly-like persistence as a boy far brighter than his teachers is equally well judged, and Claude Hulbert makes ineffectuality likable.

The film has its share of broad comedy (watch for what Hay does with that piglet...) but often avoids obvious expectations, and is the funnier for it. The suspiciously Teutonic teacher is not, of course, what he seems; the ghost is, of course, not what it seems either; and the motivation which ultimately enlists the boys on the side of their erstwhile petty dictator is certainly not the type customary in school stories!

Overall "The Ghost of St Michael's" is a blend of guffaw-rich visual humour with accomplished misdirection to produce a very appropriate vehicle for its star. The beginning is a little hit and miss, but the film is still full of laugh-out-loud moments.

Just a couple of points: the school is moved to Skye in the Hebrides, Scotland, NOT the Channel Islands.

Also, I would not say it is a take on The Ghost Train: that would be Oh Mr Porter, surely.

But certainly one of the most watchable of Will Hay's films.

It is amazing to see people like John Laurie, who went on to play Private Frazer in Dad's Army on TV, and, of course, Charles Hawtrey.

Did any of the other schoolboys go on to feature or star in other films?

Anybody know?

If you do, let us know

In his Hay-Day Will Hay seldom put a foot - or a tonsil – wrong, the Ghost Of St. Michael's was no exception, proving to be yet another classic. Set in a haunted castle on the Isle Of **** (in case Jerry wanted to know the direction to Skye) I've seen this so many times now that I find it sometimes hard to remember they were all really in Ealing's studios even though it was cheaply and simply made. Such is the power of auto-suggestion!

Because of the War an English boarding school is evacuated en masse to a castle in Scotland, of which the wild eyed porter John Laurie informs the scoffing new science master Hay and forward pupil Charles Hawtrey that it is haunted with the ghost of a phantom piper. Hay strikes up a friendship with fellow silly master Claude Hulbert, but doesn't impress the weird Head Felix Aylmer and incurs the derision of nasty senior master Raymond Huntley – which doesn't matter as these two don't last very long. So many favourite bits: the lesson in the draughty classroom on What Goes Up Must Come Down – with a disinterested Gerald Campion (the future TV Billy Bunter) sat behind Hawtrey – where Hay is taught a lesson; the dormitory feast where Hay gets tight on some jolly good lemonade to the delight of the boys; displaying his deep knowledge of gases to the boys in the science lesson; the denouement which could so easily have ended flat; but especially the delicious inquest in the barn, of which you must already know I'm going to say all I can say is Fiddlesticks!

In the decades before it got out onto DVD it was my most borrowed or copied tape by friends, which is why it's surprising to me that there have been so few commenters here so far. It's always been one of my favourites, a totally un-nasty un-cynical non-violent harmless old fashioned piece of fluff and a, no, the classic of its kind.