Il fantasma stregato

Stan and Ollie, in their usually unemployed and semi-destitute state, are hired by a ship's captain (the frightening Walter Long) to shanghai sailors because no one wants to sail with him (they say he has a ghost ship). Unfortunately for them, they are knocked unconscious and end up with a crew that despises them. On board the ship is a drunk, played by Arthur Housman, who falls in a bucket of whitewash and is mistaken for a dead man. Stan and Ollie throw him overboard but he quickly makes it back on board. Of course, he is immediately mistaken for a ghost and Long is furious. The guys are under his protection, but all bets are suddenly off because he has no more use for them. Mae Busch is soon present as a doxie and a merry chase begins. Just another fine comedy from the amazing twosome.

This Laurel & Hardy film makes great use of some their best regular supporting actors: Walter Long, Charlie Hall, Mae Busch and Arthur Housman. I don't know whether it gets enough often mentioned, but part of the hilarity of Stan's and Ollie's films are owed to these supporting actors too. For it is them who also become familiar to the viewer and therefore form an essential part of their humour in general. Knowing how tough guy Walter Long always is, you laugh twice as much at him than usual when you see that he does not care a bit when Stan hits his head with a pan. Another familiar laughing "bonus" is got from Charlie Hall's sadism and Housman plays again the drunk. Mae West's domina voice always guarantees you a freezing effect down at your stomach.

The film itself makes moderate use of the concepts laughter and fear. Hijacking crew into haunted ship is funny in itself too, but the Ghost that Stan & Ollie accidentally evoke crowns the whole show. This one definitely belongs into very essential Laurel & Hardy. It is a very pleasant viewing for both master and student.

This is a pretty good Laurel and Hardy short--not among their best, but still very good and watchable. I think part of the reason it works so well is that Walter Long is an incredibly scary and effective foil for the team. I would be very scared if Long were chasing after me, thank you very much! The boys think they accidentally killed a shipmate while shanghaied aboard Long's ship. So the solution? Yep, put the guy in a bag and chuck him overboard!!! Well, the "dead guy" isn't really dead and when this bag starts moving, things get crazy. It's silly and stupid and funny to see this guy accidentally get turned white and Stan and Ollie think he's a ghost. Believable? No way--but fun!

When the L&H Fan Club "The Sons of the Desert" was formed in the early 1960's, Stan, who had sustained a crippling stroke, nevertheless gave his blessing to the formation of the club and supplied the motto for it, which I have repeated above. (Another of his witticisms which I like is "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead").

Theo Robertson in his comment above wondered whether either of the boys were fishermen. I don't believe Hardy was but Laurel in his younger days was a keen big game fisherman and fished regularly off Catalina Island for swordfish or marlin. Catalina Island, Theo, is about an hour boat trip from Los Angeles, for your information. He loved the water and had his own boat in those days.

In 1962 I visited Stan at his apartment in the Oceana Hotel in Santa Monica. A wonderful experience and a fond memory for this writer. One question I asked him was about Walter Long, the villain of villains in many of their films. His reply was that surprisingly, Long was one of the mildest men he had ever known and absolutely would not hurt a fly. That came as a big surprise for me.

THE LIVE GHOST,out here in New York,is shown in conjunction with the annual Thankgiving showings of MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS---so I've pretty much memorized everything in it down to t he last comma.

Walter Long was saying his near-farewells,as only GOING BYE BYE and an overlooked bit in PICK A STAR(1937) remained in his work with Stan&Ollie.

The boys agree to help roughneck sea captain Long shanghai a crew;only to end up knocked out themselves and out at sea--with the men they abducted in an unforgiving mood.

Long is sensitive about people referring to his ship as "haunted" and growls that the next guy who says that "will get his head twisted around so when he's walking North he'll be looking South".

Their drunken shipmate Arthur Houseman falls into a vat of whitewash and Stan&Ollie end up the victims of the threat.

Mae Busch makes one of her last appearances with the boys,and Charlie Hall is cast against type as a roughneck seaman.

These days,the price of eggs would work against their shanghai-ing method.

And remember--the ocean is infatuated with sharks.