Three Live Ghosts

"Three Live Ghosts" is a wacky comedy--the sort where you just sit back and let all the craziness occur. In other words, don't think about it...just enjoy the zaniness and don't think too much when it comes to the ending!

The film begins with the Armistace in 1918. World War One has just ended and three friend who were in a German prisoner of war camp just escaped. However, all three were declared dead and the authorities insist that they are dead--hence the title of the film. One of them, Jimmie, has a very larcenous mother who doesn't want to stop getting government payments for her supposedly dead son...but she also has learned that someone is willing to pay one thousand pounds for the whereabouts of Jimmie's comrade, Bill (Richard Arlen). If this isn't enough there's 'Spoofy'...the third 'ghost' and a guy who is so shell-shocked that he mostly runs around stealing things...and comes home one night with a fortune in jewels AND a baby!! It's all one crazy mess...yet, miraculously, it all is resolved as if by magic at the end and all is well! Only in a movie!

This is a fun film...nutty, but fun. It's clearly a turn off your brain sort of thing and is filled with many cute moments. It was also, incidentally, filmed in 1929 but I haven't seen that version so I cannot compare them. Either way, try to get to this weird film if you can.

... and the reason I say that is Robert Montgomery's first credited role in a film was in the 1929 version of this film. Afterwards, he acted under contract to MGM. Beryl Mercer, Claude Allister, and Charles McNaughton reprise their roles from the original, so if you want a pretty good idea of the kind of film Montgomery debuted in, watching this would do the trick.

Mrs. Gibbens (Beryl Mercer) is a middle aged English woman living off of the life insurance of her dead stepson, killed in World War I. An American detective comes to her and inquires about a friend of her stepson, William Jones. He tells her that he is wanted in America and that there is a one thousand pound reward for anybody who turns him in. This reward greatly interests the very greedy Mrs. Gibbens. In the meantime the armistice occurs. And it also turns out that her stepson is not dead after all. He was in a POW camp and managed to escape along with his pal Bill Jones (Richard Arlen) and a soldier whom they know nothing about because he is suffering from what was then called "shell shock". They call him "Spoofy" and have been looking after him. And all three are headed home, to Mrs. Gibben's flat.

Mrs. Gibbens is both happy and sad, but not for the normal reasons. She is upset that she will get no more installments on her son's life insurance since he is now proven alive, but she is also happy that Bill Jones is not only alive, he is staying in her flat. This means that it should be easy for her to get her hands on the reward money for Bill Jones. Also, Spoofy turns out to be not so harmless after all when he goes out one night and kidnaps a rich family's baby and robs their house of some expensive jewels. So now they are all in trouble if discovered.

Beryl Mercer was very good in a rare leading role as a perpetually tipsy maternal bottomless pit of greed. Richard Arlen is playing at 37 the role Robert Montgomery was playing at age 24 back in 1929, but still it gives you a general idea of the kind and size of the role that probably got MGM's attention. Since MGM made this later version, I rather wonder why Montgomery didn't reprise his role too, unless MGM considered him too big a star by this time to be in one of their second features.

I haven't seen the other versions of this but the story is a simple one. Three war buddies escape a German POW camp at the very end of WW1 and arrive home just in time for the Armistice. To get backpay they have to prove that they are really alive. One of them is an American who appears to be wanted by US law enforcement. The other is his buddy with a thieving conniving money grubbing mom. The third doesn't remember who he is, but he is very good at taking things. He is constantly picking things up which leads to a very big heist, including child kidnapping.

Like I said, overall cute, and well worth a small waste of time seeing a movie made just before WW2. I'd like to see the other two versions some day so I can comment on them. But not so much that I want to take the trouble to find them. If they show up on TCM then all's the better.

Story centers on 3 British vets believed dead returning from the war.

The mother of one of them tries to get a reward on her sons best friend.

The story coming about near the end of WWI has a lot of the actors terribly miscast.

Although the weepy and somewhat dense Beryl Mercer is tolerable in small doses the added vitriol and greed of her character in this particular movie is at times unbearable.

Arlen playing a returning vet at age 39 is somewhat believable if you really stretch it, but the actor playing Mercers son is almost as old as her.

A couple of regulars like Grieg and Digges make this movie some what watchable but not much..