Fantasma vivo

Classic Cast! Pat O'Brien, Adolphe Menjou, Rudy Vallee. From RKO, Pat O'Brien is Michael McBride. His wife, Connie is played by Ellen Drew. Something happens to Michael, and while he is away, his nemesis "Gordie" (Vallee) makes the moves on Connie. In a classic case of mistaken identity, Michael is taken for a crook, and must figure out who he is and where he belongs. Menjou is "Kismet", sailor on the steamboat where Michael ends up, and he helps Michael find his home again. For some reason, seances were big in the 1930s and 1940s, and they play a BIG part in this film. It's light and fun, but gets pretty silly, if you can stand it. Like an episode of Three's Company, it all could have been straightened out much earlier, but for some reason, it isn't. This one has a great cast, even if the plot is hokey. Even Carl Switzer (Alfafa !) has a bit part. Directed by Ray Enright. After serving in WW I, he worked with Mack Sennett in hollywood. Worth watching, if just to see Vallee, Menjou, and Switzer, some of the greats.

Did Connie (Ellen Drew) attend college as a newborn infant? Yet another preposterous casting job where the husband (Pat O'Brien) looks like the dad but they are supposed to be the same age, along with Gordie (Rudy Vallee). At least the two guys were close in age.

That's the least of the problems with this steaming pile of celluloid. The plot, dialogue, and acting are weak, especially O'Brien. He is so unconvincing that it seems like he never even met any of the other cast members before the scenes start.

Don't waste your time watching this forgettable trash.

Sure It's A Stretch! But it's still funny. It even has a pratfall.

Adolphe Menjou plays a mischievous rogue and Pat O'Brien plays himself as always. They meet after Pat's supposed death and Adolphe takes control of the situation with wacky results.

As Menjou says, "What a Magnificent Mess!" It starts out slow but it picks up with increasing momentum until you wish it could slow down. But it can't.

It's a house of card built upon shifting sands. Situations are extremely contrived but it makes for a delightfully wild ride.

I wanted to write this review because there were only 2 reviews, both somewhat negative. Pat O'Brien does not always have to play a cop. He may always be Pat O'Brien, but he fits into this role very plausibly. He is, after all, pulling a fast one, and no one can pull a fast one like Pat O'Brien.

In any case, Adolphe Menjou steals this movie away from him. Adolphe is a very versatile actor and he is one of the few that could pull of his role with any kind of believability.

Pat O'Brien has been married to Ellen Drew since they graduated from college. When her previous boyfriend, Rudy Vallee shows up, O'Brien is jealous, goes out on a tear, and hooks up with perpetual drunk Jack Norton. Somehow they switch clothes, and Norton is killed and O'Brien winds up on Adolphe Menjou's showboat. When O'Brien is declared dead, Menjou persuades him into various shenanigans to reintroduce himself gradually to Miss Drew.

O'Brien drew this assignment as the first of his five-picture contract with RKO. He certainly seems willing enough to try anything, but his matter-of-fact delivery does not mix well with the increasing hysteria of the situations he gets into, as he impersonates a ghost, his uncle from Ireland, and eventually an amnesiac.

It's one of those comedies that doesn't bear much thinking about. Instead, the thing to do is to enjoy Menjou, his speed and grace as a confident confidence man, fast-talking O'Brien into these dumb ideas. In many ways the energy is that of the first screen version of The Front Page, in which Menjou played Walter Burns and O'Brien Hildy Johnson.

I knew that something was amiss. Pat O'Brien, in a leading role? No gangsters? Not a police officer. Really!

Here he stars in this pure stinker as a husband who loves his wife but forgets her birthday. The wife, played by Ellen Drew, looked so much like Eve Arden in many scenes.

How coincidental that as he forgot her birthday, her divorced friend from college, enters the movie. Played by Rudy Valee, the guy wants Drew.

O'Brien storms out of the house and to the local bar. There he meets a poor drunkard chap, both get plastered, exchange clothes and papers and go on a drunken ride, ending in death for the other guy and total confusion for the rest of the film.

The film basically becomes slapstick. O'Brien lands on a riverboat and meets Adolph Menjou, who convinces him to act like a ghost.

The two return to the house just as the will is being read. When O'Brien told Drew to continue her life, Valee immediately proposes marriage. O'Brien acts as the ghost to "terrorize" Drew and mayhem and general wackiness ensues.

Rate this *1/2 and be off.