The Ghost Comes Home

I started watching this because it features some of my favorite actors. Since it's an MGM movie, I figured it would be good for some pleasant comedy, and maybe even more.

Instead, it turned out to be a train wreck. The script, which is terrible, goes nowhere. There is no comedic timing in the movie, though it features some first-rate comedians, like Frank Morgan and Billie Burke.

How, I kept wondering, could MGM have produced this? How?

I have no idea.

I think one of the more overlooked actors of his day was Frank Morgan. While he's known today for playing the Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz", he also starred in quite a few charming films for MGM...films that provided him a chance to play a likable fellow. My favorite is "A Stranger in Town"...but this one is awfully good as well.

Vern Adams is a bit of a henpecked milquetoast...and a bit of a nobody. He's a nice enough guy but no one, including his family, takes him very seriously. Out of the blue, he receives a phone call from Australia! It's an old childhood friend who announces he wants to leave $500,000 to his hometown AND he wants Vern to come to Australia, all expenses paid, to see him and discuss what how the money will be used. Suddenly, folks LOVE Vern and he's a hero in his town.

Unfortunately, through a series of bad choices, Vern misses his ship and ends up in jail. No one in town knows this...and when he get out of jail he learns this old friend has died AND left nothing in the will about the legacy. He's worried his friends and neighbors will now hate him...but this turns out not to be the case. Why? Because the ship sank and he's been declared dead...and the family has collected on his insurance policy!! So, his family is in trouble for insurance fraud (after all, they've spent all the money) and Vern has no idea what to do next. How does he extricate himself from this mess? See the film.

As was often the case with Morgan's films, excellent writing and his sweet acting carry the film. Overall, clever, original and well worth seeing.

There's not a ghost to be had in this flimsy comedy about a hen-pecked husband returning home to his family after failing to board a cruise-ship which eventually sunk. Much to his embarrassment, the family, thinking he was dead, already cashed in on his insurance policy. Inept slapstick does reunite Frank Morgan with Billie Burke one year after "The Wizard of Oz", and Morgan in particular manages a very natural, sweet performance--but his efforts are wasted on such foolish material. Poorly-directed, poorly-produced movie is full of stupid supporting characters and surprisingly cruel jokes. Not even The Wizard himself could give this one a home... * from ****

... and if you've never heard of him then you know how well that went. Well, not everybody could be Van Johnson!

MGM certainly put a pretty good effort into this one, putting their better character actors and actresses in leading roles here, and in 1940 MGM had some of the best supporting actors around. It is all about a hapless pet shop owner, Vern Adams, who actually buys more animals than he sells who has an opportunity to sail to Australia and help an old friend divvy up half a million dollars for the town he is from. Before he leaves, he is talked into buying ten thousand dollars in travel insurance from one of his boarders.

Well, Vern is as bad a traveler as he is a businessman, and he winds up in jail in New York City for two months through a series of unfortunate events and never gets to travel to Australia. In the meantime the rich friend dies without making provisions for the town, but worse, the ship Vern was going to sail on sinks with no survivors. Vern's family naturally thinks he died and cashes in the life insurance policy, which certainly improves their lives - this was like two hundred thousand dollars back in 1940. But then "the ghost comes home" and the family realizes the insurance company will want their money back and they've already spent it. How does this work out? Watch and find out.

This has a fairly clever plot and pretty good acting. If you are a fan of the MGM formula and MGM stars - even the smaller ones - it is probably worth your time. Morgan is great as always as the befuddled "ghost" and Billie Burke excels as his dizzy but disappointed wife. Ann Rutherford is the Adams' daughter who fears she may have to marry the son of the town banker if she wants to get dad out of this insurance mess, and John Shelton plays the guy she really loves and the one who saves the day.

The problem is, Shelton just has no screen presence, nothing to make you remember him because he is oh so good or oh so bad. In the looks department he is dead average. Because he is at the center of the plot, I think he sinks the film by at least a star. You give the same role to every man James Stewart, and this film would have worked, but by 1940 Stewart was too big of a star to be in a B film like this. With Donald Meek in an uncharacteristically sinister role that is truly a delight.

This fairly standard piece of situation comedy would be most appealing to fans of Frank Morgan, who is charming in his role. There is a curious appeal in seeing The Wizard of Oz married to Glinda the Good Witch, but unfortunately Billie Burke is in only a few scenes.

The script has some funny lines, and I'd be intrigued to find out how much of the dialogue was contributed by screenwriter Richard Maibaum, who wrote a lot of the James Bond movies.

Geez, this comment sounds much more lukewarm than I actually feel about the movie. Morgan is delightful and I enjoyed the time I spent watching the film...to about the same degree that I'd enjoy three good TV sitcoms.