Il fantasma ci sta

I would love to see this movie again, I saw it once as a kid, and have always wanted to see it again. I wonder how much my perception has changed since then. I fear that I might think it's horrible now, compared to my fond childhood memory of it. Why do I think so highly of this film? I don't even know. That may be a question in itself. All I know is, the film couldn't have been so bad that they wouldn't put it out on video or DVD, hell they've put everything else out. If anybody knows how I can see this film again please notify me. . It was very nice to read the other comments from other people who liked this film as well. Now, suddenly I don't feel so alone in the universe.

-Joe

Nathaniel Benchley (son of humorist Robert Benchley) wrote The Visitors, a frightening novel about a ghostly haunting, which was purchased for filming by legendary Hollywood showman William Castle.

Castle, who had yet to attain respect as producer (but not director) of Roman Polanski's masterly Rosemary's Baby (1968), had recently completed a successful string of blatant imitations of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), including Homicidal (1961) and Strait-Jacket (1964), and had stumbled with a pair of inept teen-thrillers, I Saw What You Did (1965) and Let's Kill Uncle (1966).

Evidently seeking to expand his audience while maintaining his position as king of schlock horror, Castle re-visioned Benchley's decidedly adult novel as a family comedy along the lines of his bland 13 Ghosts (1960). Unfortunately, Castle was hopeless as a comedy director, as his overly-broad Hammer remake of The Old Dark House (1963) had demonstrated. Humor had been an essential underlying element of Castle's most successful earlier films, The House on Haunted Hill (1958) and The Tingler (1959), but this had been supplied by star Vincent Price and the ironic wit of screenwriter Robb White rather than any knack on the part of the director. Castle persisted and The Spirit Is Willing descended into lazy slapstick, as did its black-comedy follow-up The Busy Body (1967), also starring Sid Caesar.

In and of itself, The Spirit Is Willing is a fun little movie which today carries an aura of tacky nostalgia, but the golden opportunity for a chilling ghostly thriller along the lines of Robert Wise's classic The Haunting (1963) was recklessly thrown away.

It behooves Dark Castle Entertainment, which has been remaking the Castle "classics", to consider a new, dramatic version of the Benchley novel. With the blockbuster success of films like The Sixth Sense, The Others and The Ring, the time is right for The Visitors to arrive.

Ninteenth Century. A lone seaman stands on a cliff. An elderly captain approaches. He points to the house and the seaman looks through his telescope, spying the captain's spinster daughter, Felicity. When we are shown Felicity, grinning broadly through the telescope, we hear a squawking seagull. She has great inner beauty, her father says. The man who marries her would be in charge of my entire fleet, he promises. The seaman looks through the telescope again and when we see Felicity, grinning and waving, the seagull sqawks once more.

Felicity was played by an old comedic actress named Cass Daley, who was Olive Oyl come to life, pure cartoon. Even more the seaman who marries her for her money is none other than Robert Donner, best known for the madman Exedor on Mork and Mindy. On their wedding night, as Felicity frolicks in bed waiting for her man, Donner has gone to the maid's room, just off the kitchen and beside the basement. With no dialogue in this entire prologue, the whole scene is compelled by music.

Finally, Felicity, realizing what has happened, comes downstairs and gets the meat cleaver and enters the maid's room. Amid thunder and lightning outside, we hear the maid and the seaman scream, then Felicity drags the maids body out of the bedroom and into the basement, banging her head on each step. Then the seaman staggers out of the bedroom, the meat cleaver in his back, and grabs another knife and enters the basement. We hear Felicity scream, more thunder and lightning, then the wedding march concludes the scene. But wait, three ghostly apparitions emerge through the basement door, one at a time.

Years later, a little family of Sid Ceasar, Vera Miles and Barry Gordon move in. Gordon is a cynical teen ager who takes the vacant bedroom off the kitchen because "it has it's own john." Then the basement door begins to open on its own.

The opening song is truly one of a kind, as another post points out. The phrase, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, comes from the Bible, the book of Matthew. Gordon is superb as the teen ager, Steve, who the ghosts torment. John McGiver (the assassinated Senator in 'Manchurian Candidate', Lord Beasley on a 'Gilligan's Island' episode) is amusing as always as Uncle George, who keeps getting his ship sunk by the ghosts.

The two flaws are from Jill Townsend, who plays the maid, Jenny, but also for some reason plays two of Jenny's descendants, who seem to know everything that happens. Yes, the town could know the place was haunted, but these sisters would finish Sid Ceasar's and Barry Gordon's sentences. To make matters worse, there was a child, Ricky Cordell, that my brother and I could never figure out why he was there. Was he the director's son? Was he the producer's girlfriend's son? Was he to appeal to a younger audience? When my brother and I recorded this show once, we edited out all the scenes with the sisters and the little boy. Other than that, the movie was a delight. Gordon gets the biggest laughs, none of the ghosts speak (interestingly still, Cass Daley had no lines before or after she "died" nor did the maid, Jenny, ever speak). At times, the music gets as bad as Petticoat Junction or the Monkees serial music. I saw another movie "Perils of Pauline" with Pat Boone and Terry-Thomas that had the same annoying music, but the opening song is still a winner.

Plus appearances by Mary Wickes, Jesse White and John Astin are nice too. Felicity wants a man of her own so then the three ghosts can live in peace. One funny moment is when Felicity is holding Jesse White at the bottom of the lake with an anchor on top of him, waiting for him to drown.

I saw this on late night TV as a teenager, and remember certain cast members. That was the only way I was able to find this film in the database. I cross referenced Mary Wickes with the butterfly collector on a Gilligan's Island episode. His name escaped me then, but it is John McGiver. Recently I bought a copy of the original book, and it was well written. The basic plot is the same, but Castle's comedic treatment did take away from the scarier aspects of the story. Incidentally Nathaniel Benchley, the author of the book was the father of Jaws author Peter Benchley. Humorist Robert Benchley was Nathaniel's own father. I keep requesting this to play on Turner Classic Movies to play it, but I doubt it is classic enough. Maybe if they do a b-series of William Castle gimmick films it will fit the format. Paramount handles distribution of it. Maybe it will come out on DVD some day...

***Update*** I bought the eastern European import DVD from a Florida company, and watched it today. It is as amusing as I remember -- very much in the "spirit" of the madcap sixties decade in which it was made.

As is often the case, it pales in comparison to the original media. But that argument is so old its cliché. I'd like to see the book made into a true horror movie, but that's for a different forum than this. If this movie ever is released on DVD in the USA, I expect it to go straight to the $5.50 discount bin. But I do bet it gets snatched up by people like us. Us being the people that look up this movie on IMDb.

Spirit is Willing, The (1967)

1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely bad mixture of horror and laughs about a teenager (Barry Gordon) who moves with his parents (Sid Caesar, Vera Miles) to a New England house, which just happens to be haunted. The parents naturally don't believe their son that three spirits are there so he ends up getting accused of most the damage being done by the ghosts. I think most people came to know the name William Castle through films like THE TINGLER, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL or some of his other gimmick horror movies. Just by watching them you'd think he was a decent director but then you might want to venture out into some of the other genres that he touched and you'll see some pretty bad movies. What's so shocking to me is that Castle was a naturally charming guy that could be very funny during interviews. Just by watching him you'd think he would be a natural for comedy but that certainly wasn't the case because he made some truly bad ones in his career and this here is one of the worst. Just by watching this film you'd think that Castle just thought having two people scream at each other was something funny. The characters in this motion picture just come off so fake, so stupid and so downright idiotic that you can never take them serious nor can you believe any of the situations that they are in. There's an entire subplot dealing with the teenager being "distant" and "going through a bad spell" and most of these scenes have him screaming at the top of his lungs while his father will then scream at the top of his lungs. The son will come back louder. The father will then go louder. Mommy will jump in louder then the son gets louder. This is supposed to be funny? After sitting through this for a second you'll be wishing that all three fell into the acid pit that we saw in Castle's HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Things really aren't much better with the type of humor from the ghosts as the majority of the so-called "laughs" comes from them either throwing dishes, ruining the furniture or just closing doors. It's really shocking at how poorly done everything in this movie was. The direction was really bad, the screenplay horrid and the overall flow of things is just so sloppy and silly that you are almost shocked that a major studio (Paramount) was behind it. You also have to wonder if this film helped play a part in the studio decided to go with someone other than Castle for ROSEMARY'S BABY, which would be released the following year. Either way, Castle has some good movies out there but there's no denying his comedies are truly awful movies and this here might be the worst.