The Living Ghost

The Living Ghost (1942)

If you want to be sure to see every early zombie movie (because you are obsessed, or a completist), you'll have to watch this one. Yes, this fairly low budget comedy with dramatic lighting and a murder, too. It's a common, lighthearted style from the 1930s and 40s, taking serious themes but putting a cheeky, clever lead in the middle of the situation to give it comic relief.

It's not a terrific formula without some great acting and writing, and this one is a strain. The detective (played by James Dunn) is called into lair of a rich family with some mysterious doings. He's a decent comic type, always in charge and casual and a bit goofy. He's looking for a real criminal or two, however, and so there is a backdrop nights in the garden and thunderstorms in strange houses. It's really rather fun and well done in many cinematic ways.

But it's too often silly and deflating, too. Lighthearted and lightheaded.

The zombie part? That's for real, and if this main zombie is so normal you'll get disappointed, he's still the real thing, and could be an archetype for a shadowy kind of zombie that infiltrates normal society. He's the opposite of the "World War Z" type of superman zombie, and it's a more interesting direction. As the movie progresses the detective (and the tag-along your woman who he's in love with) encounter another zombie, and it gets creepier even as the light comedy persists.

Anyway, watch if you just want a breezy fun time with lots of night and dark filming (which is rather nice overall). And a couple of zombies, more or less.

This is a very interesting, off-beat mystery, concerning a man who disappears from his home, and is found later with a paralyzed brain. But....is he a killer?

This film is notable because it is probably Joan Woobury's biggest role. Despite what L. Matlin says, "Nick Trayne" is QUITE amusing, and adds a lot of "zest" to the film.

James Dunn stars as Nick Trayne in "The Living Ghost" from 1942. Dunn's fortunes were on the downward swing and doing B pictures after being a major star at 20th Century Fox. His performance in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" a few years after this won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Nevertheless, his movie career continued to decline. It was on the stage and television that he found steady work.

The film also stars a Queen of the Bs, Joan Woodbury, and Paul McVey. It was directed by William "One Take" Beaudine for Monogram.

Dunn plays a smart-alecky former detective, Nick Trayne, who is called in by a friend when a wealthy man disappears. Was he kidnapped? What happened?

Craig shows up, but his brain is atrophied, something to do with the cerebral cortex cells. It's up to Trayne and Billie (Woodbury) to find out whodunit. Unfortunately for them, the whole group is crazy.

Nothing special, but I liked Dunn - he was fast talking and brought a lot of humor to the role.

The Living Ghost has James Dunn as a private detective trying to find a missing millionaire who all of a sudden shows up after Dunn as started his investigation. The problem is that Gus Glassmire is in some kind of catatonic state, he's walking around but he can't speak at all. Enough so that he cannot manage his affairs.

Before he's hired Dunn is working some kind of swami act, but he was good in his day. Glassmire's secretary Joan Woodbury seeing him in his swami outfit just doesn't believe in his abilities. She provides just enough needle to keep him on his toes and she's even a bit of help. Dunn and Woodbury do have some decent chemistry.

Dunn hangs around the mansion and pretty soon there's a real murderer among a nice group of suspects, more than a studio like Monogram would normally provide for one of these mysteries. The editing also isn't too bad, another thing that Monogram was not good with.

In the end there are two suspects, one is rather obvious, the other would take a bit of figuring. The Living Ghost is not a bad B picture and for Monogram it's practically The Maltese Falcon.

James Dunn had been Fox's breezy leading man in the early 1930s but by the late 30s he was drinking heavily and could not find much work. This is one of the films he made before he showed people what a fine and sensitive actor he was in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945).

Directed by workhorse William Beaudine it is a "quickie" Monogram production that starts out dealing with psychics and zombies but fizzles out half way through. When a banker, Mr. Craig, turns up missing, the family decide to call in Nick Trane (James Dunn), an eccentric private detective who is earning a living as a psychic. He meets all the assorted relatives, including pretty Billie Hilton (Joan Woodbury) and wacky Aunt Delia (Minerva Urecal) who believes she has psychic powers.

Suddenly Mr. Craig turns up in a trance like state. Nick and Billie join forces to find the culprit. He organises to meet Mr. Phillips in the garden but then Phillips turns up dead. Mr. Craig then starts to walk around in a zombie like state - he has a knife and tries to kill Nick. There is also an odd butler, who suffers from insomnia, as well as hijinks at a haunted house. There is even a title, in my DVD that says - "Please wait one moment - while we change reels"!!!!

James Dunn shows the same likability that he had early in his career. Minerva Urecal found a home at "Mother's" in the Peter Gunn TV series of the 50s.