Ghost Catchers

Without a doubt, this film is O & J's best film! A Colonel (with 2 daughters) move from Ga to NYC for the girl's Carnegie Hall debut.

The house they choose is haunted....by gangsters AND a REAL ghost!

Great O & J slapstick comedy, Swing dancing, and music ("Blue Candlelight" is the showstopper).

Plus, the ghosts (real & fake) are CREEPY!

"Last the best of all the game"!

Olsen and Johnson are as wild as the Marx Brothers here, but too often they play second fiddles in their own movie; there is far, far too much singing which will turn off approximately 19 out of 20 viewers today (keep the FF button handy). There appear to be no decent-quality copies of this film in circulation, so that's another thing that restricts viewing and sounding pleasure. But don't miss the scene where O & J openly discuss Abbott and Costello's "Hold That Ghost"! This whole movie could be a fever dream. ** out of 4.

This movie, from start to finish, is a complete GAS. I would do almost anything to get this movie. I haven't seen it in about twenty five years or more but I remember it as if I had just seen it.

Olsen and Johnson did four pictures for Universal, with diminishing returns each time. Hellzapoppin is an underrated masterpiece. Crazy House was fun but a big step down from Hellz. Then this one which feels like a pedestrian Abbott and Costello knock-off. They even reference that more successful Universal comedy duo in one of the film's meta jokes. Olsen and Johnson were basically a blend of A&C, Hope & Crosby, and the Marx Bros. I'm no film historian so I won't say who was first at any of the comedy devices employed by these teams. I do know who was best, at least onscreen, and it wasn't this pair. That being said, I have enjoyed their movies.

They aren't the biggest issue here anyway. The problem is the lame musical numbers. This is a common complaint today about many comedies from back then. The studios didn't seem to trust a comedy to sustain itself so they added romantic subplots and musical numbers. The best comedies rose above but this is not the best. The supporting characters are duds with some truly horrendous accents going on ("I'm a little sick of side pork and chitlins honey chile"). Lon Chaney Jr. Is wasted here in a throwaway goon role at a time he was the star of their monster films. The funniest scene in the movie involves "a horse." It's really not great but also not unwatchable. I feel like it's one of those movies I'm being too harsh on and after some repeat viewings I might feel better about it.

I'd like to be added to the yea chorus.

I was about eleven when I saw it as part of a "kiddy" show. The haunted house stuff that brought me there, in the first place, was not disappointing. However, what really impressed me was the music. The musical production numbers ranked high on my eleven-year-old rating system. This is very interesting because, at that time, I cared more about the exploits of John Wayne and Roy Rogers than any musical number.

Thinking back, I am still impressed.

Put this one to that list of – I sure would like to see it again!