The Ghost Comes Home

... 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.

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.

I was getting ready to watch this film on my television when the house was plunged into darkness did to a failure at a junction box. So with the aid of a flashlight i found my portable dv d player and put on the disc. It was this or nothing. I just could not believe the witless farce that played out before me in the dark and cold. It only.kept.my interest because the delightful Billie Burke was fratured,and I had just purchased her biography. The script seemed at times.as if it note the fingerprints of at.least twelve uncredited writers. They had each contributed one idea to the plot that was retained. Frank !organ does his usual mugging to try and raise a laugh.

This one has a cast of comedy masters -- Frank Morgan (The Wizard!) Billie Burke (Glinda, the Good Witch.... and SOoooo many roles in BIG big films. and of course, the real life wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, of the showgirls fame.) Co-stars Reginald Owen, Nat Pendleton, and the under-stated, mild mannered Donald Meek. Vern (Morgan) must go to australia to help an old friend, but he seems to be having trouble getting there. He misses the boat, then the wacky-ness really begins. a whole lot of silliness about half way through, but its all fun if you go along with it. It has everything a caper needs: insurance companies, dressing in drag, kidnapping, and swindling all around. A little slow and un-even in parts, but it picks up steam and gets back on track. Ends on a high note, and it turns out to be much ado about nothing! Fun. Directed by Wilhelm Thiele, who had various levels of success in germany and the US. Good stuff. Can't miss, with Frank Morgan, Billie Burke, and Donald Meek!

Austrian director Wilhelm Thiele is not a notable name in the pantheon of great directors, most of his work was in German language films and he would probably be best known for a brace of Tarzan films in his Hollywood career, not comedy. But he does a very good job of marshalling a first rate cast here in a fun, quickie film version of an adapted stage play. Frank Morgan is the nice, but befuddled and bewildered pater familias at the heart of the story. So valuable was he to MGM, that he was given a lifetime contract! Just the year before, of course, he had memorably played the title role of The Wizard of Oz and interestingly Billie Burke had played Glinda, the good witch, in the same movie, they are reunited in this offering and work well together. Morgan brings his trademark milquetoast character back to good effect here but also is hugely enjoyable when a twist makes him a tongue in cheek, stern authoritarian. His daughter, played by Ann Rutherford is paired with John Shelton to provide the romantic interest and rather than being dull or insipid they spar wonderfully and strike comedic sparks off each other. Rutherford, in particular, is a marvellously spunky ingenue. But this is a cast that bats all the way down and character actors have a field day here; Reginald Owen is great fun as a musician who assumes a disguise, Donald Meek, a delight as a slimy and unscrupulous banker and Nat Pendleton as a lazy lunk and Renie Riano as a tomboyish suitor to him, provide an enjoyably off centre 'romance'. Even Richard Carle in a brief, one scene cameo, makes his Mark as "Old Fishface". Highly recommended to lovers of silver screen comedy.