The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (NR) *** Starring Don Knotts, Joan Staley Directed by Alan Rafkin A Review by Frankie Paiva
The always over-the-top underrated Don Knotts kicked off his first of a string of family films with this delightful comedy with a dash of horror.
Luther Heggs (Knotts) is a bug-eyed type-setter for the local newspaper, he's always dreamed of becoming a first-class reporter but newspaper manager Ollie (Skip Homeier) makes fun of him and won't let him write any stories. Luther is driving along when a man is hit over the head in front of the town's spooky old Simmons mansion that everyone says is haunted.
Convinced that they can scare him away from the paper for good, Ollie and George Beckett (Dick Sargent) decide to let him write a story, what's the catch you ask? He has to write it about his overnite stay in the Simmons house. Much to his horror he finds that things go bump in the night, the organ plays by itself, and a pair of garden shears are stabbed in the neck of a bleeding portrait. He writes of his experiences and the town declares him a hero.
Finding it unsuitable against the family name, Nicholas Simmons (Philip Ober) challenges Luther to prove what he saw. Of course, the same things never happen again, and he can't prove the secret passageway that he found. Nicholas is trying to bulldoze the house because he wants to cover up the family's secret past.
The film is classic Knotts, the movie sets him up well and he's wonderful as usual. Sadly the film is flawed, most of the character's motivations and thoughts are pretty obvious from the beginning. Most non-Knotts dialouge is boring and weak. Plus, the trailer (which appears before the movie) shows almost every second of Luther's confrontation in the spooked house.
But I am a fan of Knotts, where the geeky wide-eyed man gets the girl. The film is funny, but predictable, and not original, so it gets *** stars.
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com
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