Scared Stiff (1953)

A remake of The Ghost Breakers, with the same director, and one of the same writers, behind the camera, Scared Stiff is a lot of fun, but only IF you can tolerate the whacky antics of Jerry Lewis, here doing his loud manchild schtick.

Lizabeth Scott plays  Mary, a woman who has just inherited a property on a small island near Cuba. That's all well and good, but the property is said to be highly haunted. Heading that way, she ends up joined by Larry Todd (Dean Martin) and his friend, Myron (Lewis). Todd is a nightclub singer who thinks he has shot a gangster. Myron seems to have no  main job role, other than to annoy his friend. Hijinks ensue.

I've always had a soft spot for Scared Stiff, having seen and enjoyed it before The Ghost Breakers, and I think it remains a great vehicle for Martin and Lewis. Their very first scenes play out in typical fashion, and the film premise allows them a good bit of room to play around (most notably in the amusing scene that has Lewis dressed up and miming to a Carmen Miranda song). Both the laughs and the spooky trappings are generally heightened here, compared to the 1940 movie, but it works well because the leads are equally bigger “personalities” than Hope and co. 

Walter DeLeon doesn’t need to change too much of the core of his script, and I am not sure if the way the material is adapted for the stars falls to him or co-writer Herbert Baker, who had already worked with Martin and Lewis, but it’s nicely transposed to something the same as The Ghost Breakers . . . but different.

Marshall directs the material as well as he did previously, with the longer runtime reflecting the extra moments that allow Martin and Lewis to step aside from the main thrust of the plot to get up to some of their familiar antics.

Maybe a bit harder to recommend than the previous version of this film, because it depends more on how you feel about the leads (particularly Lewis), but Scared Stiff stands up as a spooky comedy that delivers a wonderful mix of haunted house tropes and chuckles in the third act. I still like it, I still rate it as one of the better Martin and Lewis pairings, and I still urge others to at least check it out. 

7/10

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The Ghost Breakers (1940)

Bob Hope is Larry Lawrence in this spooky comedy that remains a great template for this kind of thing. Take some ghosts and ghoulies. Add a hero who can pretend to have courage for a moment, than ensure we all know how scared he is at all times. And have a criminal sub-plot that may or may not mean the supernatural elements are faked. 

One thing leads to another in a busy opening sequence, and Larry Lawrence thinks he has accidentally shot someone dead. Someone that has people who will in turn shoot him back. He ends up bundling himself into the travelling trunk of Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard). Mary is heading to an inherited property on a small Cuban island. It is allegedly haunted. And there is even a zombie living nearby. Hearing of this strange situation, and noting the insistence of someone wanting to keep Mary away, Larry decides to put himself forward as a man who can investigate such matters, and sets out to do so in the company of his servant, Alex (Willie Best). 

Adapted from a popular stage play, which had been adapted for the screen twice before (silent movies, both now considered lost), this stands out as a near-perfect blend of thrills, chills, and giggles for viewers. Walter DeLeon adapts the play well, making it a fine fit for Hope and his usual style of gaggery, and George Marshall directs it all at a nicely zippy pace. There are no huge set-pieces, but lots of small ones that flow into one another as the entertainment factor remains high throughout. 

Hope is at his easygoing best here, enjoying himself in a character that's about 50/50 when it comes to cowardice and courage, and Goddard is one of those classic leading ladies from this era who lights up the screen whenever she appears, so the banter between the two is very enjoyable. While his role is often just the comedy relief, certainly in the last third of the movie, Best proves himself to be just as amusing and entertaining as the leads, and makes this more than just a two-hander. Paul Lukas is suave and sneaky as someone advising against visiting the haunted property, Anthony Quinn is a possible villain, and Richard Carlson is the smooth and charming Geoff Montgomery.

Some of the jokes have aged worse than others, especially a number of exchanges between Hope and Best, and there is a slight creakiness to it all (everything creaks slightly when it is 80 years old), but this is one of those films that I think everyone should see at least once. It's a classic, in its own way. It just isn't the kind of classic included in most conversations that cover The Classics.

And how can you not enjoy a comedy that has the line "The girls call me Pilgrim, because every time I dance with one I make a little progress."? 

8/10

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The Time Of Their Lives (1946)

Abbott & Costello provide audiences with something a bit different from their usual fare in this easygoing, supernatural comedy.

Lou plays Horatio, a man wrongly shot down as a traitor and cursed to reside as a ghost alongside Melody Allen (played by Marjorie Reynolds). Horatio and Melody have to stay on the land on which they died, unless one day their innocence can be proved. As time rolls merrily on, we eventually get a group of people arriving who may well help in that endeavour. Including, of course, a character played by Bud Abbott.


The Time Of Their Lives is a pleasant enough little movie and I can't say that I disliked it. However, it really was really missing some spark of wit and vitality. The supernatural element kept things entertaining enough but didn't really compensate for the lack of the trademark fast-talking banter that fans of A & C know and love.

The first of many A & C movies directed by Charles Barton, this one benefits from a great cast (Marjorie Reynolds is a delight, Binnie Barnes and Gale Sondergaard are both very good, Ann Gillis is very sweet and John Shelton is fine) compensating for the mediocre script. Val Burton, Walter DeLeon and Bradford Ropes all had a hand in the screenplay, with some additional dialogue by John Grant (as was so often the case), but none of them capitalise on the potential of the premise. One or two set-pieces stand out as pretty amusing skits but they're still not a patch on the more typical A & C style of humour that featured in most of their other movies.

I wish this had been a better comedy but I still enjoyed it as a nice and inoffensive comedy that happens to have two lead characters who are ghosts.

6/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbott-Costello-Naughty-Nineties-Their/dp/B000GLKNQO/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1332194164&sr=1-1