The Ghost & Mr. Chicken (1966)

Simply A Masterpiece

Redundant and unnecessary.

Fresh and Exciting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Don Knotts plays a fraidy cat typesetter at a local newspaper who wants to be a reporter, but who has a history of being hysterical and getting his stories wrong. Knotts gets his big shot at writing a story when his editor has him spend the night in a local haunted house where a murder-suicide occurred. Don again gets the story wrong and causes all sorts of trouble, the least of which is ruining his chances with his crush, Joan Staley. Overall, there's nothing brilliant here, but if you find Don Knotts funny, which I do, you'll enjoy this one.

Small town schnook Luther Heggs, a newspaper typesetter and would-be reporter (whom everyone sarcastically calls "Scoop"), gets his first assignment: to spend the night in a supposedly haunted house on the anniversary of a murder/suicide which occurred there 20 years ago. Arguably Don Knotts' best starring vehicle, his first after exiting "The Andy Griffith Show". It isn't particularly witty, but Knotts' broad comedic hamming occasionally results in big laughs, and he's complimented by a colorful cast of familiar faces. The Universal backlot is used to good advantage, though William Margulies's gloppy color cinematography is barely competent. Vic Mizzy contributes a spirited score. **1/2 from ****

There's no doubt that The Andy Griffith Show was never what it was after Don Knotts left the series. In The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, Knotts once again takes the character of a bumbling nerd with a good heart - trying to make a name for himself in Small Town America while not always noticing how much he is dismissed by his fellow citizens. Knotts pulls it off expertly, and his performance does not suffer from over-exposure in a full-length movie.It's not an epic - the story is simple and innocent. The gags are not perfectly timed, but funny nonetheless. When Luther asks the town drunk what he is doing when he is supposed to be dead, it's the first of several memorable quotes the kids loved repeating.The movie looks clean; the classic Technicolor filming gives the movie the feeling that it was put together by people who knew what they were doing. The sets are perfectly lit, and nothing looks phony. The cameras are all locked down or on cranes. Thankfully, freehand (shaky) camera work was not all the rage back then like it is now.Overall, this is a fun film to watch in the afternoon when you are in the mood for AMC. Bring the kids in also; they will get a kick out of it if they are not already jaded by the sewage available on screen today.

I joke with my friends that "Citizen Kane" isn't the greatest film of all time, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is. OK, maybe not THE greatest, but I loved it in 9th grade and I've loved it ever since (probably have seen it 10 times). As my observant godson noted, even the music is perfect for this kind of little movie. I think it's the best, by far, of Don Knotts' films. My favorite line is "And they used Bon Ami!" Out of curiosity, I've checked with a number of published guides to DVDs available for sales/rental and, to their credit, most of the authors of those books acknowledge that the film, however "minor," has humor and a good deal of charm, and that Knotts is at his best.