JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Scott LeBrun Nick Trayne (James Dunn) is a former detective for the D.A.s' office who's now earning a living as a professional "listener". (Meaning he listens to customers voice their problems in life.) He's convinced to return to his old line of work to help solve a baffling case. A prominent financier, Walter Craig (Gus Glassmire), has gone missing. Although his family fears the worst, he later turns up alive, albeit in a zombie like condition. With the lovely young Billie Hilton (Joan Woodbury) at his side, he pursues all leads in a determined fashion.While the plot is routine stuff (with a classic, age old motivation for our mysterious antagonist), "The Living Ghost" garners most of its entertainment value through its healthy comedy quotient. Quips come flying at a rapid pace. Nick is the kind of guy with a wise ass comment for almost every occasion, but unlike Leonard Maltin, I found a lot of his dialogue quite priceless. Dunn - who later won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" - is ideal in the role of this goofy hero. He has good chemistry with many of his co- stars and there is some hilarious banter. The exchanges between him and deadpan butler Norman Willis are standouts.Don't let the title fool you into thinking this is a horror film. "The Living Ghost" barely qualifies for that genre, although there is some wonderfully spooky and atmospheric stuff that takes place in an old run down house. Director William Beaudine does a fine job with the pacing; this zippy movie only runs about one hour long. And just in case we didn't "get it", Trayne explains it all for us in the concluding minutes, just like many a mystery story through the years.And Dunn, Woodbury, and Beaudine do send us away with an amused smile on our faces.Six out of 10.

mark.waltz When a wealthy man is kidnapped, former private investigator James Dunn steps in to investigate. But he is no ordinary P.I. He is first seen in a swami get-up apparently reading into people's minds and giving them answers to their problems. Huh? He accompanies the kidnapped man's secretary (Joan Woodbury) to the mansion where he meets the man's creepy family which includes the eccentric Aunt Delia (a wasted Minerva Urecal in a very showy cameo) who is into the occult. All of a sudden, the kidnapped millionaire reappears in a trance-like state and all sorts of strange occurrences begin to happen. This leads Woodbury and Dunn to an abandoned house where they find another zombie like human, and to an obvious inclusion that any grade schooler could figure out. Monogram did dozens of these kinds of films in the 30's and 40's, and only the actors and character names changed. Some of them are a bit more entertaining than the others thanks to humorous scripts, but this one is silly and dull. It should be mentioned that the kidnapped man's name is Walter Craig, the name of the husband in George Kelly's play and 1936 movie "Craig's Wife" and its 1950 remake "Harriet Craig".

Hitchcoc Have a house full of suspects. Bring in some unconventional detective who acts, at times, like an idiot, to solve the case, and you have this movie. Throw in the pretty sidekick, the tough mouthy female, and that adds another dimension. Saying that, I've already seen it a few times before. It doesn't mean that the byplay isn't fun and the murder isn't a challenge to figure out. After all, there is a guy who walks around with half a brain. Still, it is lacking. The seriousness of the murder is tossed aside and they go on this long escapade. The romance blooms while they search for the killer. I wish that they didn't have to spend so much time in a dark basement during the climax of the movie. I know that part of the suspense is based on the unknown aspects of the dark, but it goes on, and, frankly, I couldn't see anyone. I do like these old black and white mysteries, but, often, if you've seen one, you've seen the rest.

Leslie Howard Adams Compared to what wins awards at made-up film festivals, attended by only five people not related to the film-makers, in tank towns around the world, this is a jewel.At least, William Beaudine's ghost isn't hanging around here asking..." wha-happen-to-MY FILM dude?" What happens in this film is millionaire Walter Craig (Gus Glassmire) disappears from his home, and special investigator Nick Trayne (James Dunn)is called upon to solve the mystery. This takes no time at all as Nick and his secretary Betty Hilton (Joan Woodbury) discover Craig in the library of his home a couple of nights later...minus his mental faculties. (Glassmire got to play a zombie again in 1943 in Columbia's "The Batman" serial.) Dr. Taggart (Forrest Taylor)and Dr. Bruhning (Lawrence Grant) opine that while half of Craig's brain is missing, he will definitely live on indefinitely. Tony Weldon (George Eldridge), friend of the family (and more friend to one member than others, as it turns out)lives on Craig's estate in a small cottage away from the big house, and assists in caring for Craig. George Phillips (J. Arthur Young), another friend of the family, is killed and Nick discovers the body with Craig standing over it.Nick and Betty do some fast Monogram sleuthing and find that a man named Carson has purchased the chemicals and rented a house in which Craig was subjected to the treatment that destroyed part of his brain. The real estate agent, however, knows the man to whom he rented the house only by his voice---don't ask---so Nick summons all the relatives and freeloaders and household help in order that he can make recordings of their voices. That night Tony Weldon attempts to kill Nick, but Nick overpowers him and it is revealed that Weldon is the man who masqueraded as Carson and, good friend that he was, performed the operation on Craig. Turns out that he and Helen Craig (Edna Johnson), Craig's second wife and second wives are always tramps in Monogram films, especially if the husband has a kid by the first wife, are really real-good-friends and much smitten with each other...and weren't too pleased when they learned that Craig's will leaves his entire fortune to his daughter Tina (Jan Wiley), and have kept him alive in the hope they might induce the half-wit to change the will in favor of Helen.Poor old William Beaudine. HIS FILM only played in about one-third of the 18,744 movie theaters operating in 1942 in the 48 states, plus Alaska, Hawaii and the District of Columbia, and 1271 in Canada, with total seating capacity far in excess of nine million paying patrons times five shows a day times three days bookings.Based on today's ticket prices, Beaudine's films grossed about half a billion. No telling what he could have done if he had won an award at the Cackalacky Film Festival.