Search - The Ghost and Mr. Chicken on DVD

'atta boy Luther

Reno J | San Antonio, TX USA | 12/21/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a sentimental movie for me. I remember well going to see this as a 10-yr-old boy with my mom & late dad. For weeks after seeing it, my dad would say "Atta boy, Luther" any time any of us kids did anything right. My mom would say "...and they used Bon Ami" whenever appropriate. I thought it was one of the funniest movies I'd ever seen as a kid. On the other hand, I was scared to death when the organ started playing by itself (pretty tame by today's standards). As it's said, "They don't make 'em like this anymore". Any fan of Don Knotts should see this light-hearted film. It's not CITIZEN KANE, but it's enjoyable as a look at the mid-sixties pop-comedy genre."

"She Came Home and Vibrated for an Hour!"

"Tee" | LA | 03/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The above is the only risque line you will hear in this classic family comedy starring the one and only Don Knotts. I just watched this movie for the first time in over 30 years and this movie brought back so many memories. If you were born between 1955 and 1965, this film was probably a big part of your childhood. I was a little too young to see it when it released to theaters, but it played on local television at least once a year in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It doesn't have much of a reputation in "film" circles but for kids of that era it's one of the period's essential films.

Don Knotts stars as a nervous, easily spooked type who works in the typeset department of a smalltown newspaper who gets his big break to become a reporter if he will spend the night in the local "haunted house" - an abandoned mansion where a murder/suicide occured 20 years ago. Knotts is in classic form as our neurotic hero and he is matched by a wonderful cast of character actors from the era, many of them familiar faces from their regular appearances on TV shows of the era (two of Knotts' ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW costars, Hope Summers and Hal Smith, are even here in unbilled small parts). I especially enjoyed the wonderful Reta Shaw as the domineering matriarch of the local paranormal society.

This innocent movie has only the mildest of "spooky" moments (the time spent in the haunted house is surprisingly short); this and the broad playing clearly show it was geared for children's film audience although the actors will hold the attention of light-hearted adults. Knotts was already middle-aged here but he's still wonderfully believably as the naive Luther (he is just a kid here though in this small town where apparently only five or so people are under 50 judging by the film.) The movie also boasts a superb creepy organ-dominated score by Vic Muzzy. No, it's not CITZEN KANE but THE GHOST AND MR CHICKEN is a much-loved family film and one I think young people even today would enjoy it.
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