The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum
Directed by Alan Rafkin
Starring Don Knotts, Joan Stanley, Liam Redmond, Dick Sargent, Skip Homeier

Features:

• Original Theatrical Trailer
  

Released by: Universal
Rating: NR (suitable for all audiences)
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Rent it, but only if you are a fan of Don Knotts

Luther Heggs (Knotts) lives a simple life. He works as a typesetter for the smalltown local newspaper, but has dreams of being a star reporter one day. As such, he spends most of his time seeking out stories that turn out to never have existed in the first place. His latest adventure finds him in the middle of an investigation of the town's haunted house. This undertaking has him spending the night in the supposedly ghost-infested place and searching out the mysteries of why, on the anniversary of the death of the owners, the sound of the organ can be heard playing in the deserted house. There's only one problem: Luther is scared out of his freaking mind.

Well, this movie is another of those in the Knotts' canon that can be chalked up as a big mistake. The movie moves along at a snail's pace and there's only so much distance that you can stretch out of Knotts' bumbling humor in a full-length film with the only impetus for laughs being him being frightened senseless. The rest of the cast members know enough to get out of his way, but the director seems to trust too much in this one-note humor; allowing several of the visual gags to linger on just a bit too long. The other main problem is that the humor gets bogged down in the story, which as stated takes its sweet time to unfold. I guess I could sum this movie up in two words: bad timing.

That having been said, there is no denying this movie's place in cinema history. After all, it is one of Don Knotts' movies and, therefore, we should treat it with a little bit of respect on this DVD treatment. Its just a shame that this DVD doesn't step up. The only feature added is the original trailer. It's a downright shame that they didn't try to include any kind of commentary track or interview featurette with Knotts at all. I understand there are contractual considerations to be made--and let's face it, how much cash do you want to dole out on a title like this from a production standpoint--but still (and I hate to say it) the man's probably not long for this world.

Even if it was not possible to get him into the studio to record a commentary track, someone could have taken a camera and a microphone to his house to record his thoughts on this movie. After all, if we are not careful, his thoughts about these movies will be lost forever. It is my thought that if someone is going to put a collection of DVDs together and call it the "Don Knotts Comedy Classics", you should include some more value added content to the discs. Call me crazy.

If you are a fan of Don Knotts and really enjoy his movies--even the lesser ones--you should at least rent this one. True fans of Knotts will want to own it and them alone.