Colonel Breckinridge Marshall (Walter Catlett) has two daughters, Melinda Marshall (Gloria Jean) who is scheduled to sing at Carnegie Hall and Susanna (Martha O’Driscoll) who will be playing piano. To facilitate their careers, the colonel rents a large Victorian house in New York City for six months. After the colonel signs the rental agreement, he finds out that the house is haunted. Supposedly, a man named Wilbur Duffington (Jack Norton) fell from a third-floor window during a party he was hosting.
That night Susanna is awakened by strange noises in the house. It sounds like someone tap dancing, a horse running and a bear growling. She runs next door for help. Next door ends up being a nightclub and comedy show run by the team of Ole Olsen (Ole Olsen) and Chic Johnson (Chic Johnson). The two nightclub owners agree to help. When they hear about Wilbur, they decide to have a party themselves hoping it will satisfy Wilbur and send him into the light. Believing they freed the ghost, the Marshalls settle down.
That night the colonel and Melinda disappear, and Susanna finds a dead body in a closet. Susanna runs next door to get Ole and Chic. What they don’t know is that a gang of criminals, led by a masked man who calls himself the boss, are also pretending to be ghosts to try to scare the Marshalls away. They hope to keep everyone away in order to steal some valuable aged liquor that was hidden in a basement room.
“Ghost Catchers” AKA “High Spirits” was released in 1944 and was directed by Edward F. Cline. It is an American musical comedy mystery film. The stars of the film were the comedy duo of Olsen and Johnson.
Both Lon Chaney Jr. and Andy Devine have bit parts, Chaney as a bear and Devine as a horse’s head. There is also a cameo by singer Morton Downey Sr., as well as specialty dance act Armando and Lita, and other musical and dancing talents.
The movie is mostly slapstick, one-liners, vaudeville skits and song and dance acts with a little bit of mystery. It’s the same type of movie done by Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy with some Marx Brothers tossed in. Olson and Johnson did several movies together. I think four of them as a team. If you don’t mind your mysteries watered down with lots of song and dance number, and 40’s style comedy, then you might enjoy it.