Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Michael O'Keefe This humorous mystery is directed by William Beaudine and has a former private detective Nick Trayne (James Dunn) coming out of retirement to find a missing wealthy banker Walter Craig (Gus Glassmire). Before the Craig family can get used to Traynes oddball antics, Walter reappears, but in a zombie-like state. When a member of the family is stabbed to death, suspicion falls on the catatonic banker. Nick is sure this is not true and there is a whole lot more to this situation. The wise-cracking Nick finds time to fall in love with Miss Billie Hilton (Joan Woodbury), a member of the family, that seems to be sticking to him like glue. Their quip trading is comic relief. Atmospheric and a fun watch for sure.Rounding out the cast: Jan Wiley, Paul McVey, Norman Willis, J. Ferrell MacDonald and Howard Banks.

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.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** It's after banker Walter Craig, Gus Glassmire, disappeared from his house his family through his private secretary Billie Hilton, Joan Woodbury, sought out retired ace detective Nick Trayne, James Dunn, to track him down. It wasn't long that at the Craig Mansion Craig showed up in a what looked like a zobified state with no memory at all. What had happened which was explained to Trayne by neurologist Dr. Bruhling, Lawrence Grant, is that someone had through the use of powerful drugs frozen a portion of Craig's brain leaving him totally helpless to think for himself! The person who in fact did that was doing the thinking for him which had Mr. Craig attempt to murder, with little success, those he was directed to murder by the person controlling his brain. As it later turned out Craig was unable to do any of the killing attributed to him. It was in fact those who put him in that vegetated state of mind who did the killings and had him, a totally brainless and helpless person, blamed for it!It was Trayne and Billie Hilton who found out that a Dr. Carson was responsible for Craig's condition but as it later turned out Dr. Carson was just an alias for the person who was really carrying out these killings. And it was now up to them to find expose and have arrested the person responsible for the murder of George Phillips, J. Arthur Young, the only person who can identify him. The late Mr. Phillips almost by accident came upon his soon to be murderer and was murdered by him for finding him out.***SPOILERS*** With only the killer's voice being able to expose him Trayne plans to trick, if you can call it that, him to speak into a 1940's vintage disk recorder and have the person whom he talked to on the phone, to rent this dilapidated house to use as his private sanitarium, who's the only one who can identify him. Feeling he has to murder Trayne to save himself this all backfires on the killer in Trayne having already figured out who he is. He, the killer, should have tried to murder the person who rented him the sanitarium not Trayne who was the only person who could identify his voice! Or in his, the killers, obviously confused state of mind never for once thought of doing it!

secondtake The Living Ghost (1942)If you want to be sure to see every early zombie movie (because you are obsessed, or a completist), you'll have to watch this one. Yes, this fairly low budget comedy with dramatic lighting and a murder, too. It's a common, lighthearted style from the 1930s and 40s, taking serious themes but putting a cheeky, clever lead in the middle of the situation to give it comic relief.It's not a terrific formula without some great acting and writing, and this one is a strain. The detective (played by James Dunn) is called into lair of a rich family with some mysterious doings. He's a decent comic type, always in charge and casual and a bit goofy. He's looking for a real criminal or two, however, and so there is a backdrop nights in the garden and thunderstorms in strange houses. It's really rather fun and well done in many cinematic ways. But it's too often silly and deflating, too. Lighthearted and lightheaded.The zombie part? That's for real, and if this main zombie is so normal you'll get disappointed, he's still the real thing, and could be an archetype for a shadowy kind of zombie that infiltrates normal society. He's the opposite of the "World War Z" type of superman zombie, and it's a more interesting direction. As the movie progresses the detective (and the tag-along your woman who he's in love with) encounter another zombie, and it gets creepier even as the light comedy persists.Anyway, watch if you just want a breezy fun time with lots of night and dark filming (which is rather nice overall). And a couple of zombies, more or less.