The ghost may or may not go west

I recorded The Ghost Goes West last week when it was on TCM, and was planning to do a post on it in time for Halloween. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that the DVD is out of print, since it's a backorder at the TCM Shop and listed as unavailable at Amazon. Not having anything else to blog about, I'll break with my normal pattern and to a "please release me" post instead.

Robert Donat plays Murdoch Glourie, scion of a Scottish clan in the 18th century. The Scottish are planning to go off and fight the English, although Murdoch is rather more of a ladies' man than his ancestors ever were, something that irritates his father no end. Then there are the McLaggen clan, who make fun of Murdoch for his perceived cowardice. He does eventually go off with the intention to fight, but before he can get in the real fighting, he gets killed without having earned his honor. So he becomes a ghost, forever haunting the Glourie castle until he can bring a McLaggen to his knees.

Fast forward 200 years. Donald Glourie (also Robert Donat), the latest head of the Glourie clan, lives in the castle, although probably not for much longer as he's heavily in debt and the creditors are planning to sell off the castle to get the debts paid off. The only problem is the old Glourie ghost, who scares off potential buyers. That is, until an American family shows up. Lovely Peggy Martin (Jean Parker) is the daughter in the family, with Dad (Eugene Pallette) being a grocery magnate. Peggy likes the castle, although Mom doesn't want anything haunted. Peggy sees the ghost and falls in love with it, thinking it's Donald in costume since, after all, both characters are played by the same actor.

Eventually, Dad decides to buy the castle, but he's got an odd plan for it. As a nouveau riche American, his intention is to dismantle the castle, ship it to America, and rebuild it in Florida! Donald is going to go along to supervise the reconstruction, since he could use a job and he'll be near Peggy. Dad doesn't realize that if he does that, the ghost is going to go along for the ride. The ghost is supposed to come out at midnight every night, but where is he going to come out if the castle is dismantled? As it turns out, he shows up on a transatlantic liner, not knowing at first where he is. And the passengers are intrigued by the idea of a ghost, even if the ghost isn't intrigued by the passengers. Indeed, he doesn't like America at all.

Still, Mr. Martin sees the ghost as a great publicity ploy for business, with his chief grocery rival not believing in the existence of ghosts. And the ghost doesn't want to show up any more if it means showing up in America. How is everybody going to resolve the situation such that they can live happily ever after?

I have to admit that The Ghost Goes West took rather a long time to get where it was going, even though the movie is fairly short. (IMDb says 95 minutes; Amazon says 82; I thought the print I watched was a little under 80. So I have no idea what if anything might have been cut.) The portion of the movie in 18th century Scotland wasn't quite my cup of tea, but things really picked up once Eugene Pallette shows up. It's not that Donat is bad; it's just that I felt the script in the first half of the movie let him down a bit. Peters is OK, but pretty much any ingenue actress of the 1930s could have handled her role, which I felt was secondary to the men.

The Ghost Goes West was made in the UK by Alexander Korda producing and René Clair directing; this is probably the explanation for the lack of an in-print DVD release. Clair has an interesting resume when it comes to English-language movies; he also did I Married a Witch and It Happened Tomorrow, both of which are interesting fantasies. The Ghost Goes West is no less interesting. It really needs another DVD release.