The first Don Knotts vehicle I’ve watched is widely considered his best effort; however, I was let down by it following the internet hype back when the film surfaced on DVD (including an endorsement by Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas on his blog). The title explains all: the star is a milquetoast who works as type setter at a small-town newspaper – of course, he really wants to be a journalist (though his inexperience leads him to report a murder solely on hearsay, only to be embarrassed when the alleged victim turns up shaken but very much alive at the Police station!) and eventually finds his great opportunity with a story about a legendary local haunted house (where a violent death and suicide had occurred twenty years earlier).

Asked to spend the night there by his editor, the hero comes across secret panels in the library, organs that play by themselves (complete with bloodied keys), not to mention a portrait slashed by a dagger! Consequently, by the next day he’s a celebrity – with frequent off-screen enthusiastic goadings of “Attaboy, Luther!” – which also earns him the attention of the woman he had long fancied but who, of course, is the girlfriend of his biggest persecutor, a hot-shot at the same paper; the latter’s constant wheedling of Knotts causes the couple to split and, needless to say, the hero gets the girl himself by the end of it.

Let me put it this way: THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN is a pleasant enough diversion (especially the last half-hour featuring the courtroom scene – the current owner of the haunted house has filed a libel suit, in which it’s established that Knotts has always had a vivid imagination – and the eventual disastrous on-site verification of the haunting – since the manifestations, unbeknownst to the hero, were only the handiwork of the helpful Irish janitor at his workplace!). Still, plot and characterization are so clichéd as to render the film utterly predictable which, coupled with its own inherently unassuming nature, makes for something less than classic (at least in my book)!

For what it’s worth, Vic Mizzy’s bouncy yet atmospheric score clearly proves an asset – with the antics of an old ladies’ group keen on the paranormal, while essentially silly, being a fairly amusing touch as well. Incidentally, I should be able to get my hands on five more of Knotts’ films – but the one I’ll be sure to check out presently is THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST (1968), since it’s a remake of the Bob Hope classic THE PALEFACE (1948)…