larry41onEbay Review of Public Ghost #1

Public Ghost #1 (1935)

Charley Chase gets hired as a professional house haunter with mixed results.

[6/10 · 8 December 2004]

This odd comedy short starts with character actor Edwin Maxwell walking out of a mental asylum only to turn around and knock on the gate to tell a guard there's been an escape, "Who?" the guard asks to which Maxwell answers, "Me!" In the next scene, Charley Chase meets pretty Joyce Compton when they collide while both trying to use a penny weighing machine. It not only gives their fortune, but a picture of their future spouse! Both are intrigued that, by sheer coincidence, the machine gives them photos of each other. Curmudgeon-faced Clarence Wilson plays a businessman who is Compton's father. There is a gag about wacky inventor Maxwell's fly trap works by that embarrasses its victims to death, but the longest gag involves Charley getting hired as a professional house haunter. Not one of his best, but one of his strangest comedies. Recommended to fans only.