I much enjoy Max Davidson's comedies and this, even though there are missing scenes, is no exception. An introductory title card says that this is "The story of a lot of pale people who had failed to take their full share of pink pills—." Curious about "pink pills" I looked it up and sure enough there was a late 19th early 20th century patent medicine called: Dr. Williams Pink Pills for Pale People.
Papa, Mama, Daughter and Son Gimplewort move into their new house. Two movers are talking to each other about the murder of a saxophone player that took place in the house. They say his ghost still roams the house. Night comes and every noise and creak in the house scares the papa, mama and son (the daughter is out on a date with one of the young movers). The Mover (or Remover as he's credited) gives the daughter a parrot saying "It's a religious parrot – I bought it from a sailor" (I so don't get why it's called a "religious" parrot). At any rate, the parrot gets into the act by yelling out such things as "16 men on a dead man's chest," further scaring Papa and Son who have come down looking for the source of the noise. Later Daughter and Remover return from a costume party (!!!) and sneak into the house. The young man is dressed in a skeleton outfit and the fun continues. There has been film reconstruction in a number of places, particularly the last third of the film. In many cases there is a photograph depicting the scene being described. Alas, there is no film or photograph of a scene with a cat running around with the parrot on its head – bet that was a funny sight. Nonetheless, they did a good job with the reconstruction and fortunately most of the film is intact.
