Film review: The Canterville Ghost (1944)

This one is based on a story by Oscar Wilde, but departs significantly from it.  As with Wilde, the ghost dies after being walled up, but in this version it's for cowardice, while in the original it's for the slightly more serious murdering his wife.  In both, his castle is invaded by Americans, but whereas in the story, it's just a family, in this version it's a troop of American GIs.  The official owner of the castle, Lady Jessica de Canterville (played by the astonishingly precocious Margaret O'Brien), is just 6 years old.  In the story, the ghost is allowed to rest because of services rendered (tears shed, praying for, interceding with Death for) by the teenage daughter of the family.  In the film, this role is split between Lady Jessica and one of the GIs, Cuffy Williams, who, a birthmark on his neck reveals, is actually a Canterville descendant, and he has to perform a brave act, something long lines of Cantervilles have failed at.  Robert Young as Cuffy is really the focus of this film, which is a bit of a shame given that you have Charles Laughton as the ghost, who gets surprisingly little to do (after the humorous (and then rather shocking) prologue).  The story was obviously adapted to serve propaganda purposes just prior to D-Day, and I think it suffers, although the GIs are genial enough.  It does manage to preserve some other details from the story, such as a bloodstain that can't be washed out even with the latest cleaning products, that the GIs, like the twins in the story, scare the ghost (Sir Simon) by dressing up as ghosts themselves, and Lady Jessica recites names of roles that Sir Simon has played over the years in his haunting duties, such as the Blood-Sucker of Bexley Moor and the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn.  A pleasant enough diversion (Cuffy, after initially turning yellow in the heat of battle manages to be brave when a bomb parachutes into the palace grounds and he has to drag it off), but not as good as the rather similar The Ghost Goes West.  Look for screechy Una O'Connor and "Dobie's Dad" Frank Faylen in minor roles.