Film review: The Ghost Goes West (1935)

As far as I'm aware, Robert Donat can do no wrong (well, anyone associated with The 39 Steps, really), and this film is certainly no evidence to the contrary.  Plus he gets to play two roles.  It's also a bit more fun than the marital bickering of Blithe Spirit, if we're comparing ghost films.  The film opens in some fictionalized 18th Century version of Scotland, where the clan Glourie and the clan McLaggen are supposed to put aside their mutual loathing to fight the English.  A problem is that the scion of the Glourie clan (Murdoch, played by Donat) is much more interested in getting the local wenches to play his riddle-guessing-that-turns-into-a-kissing game than he is in fighting.  That's not to say he's cowardly, just easily distracted.  On one fateful day, however, the head of the clan Glourie drops dead (you can tell he must be because he drops his whisky) just before Murdoch is killed while hiding behind a barrel of gunpowder that gets hit by a poorly-directed Scottish cannonball (we never even get to see any English).  Father makes it to Heaven, but has to explain to son that his fate is to haunt their castle until such time as the Glourie honor is restored by forcing a member of the McLaggens to admit that one Glourie could whip 50 McLaggens.  Sadly, however, as no McLaggens visit the castle, poor Murdoch is consigned to purgatory for the next 200 years.  The scene switches to a decidedly dilapidated Castle Glourie in the modern day (well, 1930s), and a young woman driving up to it in her natty little roadster.  She is Peggy Martin (played by a charmingly perky (a hard combination to pull off) Jean Parker), the daughter of an American millionaire.  On touring the castle, she encounters a crowd of angry local merchants, who are kept at bay by a fearsome housekeeper, but are determined to extract the vast (for those days) sums they are owed by the current Lord of the Manor.  When we finally see Donald Glourie, he is of course also played by Robert Donat, but, while charming, he is a more diffident version than his rakish ancestor.  He is very interested in both Peggy and her offer to buy the castle, and is happy to hear that she will return that night with her parents.  The housekeeper immediately whips all the merchants into preparing a slap up feed with food also provided by them, with the promise that if all goes well they'll finally get paid.  They all know about the Glourie Ghost, however, so are all keen to get out before his nightly haunting begins at midnight.  Donald is keen to end the party too, because Peggy's mother has announced that she's deathly afraid of ghosts and the sale will be off.  But Peggy, conversely, wants to stay as late as possible.  Eventually the clock hands creep past midnight and we expect the ghost to appear, but he doesn't.  The parents are hustled into their car and Peggy follows in his, and Donald thanks Murdoch aloud for holding off.  But it turns out that the real reason he didn't show is that the canny housekeeper set the clock forward an hour, so it's not yet midnight.  And Peggy decides she really wants to stay the night (she's sassy!  She's a girl who knows what she wants, as we see repeatedly).  Peggy of course bumps into Murdoch, who still can't resist a pretty face and tries to get her to play his riddle game.  However, after he's reveal the forfeit, but before he can collect, his heavenly dad scolds him for getting distracted again and Peggy is left to pay the forfeit to a stunned Donald (whom, of course, she thinks it was) the next day. Anyway, Peggy's father reaches a price with Donald (he is prepared to pay 10 thousand pounds, but Donald, not knowing this, just insists it be more than the slightly-more-than two thousand that he owes the merchants.  But then the father (who is played by the marvelously croaky-voiced Eugene Pallette, who plays an almost identical role in Heaven Can Wait) announces that the castle is to be moved to Florida, and Donald's Scottish pride takes over.  However, Peggy's influence gets him to cave and they're off.  Cut to the boat going over, and Murdoch manifests mid-Atlantic, and Peggy gets to see him try his riddle game on other fair maids and is disgusted in Donald.  But fairly quickly she and her father realizes this is the real deal, and suddenly the press get word and the opening of the re-assembled-in-Florida castle becomes a huge event.  (Donald is not so happy with Mr. Martin's "embellishments" (like converting a suit of armor into a radio) (there are a couple of "radio" jokes, from which one can infer that it was viewed as kind of a crass fad by the filmmakers) but he's also miserable about Peggy's distance.  Anyway, we get a satisfactory resolution when it emerges that Mr. Martin's rival in business and large-European-building purchasing is a McLaggen descendant, and Murdoch manages to fulfill his mission and get Peggy and Donald reunited.  All in all definitely the frothy entertainment I had promised with Blithe Spirits, with a couple of genuine laugh-out-loud moments (provided mainly by Mr. Martin's taste or lack thereof).  Very satisfactory.