Well, the house is empty, and it's back to the list of "horror" movies. We'd skipped a few while my daughter was home to make sure she got to watch a "quality" horror movie. Unfortunately, she was still stuck with a weird version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Next up in the list was a movie called Old Mother Riley's Ghosts. The quality in it was horrific, the woman was almost more irritating than Kay Kiser in You'll Find Out (it might have been a tie), and that was after only 15 minutes. We also couldn't understand what people were saying. Mother Riley was one of those people who wasn't necessary to a scene. For instance, a group of men were gathered in a room for a meeting, but the table was messy. Old Mother comes in, Three Stooges her way around a bit, gets kicked out, and then the men go on with their meeting. Her presence was 100% unnecessary. Anyway, we were both bothered by her and turned that movie off, skipping forward in the list to The Smiling Ghost.
This movie started off strong. The credits begin with a creepy, ghosty grin over top of the title. Elinor has had four fiancés meet with tragic, if not fatal, incidents on the eve of marriage. Elinor's grandmother has now hired Lucky, a man in debt up to his eyeballs, to pretend to be engaged to Elinor for a month to try and flush out the "ghost" responsible for the incidents. A series of nefarious accidents and dangerous attempts are then made on Lucky's life. He's determined to help Elinor, but there's also Lil, a local reporter, who's got her eye on a story - and Lucky himself!
I was really excited when I realized that some of this movie was actually somewhat horror-ish. It still had some of that stupid comedy in there. And it had Clarence, the African American actor they put in too many uncomfortable situations (they had him hide in the coal bin, etc.). But overall, there was a real mystery in there. Put aside the stupid romance that made no sense. I mean, there's no way not one, but two women would fall in love with that doofus within 24 hours. I would hope not anyway. I also had a real issue with the ghost knowing about the secret passageway when no one in the family seemed to be aware of it. Two separate times everyone was gathered in that room, and they didn't know there was another way out.
My overall judgement is middle of the road. Honestly, this is a basic Scooby Doo episode with some bad romance shoehorned into it. It also didn't have enough dog (but there was one briefly!). Favorite character was Norton, the butler, who knew nothing about his job but had weapons all the time and pointed them at whoever he felt like. And an honorable mention to Mr. Dinwiddie, because I liked his name.
