Don Knotts is Luther Heggs, a typesetter at a small town newspaper who dreams of being a reporter. After several false starts, he gets his chance when his editor has him spend the night at a deserted mansion during the twentieth anniversary of an alleged murder-suicide by the husband and wife who lived there. The mansion is supposedly haunted by ghosts and is the obsession of a group of local female paranormal fanatics. But the nephew of the dead couple wants very much to take title of the mansion and bulldoze it as soon as possible. Luther Heggs spends the night as planned, and hears the organ playing and finds secret stairs. Heggs becomes a local celebrity, but the nephew files a libel suit against him. What next? It is Don Knotts's topnotch performance as the excitable Luther Heggs that carries the whole movie, jumping around nervously and stuttering. The script and the other performers fall short, and the whole thing could and should have been funnier...and more exciting. Knotts did the best he could with this material, but he could have used some support.
Review of The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
