Review of The Live Ghost

You may see this L&H comedy short at YouTube, either in its B&W form or colorized form. I found the latter to be unacceptably blurry.. This film relies more on situation comedy and sight gags, and less on slapstick and verbal comedy than most of their films........It's about a captain(played by intimidating Walter Long) of a small ship, plagued by a reputation for harboring one or more ghosts. For this reason, he has to mostly rely on shanghaied sailors. He enlists the aid of Stan and Ollie to round up a new crew. Their technique is to get a particular sailor in a nearby tavern angry enough to chase Stan outside, where Ollie is waiting with a frying pan. Stan makes them mad by betting them that they can't hold an egg in their mouth without breaking it. They guess this is an easy task. However, Stan then punches them under the chin, and usually that's sufficient to break the egg. This trick worked wonderfully for quite a few sailors, whom the Captain carried to the ship and tossed in the hold. But Then Ollie feared that Stan was becoming too well known, so had then switch roles. On his first try, Ollie encounters a problem. The intended victim is wise to the trick, and demands that Ollie demonstrate that he can pass the test first. After Ollie inserts the egg, this sailor punches his jaw, and Ollie has to swallow the broken egg. Ollie then puts another egg in the sailors mouth, and punches him along with pushing his head down. He chases Ollie outside, but Stan misses few times with the pan, then finally hits Ollie, followed by the sailor. Meanwhile , the Captain has returned for another victim, and the confused Stan bonks him on the head too. But, being Walter Long, he doesn't seem to feel anything. So, he grabs the pan from Stan and bonks him on the head, which knocks him out. The Captain takes the boys on board, along with the sailor. When the others wake up, they want to tear Stan and Ollie apart, but the Captain says they are honored guests, and he will not stand for any roughing them up, unless they utter the word, 'ghost', in which case, he will screw their necks around so that they will now see what's in back of them. ........The boys share a bunk with a habitual falling down drunk(played by Arthur Housman). Why the Captain puts up with him is a mystery. At a distant port of call, the Captain forbids him to go ashore, while all the others, except of the boys, go to a tavern. The boys are supposed to make sure the drunk doesn't go ashore. But, he tricks them by making a dummy, placed under his blanket, then going ashore. The boys, across from his bunk, get ready for bed, but Stan finds a pistol in their bunk. He points this at Ollie, who tries to grab it, but makes Stan pull the trigger, shooting a bullet into the dummy, which flinches. They fear they may have killed the drunk, who doesn't move. Thus, they plan to dump the body overboard, after they find a body bag, which they go looking for. Meanwhile, the drunk has fallen into a tub of whitewash on shore(what's it doing there?), and comes out all white. He returns, dismantles the dummy, and pulls the blanket over his head, after getting on the bed. The boys return with a bag, and carefully load the 'body' in the bag. Presumably, the drunk is so out of it, he doesn't notice. After adding a big lump of coal for weight, they slip the 'body' over the side, but don't wait long to make sure it sinks. In fact, the drunk emerges from the poorly secured top of the bag, and swims to the boat, climbing over the railing to scare Stan, on deck, who assumes it's the ghost of the body they just threw into sea. While Stan and Ollie are looking around the deck for the ghost, the drunk goes into the bunk room , and climbs into the upper berth of the boys, rather than his lower birth, across from them. Ollie returns to the bunk room, and gets in bed beside the drunk, whose head is covered by the blanket, and whom he assumes is Stan. But, he sees Stan outside the window, and makes a frightening discovery. He jumps out of bed, and the 2 run around the deck, screaming about a ghost, who also jumped out of bed, and is chasing them. Meanwhile, a bunch of the crew has come board with the purpose of 'taking care' of the boys. Very fortunately for the boys, this gang sees the 'ghost', panic and all jump overboard. Then the Captain arrives, with a floozy(Mae Busch) he picked up in the tavern. They don't see the drunk as being a ghost. But, the floozy recognizes him under the white stuff, to be her husband, who deserted her. She cases after him. Meanwhile, the boys forget that the Captain is present, and talk about a ghost. The Captain carries out his threat of punishment if anyone mentioned 'ghost' on his ship........Yes, it's a pretty tall tale, but it's also fun.