Hold That Ghost is Abbott and Costello's 4th film for Universal. It's the 3rd film they made in 1941 and the 3rd for director Arthur Lubin. It's written by Robert Lees, Fred Rinaldo and John Grant. The film was started right after Buck Privates. They filmed in January and February of 1941 with a budget of $190,000. The movie was originally called Oh Charlie and the story was slightly different. Tests of the near finished film got a lot of comments about the lack of The Andrew Sisters. The studio went back and shot a new opening and closing scenes in the nightclub and re-shot some other scenes to match the changes in the script. All the new footage cost and addition $200,000.
Bud and Lou are working at a gas station and because of that they get stuck in gangster Moose Mattson's car during a car chase. Moose is killed and his will leaves the money to the person who's there with him when he dies. The guys wind up with a broken down tavern. Moose's lawyer gives the guys a hand in form of Marc Lawrence who arranges a bus ride to the rural tavern. It's a dark and stormy night and they get stranded at the tavern with Richard Carlson, Joan Davis and Evelyn Ankers. Moose is famous for saying he's hidden his loot in his head and a bunch of gangsters are after the money. Marc is secretly looking for the cash for himself and the lawyer. He doesn't last too long, some hands pop out of the furnace, grab him, and the next time we see Marc, he's dead.
There's plenty of running about and yelling as the two groups clash through the night. It's all pretty silly and I got a few laughs out of it. I'm going to slowly work my way through the Universal collection and gets some more laughs.
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