The Ghost of St Michael's is a 1941 Hill Hay comedy that's directed by Marcel Varnel. He's a Frenchman who started directing comedies on the Paris stage. He moved to New York in 1925 to direct on Broadway for the Shubert family. He made his way to Hollywood where he directed Chandu The Magician in 1932. He moved to England in 1934 where he would direct a lot of comedies for big stars like Will Hay, Arthur Askey and George Formby. He died in 1947.
Angus McPhail and John Dighton wrote the story and screenplay. They worked together and separately on many movies, some of which I've seen. Here they've got a murder mystery comedy with Will Hay as a teacher who gets sent to a school recently relocated to the Isle of Sky in Scotland. It's war time and the many young people were moved into the remote country to keep them from getting blown up in the cities. I liked the little miniature harbor and boat. No location shooting here, probably couldn't have gotten the gas to get them there.
The ghost of St Michael's returns after Will gets there and the Head Master is killed. That's Will with Charles Hawtrey and Claude Hubert above. Other than those three the rest of the cast were unfamiliar except for John Laurie. Some might know him from Dad's Army but he did a lot of films before that popular TV series. After the second Head Master is killed Will works out what is going on and eventually gets the baddies caught. There's some fun scenes and some OK jokes. Rapidly becoming one of my favorite Hay movies.
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