Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Just perfect...

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

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.

If you have young ones and you want to gradually introduce them to the horror genre without giving them nightmares, I suggest you start with this terrific movie, which does something that very few films have done successfully .... blend horror and comedy in a perfect mix. I wanted to share the Vincent Price/Roger Corman "Poe" films with my kids but chose this one first instead and I am glad that I did. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken had them laughing and shivering in fear within minutes of each other, with no lasting damage done (i.e., no nightmares). Luther (Don Knotts) is a jittery, energetic, nervous-as-all-getout, wannabe news reporter who is asked to spend one night in the scary old Simmons mansion, where a murder-suicide occurred many years before, and write an article about his experience. This sets up the first chilling night of terror in the Simmons house, where an organ spontaneously plays at midnight and there are creaks and shrills throughout. The kids were genuinely frightened by the old organ music (which scared me as an 8 year-old back in the day, too) but quickly got over it. Without spoiling any of the fun, I can say that I showed this movie at my daughter's slumber party and the whole gang of girls loved the film. I'm sure you will enjoy it too.

After attaining stardom playing Barney Fife on TV, comedy actor Don Knotts made the jump to feature film vehicles with movies such as this one. He plays Luther Heggs, a typesetter for his small town newspaper. What he really wants to be, naturally, is a reporter, and gets his big chance for a scoop when his bosses suggest that he spend the night in a supposedly haunted house.However, the unaware should know that he actually doesn't spend much of the movie in the house. The balance of the story has him trying to defend himself when the owner of the place, Nicholas Simmons (Philip Ober), sues him for libel. So he is obliged to prove that the supernatural phenomena that he saw in the house were not merely the product of his overworked imagination.Knotts is priceless in this harmless bit of goofy entertainment. It has a pleasant feel of small town Americana as well as an amusingly decorated Old Dark House. (Whoever was in charge of the cobweb machine clearly went nuts.) The material runs a little hot and cold, though. Whenever Knotts is called upon to do his thing, things get very funny. Whether he's over reacting to the slightest thing, or performing his version of "karate", or awkwardly wooing the lovely young Alma (appealing Joan Staley), he's a riot. All of that jittery energy that was his trademark is in full force. The action is further enhanced by an entertainingly silly music score by Vic Mizzy.Knotts is supported by an incredible array of top notch character players, most of whom play the straight man - or straight woman - to his antics. It's particularly delightful to see Charles Lane and Robert Cornthwaite as opposing attorneys. The only elements that got annoying quickly to this viewer were the kooky Psychic Occult Society ladies and that "attaboy" heckler (voiced by co-writer Everett Greenbaum)."The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is not always terribly funny, but it's certainly got a great charm about it.Seven out of 10.

The first Don Knotts vehicle I've watched is widely considered his best effort; however, I was let down by it following the internet hype back when the film surfaced on DVD (including an endorsement by Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas on his blog). The title explains all: the star is a milquetoast who works as type setter at a small-town newspaper – of course, he really wants to be a journalist (though his inexperience leads him to report a murder solely on hearsay, only to be embarrassed when the alleged victim turns up shaken but very much alive at the Police station!) and eventually finds his great opportunity with a story about a legendary local haunted house (where a violent death and suicide had occurred twenty years earlier).Asked to spend the night there by his editor, the hero comes across secret panels in the library, organs that play by themselves (complete with bloodied keys), not to mention a portrait slashed by a dagger! Consequently, by the next day he's a celebrity – with frequent off-screen enthusiastic goadings of "Attaboy, Luther!" – which also earns him the attention of the woman he had long fancied but who, of course, is the girlfriend of his biggest persecutor, a hot-shot at the same paper; the latter's constant wheedling of Knotts causes the couple to split and, needless to say, the hero gets the girl himself by the end of it.Let me put it this way: THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN is a pleasant enough diversion (especially the last half-hour featuring the courtroom scene – the current owner of the haunted house has filed a libel suit, in which it's established that Knotts has always had a vivid imagination – and the eventual disastrous on-site verification of the haunting – since the manifestations, unbeknownst to the hero, were only the handiwork of the helpful Irish janitor at his workplace!). Still, plot and characterization are so clichéd as to render the film utterly predictable which, coupled with its own inherently unassuming nature, makes for something less than classic (at least in my book)! For what it's worth, Vic Mizzy's bouncy yet atmospheric score clearly proves an asset – with the antics of an old ladies' group keen on the paranormal, while essentially silly, being a fairly amusing touch as well. Incidentally, I should be able to get my hands on five more of Knotts' films – but the one I'll be sure to check out presently is THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST (1968), since it's a remake of the Bob Hope classic THE PALEFACE (1948)