The Ghost of St. Michael’s (1941) - film review

During WWII, William Lamb travels to the Isle of Skye in Scotland to take up the post of a science teacher at school that has temporarily relocated to Dunbain Castle.  According to the caretaker, the castle is haunted by the ghost of a man who killed himself centuries ago.  Whenever the sound of bagpipes is heard, someone will soon die in the castle.  Unimpressed by these childish superstitions, Lamb throws himself into his new job, but gets off to a bad start.  His incompetence and lack of knowledge about his subject (or anything for that matter) make him an easy target for his too-clever-by-half schoolboys.  One of the teachers, Mr Humphries, recognises Lamb, having worked with him at another school, and advises the headmaster, Dr Winter, to dismiss him.  Not long afterwards, Dr Winter is dead, poisoned by rat poison which Lamb prepared for him.  When Humphries is appointed as Winter’s successor, his first act is to sack Lamb, but then he too dies in mysterious circumstances.  Another teacher, Hilary Teasdale, steps into the breach, encouraged by Lamb, who is determined to expose the killer before the school runs out of potential headmasters...

One of the high points of Will Hay’s period at Ealing Studios is this enjoyable wartime comedy in which the incomparable comic actor makes a welcome return to academia, playing the inept schoolmaster character that originally brought him fame.  To make up for the absence of Hay’s former long-suffering stooges Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt, he is partnered with two comparable comic talents, in the guise of Claude Hulbert and Charles Hawtrey (the latter of whom would later become one of the stars of the Carry On films). 

In the latter years of his hugely successful career, Will Hay seemed to find a new lease of life and the films he made during the war are amongst his most entertaining.  The Ghost of St. Michael’s is certainly one of the most enjoyable of Will Hay’s comedies, with a cracking plot (which owes something to Agatha Christie), quick fire comic exchanges and a tireless sense of fun.  It hardly seems to matter that the plot makes absolutely no sense at all.

The scene in which Hay’s beleaguered schoolmaster attempts to explain the law of gravity (which was apparently invented by Isaac Pitman whilst firing an arrow at an apple on someone’s head) is a classic.  Yet this is just one of many superlatively performed set pieces that typically inflate a modest gag to ludicrous proportions through Will Hay’s trademark anti-establishment humour.  With its abundance of jokes, The Ghost of St. Michael’s is easily one of the classics of British film comedy.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?