To me, this movie is perfection.

Sick Product of a Sick System

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The Ghost Walks, starring a bunch of people we've never heard of. The usual story... car breaks down in a storm, ends up in the house where weird stuff starts happening, kind of like in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Directed by Frank Strayer, who had also started in the silents..this was a Maury Cohen production, so keep those expectations low! sound is terrible, picture and editing are miserable. badly in need of restoration. The hostess starts to see things that aren't there, and may be communicating with them. Séances and the occult were big in the 1930s, and this is a "horror" film in that genre. The acting is cardboard, and the script is just terrible. kind of fun to watch, in spite of the poor quality. It's pretty terrible. Showing on Moonlight Movies. Skip it... ain't no thang. Baaaaaaaaaddddddd.

It's occasionally amusing -- a story about seven people in a "haunted house" on a stormy night. One by one, four of them disappear, evidently one of them murdered.There's a lot of shouting and carrying on. One of the characters -- the secretary of a Broadway producer -- is gay, and I'm glad because he gets most of the funny lines and bits of business. I suppose some people today would argue that the character's flamboyance is politically incorrect but I'm sure that if this were shown in the Castro Theater it would get belly laughs and applause.The plot is hardly worth going on about. I always enjoy the notion of a handful of people stuck in a country mansion during a fierce electrical storm but the writers have to DO something with the proposition. After all, it's not funny in itself. Neil Simon did an exceptional job with it in "Murder By Death," using some of the same hoary tactics. (Two living eyes stare out of a painting.) All of the acting is overdone. The lines are loud and the gestures theatrical, but the viewer will have to go easy on such weaknesses. It's 1934, and many of the actors of the period came from the stage. They had to shout to reach the balcony. On top of that, the huge, noisy cameras had to be enclosed in soundproof "blimps", as they were called, and the microphones hidden in vases, buttonholes, garter belts, and whatnot.It's worth a look, perhaps, but not two looks.

A fierce storm forces playwright Prescott Ames (John Miljan) and his friends, Broadway producer Herman Wood (Richard Carle) and secretary Homer Erskine (Johnny Arthur) to seek shelter at a country house. It seems they walk right into the middle of some weird happenings - Dr. Kent (Henry Kolker) has mental patients in various rooms and every so often blood curdling screams are heard. Beatrice (Eve Southern) is convinced her late husband was murdered and goes into trances when she communicates with him. There is a showdown at dinner with accusations flying thick and fast - the lights go out and Beatrice disappears. It is all too much for Wood and Erskine, who go to their room intending to leave. But things are not as they appear - Ames has masterminded the whole evening - it is the first act from his new play and everyone at the house is an actor, rounded up by Gloria (June Collyer) Ames' fiancée. Woods and Erskine cotton on when they find the play, "The Ghost Walks" in their room, but meanwhile someone is taking things seriously because Beatrice is found murdered.A knock at the door is heard and a keeper from the local sanitarium is enquiring about an escaped patient. "At the sanitarium we call him Case 202 - I guess you'd call him a homicidal maniac"!!!! Of course while everyone is now in a panic, Woods and co still think it is part of the play and are constantly making jokes!! Ames then tells how he came by the house - it was once owned by a mad doctor who had 9 patients that mysteriously disappeared. It then got the reputation as a haunted house. When a portrait "winks" at Erskine, he finally gets the message that this is not a game - meanwhile half the guests have mysteriously disappeared.....While the "play within a play" was ho hum to Broadway audiences, it was still a novel idea to film patrons of the mid thirties. This is a quite enjoyable film that is very easy to watch and even though Johnny Arthur is one of the leads, he is quite funny and the laughs don't get in the way. It is just so nice to see John Miljan as a likable hero (with no nasty secrets to hide) and June Collyer is just as beautiful as ever as the love interest. Johnny Arthur specialised in whiny, effeminate types - typical was his role as Homer Erskine.

One of the genres that flourished during the decade of the 30s was the variation of crime fiction known as "the murder mystery", as the addition of sound to films helped to make a more faithful translation to film of what the audiences experienced in the original plays. And since horror films were very popular in those years, by enhancing the horror elements of the plots the murder mystery films experienced a popularity almost equal to what it enjoyed in the previous decade (in which the first movies of the genre were produced). Aspiring playwright Charles Belden saw in this renewed interest in murder mysteries a chance to make a name for himself, after Warner Bros. picked his three-act play, "The Wax Works", to create the 1933 horror film, "Mystery of the Wax Museum". Belden joined independent filmmaker Frank R. Strayer to keep making films, and "The Ghost Walks" was one of his best.In "The Ghost Walks", John Miljan plays Prescott Ames, a young playwright who wants to impress a famous Broadway producer named Herman Wood (Richard Carle) with his new play. Ames takes Wood and his assistant Homer (Johnny Arthur) to his country house for a reading of his play, but his car ends up stuck in the mud during a terrible storm. The three men ask for refugee in an old Mansion which happens to be property of one of Ames' old acquaintances. Inside the house, Wood and Homer witnesses the strange relationship between Ames and the house owners, however, this is all a plan conceived to impress Wood: everyone in the house is an actor playing a role in his murder mystery. Unfortunately, the murder committed is done for real, and while Wood and Homer think it's all fake (after discovering Ames' original plan), the cast knows that someone inside the house is a real murderer.As expected, Charles Belden's screenplay for "The Ghost Walks" features the classic elements of the murder mystery stories of its time, as we have the stormy night at an old dark house as setting, the obligatory group of suspects, and the touch of comedy. However, what's interesting here is how Belden makes the film a real spoof on the genre with the many twists he puts in his story to play with the clichés of murder mystery plays. The dialogs are excellent, full of wit and lighthearted charm, and while the plot certainly loses a lot of steam by the end (it follows the murder mystery routine anyways), it never fails to be interesting and entertaining thanks to its smart twists and specially its quirky characters. Interestingly, there's an obvious gay subtext that while stereotypical, it's never denigrating and it's genuinely funny at times.By 1934 director Frank R. Strayer was already an experienced craftsman in the Poverty row side of the film industry, but his partnership with writer Charles Belden would give him a couple of his most interesting movies, and "The Ghost Walks" was one of them. While obviously done on a shoestring budget and the typical production values of independent films of its time, Strayer manages to take advantage of his set and makes an atmospheric movie that fits nicely the mood and tone of the story. The pacing is a little too slow at times, but Strayer knew that the power of his film was on Belden's script and makes the most of it, letting his cast to make the most of their characters with excellent results. Certainly the execution is a bit typical and unoriginal, but Strayer makes an effective albeit restrained work in this film.As written above, the screenplay is filled with great lines that make the quirky characters shine, and fortunately, most of the cast play with this to their advantage. Veteran character actor Richard Carle is remarkably funny as cranky producer Herman Wood, adding a lot of charm to his character, specially in his scenes with Johnny Arthur, who plays the flamboyant secretary Homer. Arthur is the one who gets the most best scenes, and he gives and hilarious performance as the cowardly yet witty assistant. John Miljan is just effective as Presocott Ames, nothing amazing, but nothing really bad, and the same could be said about June Collyer as Gloria Shaw (the obligatory love interest), whom is just fine. However, Donald Kirke is really enjoyable as the malicious Terry Shaw, and it's a shame he didn't get more screen time.As usual with Frank R. Strayer films, the low budget hurts the film badly, as while Strayer makes the best he can, the film still feels kind of plain at times. However, the main problem is problem the very slow pace it has, as even when the film is filled with sparkly moments of witty dialogs, it moves at a pace so slow that can become boring and tedious for moments. It also must be said that while effective in their roles, Miljan and Collyer are pretty dull and average when compared to Arthur and Carle, and one wishes the movie had been more focused on the comedic pair they make than on the main couple. Finally, as written above the ending is kind of weak and not up to the high standard of the first and middle parts, although credit must go to Belden for keeping creative plot twists appearing until the very end.One could say that Charles Belden is an unsung hero of the murder mystery genre, as among the many horror and mystery films that came out the B movie studios nicknamed as "the Poverty Row", "The Ghost Walks" is easily among the best (alongisde Strayer's previous film, "The Vmapire Bat") despite its shortcomings. And even when it's definitely not a masterpiece of the genre, it's a nice way to spend a night enjoying the way it pokes fun at its own origin as a murder mystery play. A very recommended film if you like the genre. 7/10