The Ghost and Mr. Chicken - 1966

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken - 1966: Don Knotts' puts out a lot of energy as the "brave coward" Luthor Heggs, surrounded by a panoply of "Americana" character types (many of the actors we see on screen are veterans of numerous TV shows) and all of this gives The Ghost and Mr. Chicken the feel of a fast-moving TV comedy. The production values are better than TV, though, as we get to see the setting of the town called Rachel, Kansas, spread out before us in all of it's Universal backlot glory. We have scenes inside of diners, a police station, and especially the "haunted' mansion called "the Simmons place" by the characters, a visual treat that add up to much more than what a 1966 TV program could deliver on a cathode tube.

Rachel, Kansas, is the setting of a two decade old murder which becomes the focus of the aspirations of Heggs. He is frustratingly toiling away in the basement of the town's newspaper, wishing he was instead upstairs and a reporter. With some prodding from a fellow employee (Liam Redmond), Heggs puts together a "filler" article on an old unsolved murder and that immediately gets the rapt attention of everyone in town.

A combination of disgust and barely disguised jealousy comes Heggs' way from the paper's editor (Skip Homeier as Ollie Weaver) following the article's success, and pretty soon the quivering Heggs has got to spend the anniversary night of the murder at the run-down old mansion, the basis for producing a sensationalistic follow-up article to feed the town's interest in the old mystery. The editor is delighted with Heggs' rising, shaking fear and is hoping for a complete nervous collapse to humiliate the man. Ollie has more than just one reason for his jealousy: while all of this is transpiring and Heggs is becoming a local celebrity, his supposed girlfriend (Joan Staley as Alma Parker) is rapidly becoming more in more in simpatico with Heggs.

Knotts quivers, shakes and puffs out his chest when needed to play a character not far removed from his famous Barney Fife persona from the Andy Griffith Show TV program. But instead of being the goofy sidekick who goes out of control once handed too much authority by the stalwart and level-headed Sheriff of Mayberry, USA, Heggs is a bottled up character who is at war primarily with himself and his ambitions, a situation more conquerable than the repeating plots of sitcom TV programs. Heggs just has to hang in there, despite derision and setbacks, and to also let the other mass of characters do their own actions, for example an ensemble of spiritualist enthusiasts who gather and hold hands trying to commune with ghosts, or Heggs' friend from the newspaper (Redmond) who knows more than he is letting on.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is packed with oddball characters, and, despite no clear explanation for why Joan Staley's eyes are getting fixed upon Don Knotts' Heggs, everyone (and film audience) is fixated on both Heggs bravery (or lack) and the "old murder." With that in mind (all the time in this rather simple plot) we tour through the cobwebbed old mansion with its hidden staircases and trick doors, a portrait on the wall that bleeds, and an organ that bangs out a tune in the middle of the night all by itself.

Knotts is our main special effect, though, going from rattling fear to determination and back again. As silly as The Ghost and Mr. Chicken can be, it is also part satire on a kind of America that was already fading in 1966, but, like the "old murder" at the "Simmon's place," was still kept alive in the memory of the people who could see their own home towns in Rachel, Kansas.

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Original Page September 3, 2025