Luther tries to appear brave, but it's pretty obvious that he's scared to death. At exactly one-half hour before midnight, he walks to the home with his sleeping bag and his flashlight. He's locked out of the front door but falls through a trap door and lands in the basement. Inside the spooky home that is shrouded with cobwebs and antiques, Luther finds his way up the stairs to the living room and makes himself comfortable on the couch. Before he has a chance to fall asleep, he hears eerie voices coming from the walls. A secret staircase opens behind a bookcase that leads up into the organ loft. Luther looks with horror at the organ which starts to play on its own, the blood-stained keys moving at a frantic rate. Luther runs down an alternate set of stairs and passes out at the sight of blood oozing out of Mrs. Simmons portrait!

      

   

The next day Luther, still in a state of shock, tells his boss, Mr. Beckett the whole story. When the town's residents read about Luther's experiences in the community newspaper, Luther becomes an instant celebrity but Simmons' lawyer summons him to court where Luther and Beckett are both sued for libel. Simmons offers Luther a chance to retract his story and he will drop all charges, but Luther refuses. He insists that the Simmons' ghosts are present in the home and offers to show everyone what he saw in the house: the blood-stained organ keyboard and the bloodied portrait. He leads a team of police, historians, psychics, and nosy neighbours into the home during the day. But the organ is now clean and the portrait is neatly placed on the wall and without any blood !! The residents think Luther fabricated the entire story to gain attention and quickly leave the house. Luther is last to leave, but runs back when he hears organ music. He finds his co-worker, Kelsey playing the organ. Kelsey tells Luther that it was *he* who's behind all the pranks. Kelsey wanted to trap Nick Simmons into admitting the truth. Twenty years ago it was Simmons who killed his aunt and uncle. Because Kelsey, then groundskeeper, was found with the dead Mrs. Simmons, he was pinned for the murder. After twenty years, he was able to undo the wrong. They catch Simmons coming up the hidden staircase. While Kelsey argues with Simmons, Luther sneaks away and catches Simmons from behind the staircase. He knocks out the villain, calls the police, and is, again the hero after all.

   

THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN stars comedian Don Knotts, who began his acting career as a ventriloquist. Knotts is well known to many tv audiences for his five year portrayal as the quirkly landlord "Ralph Furley" on the CBS sitcom THREE'S COMPANY. And following the success of THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN, Knotts completed two additional films with director Alan Rafkin: HOW TO FRAME A FIGG (1966) and THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST (1968). Presently, these three films are sold together as a special video pack. Rafkin, whose 40 year career in television range from credits in the 1960s sitcom comedies Bewitched and Gomer Pyle, to such 70s hits as Laverne & Shirley, and *M*A*S*H*, to Suddenly Susan, Veronica's Closet in the 1990s, passed away in August 2001. Running time for THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN is approximately 90 minutes. Memorable laughable quotes from the movie include Luther when he's asked to calm down after his harried night, he screams out "CALM? CALM? Do MURDER and CALM go together??!!" Audiences have also noted a couple of bloopers. In the scene where Luther and his lunch date share a table with a stranger, the camera shows a dessert cup as full, then empty, and then it's full again without anyone touching the cup. Second, a very obvious stunt double was used to film the scene where Luther falls through the trap door.