THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES (1946)

Full disclosure: I loved Abbott & Costello movies when I was a kid; for the most part, I can't stand them now. I've tried re-watching some and usually wind up bailing out about 15 minutes in--particularly disappointing was JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, a horrible piece of junk which was one of my favorites when I was 9. This one, however, is one I had never seen before and I found it quite tolerable, perhaps because it's different from most of their films in a couple major ways: it is unusually plot-heavy and Abbott and Costello actually play relatively fleshed-out characters. In 1780, during a party at an estate, Costello (playing a tinker) and Marjorie Reynolds are mistakenly accused of being traitors, even though Costello has a letter from George Washington noting his loyalty and bravery. They are shot and killed and their bodies dumped down a well, and they are cursed to remain restless spirits unless their innocence is established. We see them return as ghosts who cannot leave the estate. In the present day, a group of folks come to stay at the restored house. The ghosts try their best to "haunt" the group in hopes that they will discover Washington's letter and allow them to get on to the afterlife. After some haunted house shenanigans, a seance, and a car chase with cops, the letter is found and the ghosts are freed.

Several sources claim that Abbott and Costello weren't on speaking terms during the making of this film, and it's true that the two have almost no scenes together as a team. Costello is clearly the main character; Abbott has a dual role, as a butler in the past, and as the butler's descendent, a psychiatrist, in the present, and he's surprisingly good in both parts, actually allowed to do a little acting rather than just reacting. Costello still mostly does his usual shtick, in slightly subdued form. Reynolds, Crosby's sidekick in HOLIDAY INN, is good, as is Gale Sondergaard as a psychic who presides at the seance. Also notable are Binnie Barnes and Donald MacBride. B-movie actor John Shelton, as a nervous man on the verge of a breakdown, shows why he never broke out of B-movies. The plot is interesting--one writer at IMDb notes that this is a ghost story told from the point of view of the ghosts rather than the haunted--and some fun is had with the attempted haunting (though the "rules" about what the ghosts can and can't do are inconsistent). The seance scene is effective, and the special effects in the last scene, as Costello and Reynolds go off to their heavenly rewards, are nice. Barnes gets one of the best lines, saying, upon meeting a severe Sondergaard, "Didn't I see you in Rebecca?" I can add this to the short list of A&C movies that I can, as an adult, make it all the way through, the others being HOLD THAT GHOST and A&C MEET FRANKENSTEIN. [TCM]