Friday, October 15, 2010

The Spirit is Willing





Do you remember this movie? It was in fairly heavy rotation on TV when I was growing up, but now seems to have slipped into the mists of time. The things that stood out in my memory were first the theme, which, as it turns out was written by the same guy that wrote the Addams family theme, and the ghost of the wacky lady in the red nightie. She always scared me, even though she was played for pretty broad laughs. Turns out this was produced by Master Schkockmeister William Castle! I saw the guy who plays the teenage son , Barry Gordon, on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm the other day playing an old Rabbi. I always think of him as that nebbishy kid from The Spirit is Willing!

3 comments:

Brer said...

It was that cleaver that always got me...and the thought that a ghost could do more than just scare you! I guess when you're under ten it's hard to see the humor in the situation. I remember being pretty frightened by "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" too.

Looking at this movie now for the first time in years I'm stunned at the names associated with it.

AlanDP said...

Never even heard of it, but if it had anything about ghosts or sex in the description, it's no wonder. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn't have this one.

I'll watch anything with John Astin in it.

Babel said...

From what I understand it hasn't ever had an official DVD release, though there are the usual bootlegs floating around. There are a lot of funny people in the cast, and I remember it being pretty scary and very funny, but I am not so sure if it would strike me the same way as it did when I was 6 or so! I never really got the "sexual" aspect of the title until I was looking the movie up on the web and saw it was sold as a horny ghost comedy. I have come to get a kind of happy kick out of the kind of soundtrack music that prevailed in comedies of this era, ("Ghost and Mr. Chicken" is a great example), that "wacky" light cheesy jazz.