In 1910 Scotland where Scottish accents are rare, Dr. John Hitchcock (Elio Jotta) is confined to a wheel chair and has a favorite pastime of holding seances with his long time house keeper Catherine Wood (Harriet Medin). His wife Margaret (Barbara Steele) has been having an affair with John's doctor Charles Livingstone (Peter Baldwin) and John knows it. The film is so old, it isn't difficult to figure out the simple plot and twist, one that has been duplicated.I my copy I found the film quality to be better than the grainy sound quality. The dubbing was okay if you didn't mind the sound not coming close to lip movement. Early scream queen Barbara Steele's films can be found on numerous multi-packs.I am not sure what kind of poison one can inject into the blood stream, and then drink something moments before death and then be fine. Don't try that at home.

as my subject line says,, the movie started of painstakingly slow, for the 1st hour,, then all of a sudden the last 30-35 mins, there was so much to take in and stuff was happening at break neck pace . never heard of Barbara Steele before, wow she's so sexy, and amazing her eyes are haunting to say the least. I can imagine any man doing exactly whatever she wanted him to do and be happ about it. Our poor Dr. Hitchcock plays a handicap bound to a wheel chair, his wife decides that she wants him gone and dead fast. so she get's the help of the family lawyer,, and they proceed to try and kill Dr. Hitchcock,, but did they really kill him.. appears so.. but watch and find out,, there are a lot of things I really liked about this one,, I just wish it wouldn't have taken forever for the movie to get a jumpstart,, but once it did I was very happy.. not a bad little movie at all, and enjoyed Barbara Steele immensely. .

Don't you just hate it when your housekeeper starts speaking with your murdered husband's voice? And it's simply impossible to get them ghost blood stains out of your duvet! Don't even mention those bloody wheelchairs that move about on their own...These are some of the many problems facing Italy's favourite Scouser, Barbara Steele, after she manages to convince her lover to finally bump off her emotionally crippled, and also physically crippled, husband cripple John 'Cripple' Surname.It's a case of what came first, John's séances and messing with poisons or Babs' affair with the doctor. You'll have plenty of time to mull this over because this film takes thirty-five minutes to get anything remotely spooky. Although you do get to see how messed up this situation is for everybody.Once John's bumped off and buried, it's time to find his treasure! The problem is that a little 'being dead' doesn't seem to put John off, as he keeps appearing everywhere, things move about, and his spirit is seemingly using the housekeeper as a glove puppet.Is it all real or some sort of ruse? It's worth waiting to find out as we get a pretty grim ending where one character is brutally and graphically set about with a straight razor (then burned!) and the rest of the cast suffer pretty horribly too (except a smug priest).Slow at first, but then the twists and atmosphere get more impressive as it continues on. Barbara Steele gets a lot to do here so that always helps.

As you might expect, this film is really quite similar to Riccardo Freda's earlier horror flick "The Terror of Dr Hitchcock", although for my money; I'd say this one is slightly better. The two films share a director and a lead actress in common, as well as a lead character name. This film firmly fits into the 'Gothic' side of Italian cinema, which Steele often starred in, and Freda makes excellent use of this style with some real standout cinematography. It became clear that Riccardo Freda was, in fact, a hack; as it turned out that the great Mario Bava did most of the work on a lot of his films, and his later stuff - Tragic Ceremony and The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire to name a couple - was a million miles away from being brilliant. This film would appear to be Freda at his best, therefore, and it's actually not bad. The plot centres on Dr. John Hitchcock; a cripple who wants to die. His wife is, naturally, having an affair with her husband's doctor, and pretty soon the two of them conspire to murder Dr Hitchcock for his money. However, they didn't bargain for him haunting them after his death...The film's title suggests that it's a ghost story, but I would say that The Ghost is more of a mystery chiller. There's not a great deal of real bona fide horror, and to be honest; I felt the film was a little too talky and would have proffered it to be a bit more visceral. The film's main draw is, obviously, Barbara Steele and the 'Queen of Horror' looks great throughout the film. The decor and set design is great too, and these allow Freda to build an oppressive and macabre atmosphere, which benefits the plot line quite well. The main problem with the film is the fact that a lot of it feels really amateurish. The dubbing is atrocious (even more so than usual) and some of the things the characters say are ridiculous. Whether or not that's down to the translation, I don't know. The climax is the best part of the film for me. Of course, it's not a completely sense-making ending and there are a few holes left; but it's a nice twist at least, and it does justify the shortfalls of some of the rest of the movie. Overall, I won't go as far as to say that The Ghost is a horror classic; but it's good entertainment, and fans of Gothic horror will enjoy it.