The Living Ghost has James Dunn as a private detective trying to find a missing millionaire who all of a sudden shows up after Dunn as started his investigation. The problem is that Gus Glassmire is in some kind of catatonic state, he's walking around but he can't speak at all. Enough so that he cannot manage his affairs.Before he's hired Dunn is working some kind of swami act, but he was good in his day. Glassmire's secretary Joan Woodbury seeing him in his swami outfit just doesn't believe in his abilities. She provides just enough needle to keep him on his toes and she's even a bit of help. Dunn and Woodbury do have some decent chemistry.Dunn hangs around the mansion and pretty soon there's a real murderer among a nice group of suspects, more than a studio like Monogram would normally provide for one of these mysteries. The editing also isn't too bad, another thing that Monogram was not good with.In the end there are two suspects, one is rather obvious, the other would take a bit of figuring. The Living Ghost is not a bad B picture and for Monogram it's practically The Maltese Falcon.

***SPOILERS*** It's after banker Walter Craig, Gus Glassmire, disappeared from his house his family through his private secretary Billie Hilton, Joan Woodbury, sought out retired ace detective Nick Trayne, James Dunn, to track him down. It wasn't long that at the Craig Mansion Craig showed up in a what looked like a zobified state with no memory at all. What had happened which was explained to Trayne by neurologist Dr. Bruhling, Lawrence Grant, is that someone had through the use of powerful drugs frozen a portion of Craig's brain leaving him totally helpless to think for himself! The person who in fact did that was doing the thinking for him which had Mr. Craig attempt to murder, with little success, those he was directed to murder by the person controlling his brain. As it later turned out Craig was unable to do any of the killing attributed to him. It was in fact those who put him in that vegetated state of mind who did the killings and had him, a totally brainless and helpless person, blamed for it!It was Trayne and Billie Hilton who found out that a Dr. Carson was responsible for Craig's condition but as it later turned out Dr. Carson was just an alias for the person who was really carrying out these killings. And it was now up to them to find expose and have arrested the person responsible for the murder of George Phillips, J. Arthur Young, the only person who can identify him. The late Mr. Phillips almost by accident came upon his soon to be murderer and was murdered by him for finding him out.***SPOILERS*** With only the killer's voice being able to expose him Trayne plans to trick, if you can call it that, him to speak into a 1940's vintage disk recorder and have the person whom he talked to on the phone, to rent this dilapidated house to use as his private sanitarium, who's the only one who can identify him. Feeling he has to murder Trayne to save himself this all backfires on the killer in Trayne having already figured out who he is. He, the killer, should have tried to murder the person who rented him the sanitarium not Trayne who was the only person who could identify his voice! Or in his, the killers, obviously confused state of mind never for once thought of doing it!

When a wealthy man is kidnapped, former private investigator James Dunn steps in to investigate. But he is no ordinary P.I. He is first seen in a swami get-up apparently reading into people's minds and giving them answers to their problems. Huh? He accompanies the kidnapped man's secretary (Joan Woodbury) to the mansion where he meets the man's creepy family which includes the eccentric Aunt Delia (a wasted Minerva Urecal in a very showy cameo) who is into the occult. All of a sudden, the kidnapped millionaire reappears in a trance-like state and all sorts of strange occurrences begin to happen. This leads Woodbury and Dunn to an abandoned house where they find another zombie like human, and to an obvious inclusion that any grade schooler could figure out. Monogram did dozens of these kinds of films in the 30's and 40's, and only the actors and character names changed. Some of them are a bit more entertaining than the others thanks to humorous scripts, but this one is silly and dull. It should be mentioned that the kidnapped man's name is Walter Craig, the name of the husband in George Kelly's play and 1936 movie "Craig's Wife" and its 1950 remake "Harriet Craig".

Living Ghost, The (1942) ** (out of 4) A detective is hired to find out who killed a man but once he's on the scene another victim falls into some sort of zombie-like state. Here's another "old dark house" film that has a rather boring mystery plot and lifeless direction from the usually reliable William Beaudine.Ghost Walks, The (1934) ** (out of 4) A screenwriter invites his producer's to an old dark house. He's paid a bunch of actors to act out his play so that the producer will put up the money but soon a real killer starts to stalk them. The premise is rather interesting but like most of these types of films of the era it really never gets too interesting due to the lackluster direction. Perhaps I've just seen way too many of these films but they all appear the same. Just a different cast.