{"id":33692,"date":"2020-08-21T09:02:51","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=33692"},"modified":"2020-08-21T10:59:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T14:59:47","slug":"the-bootleg-files-lucky-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/21\/the-bootleg-files-lucky-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Lucky Ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 737:<\/strong> \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d (1942 comedy starring Mantan Moreland).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On public domain labels.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> A lapsed copyright allows anyone to make dupes of this animated short. <\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> It is unlikely anyone will do a 4K restoration of this title, which is a shame.<\/p>\n

During the 1940s, most Americans enjoyed Mantan Moreland\u2019s presence in B-level productions from Monogram Pictures where was the comic relief sidekick in a series of light entertainments starring Frankie Darro and he stole the show as the jittery chauffeur in the Charlie Chan mysteries. Outside of Monogram, the other Hollywood studios had relatively little use for Moreland, giving him bit parts (often uncredited) in their A-list and B-grade productions.
\n<\/p>\n

Beyond Hollywood, Moreland was treated as a headliner in a series of \u201crace films\u201d that features all-black casts and were released to theaters that catered exclusively to African-American audiences. These films enabled Moreland to shine in front-and-center roles, and while these films were often hobbled by micro-budgets and uneven scripts, Moreland always delivered with fun performances.<\/p>\n

Typical of Moreland\u2019s work in the race films is the 1942 \u201cLucky Ghost.\u201d While the film is far from perfect \u2013 it even drew complaints about racial stereotyping back in the day, which will be discussed later \u2013 the offers a highly amusing showcase for Moreland\u2019s talents.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky Ghost\u201d opens with two vagrants, Jefferson and Washington (F.E. Miller and Moreland) who are under a judge\u2019s orders to leave town. Jefferson and Washington engage in an Abbott and Costello-style dialogue regarding their situation as they walk out of a town on an empty dirt road, with Abbott-type Jefferson noting how \u201cthe good book said man don\u2019t live with bread alone\u201d and Costelloesque Washington responding that \u201cman don\u2019t live without bread alone either \u2013 I\u2019ve been drinking so much water that my stomach thinks I\u2019ve been taking in washing.\u201d <\/p>\n

The men sit by a tree while Washington watches his feet pulsate. They talk about a previous ditch-digging job and a potential white-collar job. Washington doesn\u2019t care what occupation he can get. \u201cI just want to find out how food tastes once more,\u201d he laments. The duo attempt to steal chickens from a farm, but the rifle-toting farmer scares them off before they can engage in fowl play. (Sorry, I couldn\u2019t resist.)<\/p>\n

As luck would have it, they encounter a luxury car carrying a pair of wealthy men. Washington pulls out a pair of crooked dice and within minutes the rich travelers have lost their clothing and transportation to the vagabonds, who have the car\u2019s chauffeur drive them to the original passengers\u2019 destination. They wind up at a country club run by the shady Dr. Brutus Blake, who offers his patrons casino gambling and a nightclub cabaret. Blake is not pleased with Washington\u2019s amorous interest in the club\u2019s pretty hostess, but there is a great threat that no one realizes is lurking: the ghosts of Blake\u2019s dead relatives have become impatient with how their former residence is being used and they decide to make their unhappiness known. <\/p>\n

Yes, \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d recycles some African-American stereotypes that would raise groans if they were used in Hollywood movies of the era: shiftless behavior, chicken thieving, craps shooting and shrieking fear of ghosts. The Jefferson and Washington characters also fracture the language with grammar that a later generation tried to excuse under the term \u201cebonics.\u201d <\/p>\n

While black audiences did not object to \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d when it was in release, it raised the ire of white students at the University of Wisconsin. A scheduled showing in April 1943 at the university\u2019s Union Play Circle was cancelled after students who previewed the film demanded its withdrawal for presenting an \u201cerroneous and disparaging picture of Negro life.\u201d The student who led the protest added the film depicted blacks as an \u201cinferior race.\u201d Fast-forward to 1973 and African-American film historian Donald Bogle revisited the race films and dismissed \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d for having an \u201ceye-rolling coon hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this criticism is unfair. The behavior by Moreland and Miller in the all-black \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d would be no different from the anti-social and comically graceless antics that one would expect from any comedy team in Hollywood\u2019s Golden Era if the production was made with an all-white cast. There is no malice in the humor and to read heavy sociological implications in to a one-hour farce is a mistake. <\/p>\n

As for Moreland, he is the life of the party \u2013 whether getting the best of straight-man Miller, flirting with pretty Florence O\u2019Brien as the club hostess or finding himself gaining Blake\u2019s club through his gambling skills and losing it to the ghostly visitors, he is a force of comic energy. In a more progressive time, he would have been equal to Bob Hope or Danny Kaye as a reigning 1940s movie funnyman.<\/p>\n

Directing credit on \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d is given to William X. Crowley, but that is a pseudonym for William Beaudine, who had been a popular director in the Hollywood studio system before moving to London in the mid-1930s to direct films for Britain\u2019s film industry. When he returned to the U.S., Beaudine was unable to find work in the studio system and had to labor in low-budget independently produced efforts such as \u201cLucky Ghost.\u201d Rather than call attention to his career setback, he used the Crowley pseudonym. Beaudine would later establish himself at Monogram and directed Moreland in several films there. (As an aside, I would recommend the new book \u201cWilliam Beaudine: An Overview\u201d by James L. Neibaur for a much-needed appreciation on the often-maligned director\u2019s career output.)<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky Ghost,\u201d as with nearly all of the race films, fell into the public domain. Surviving prints are duped copies that range from adequate to dismal, and any proper digital restoration is unlikely as the original materials have been long lost. The film has turned up on a few public domain video labels and on YouTube, and even though the visual quality of these prints are unfortunate, they provide evidence of Mantan Moreland\u2019s comic abilities when he was given the chance to move beyond the sidekick status into the center stage.
\n
\nIMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to the award-wining podcast \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall\u201d<\/a> on SoundCloud. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 737: \u201cLucky Ghost\u201d (1942 comedy starring Mantan Moreland). LAST SEEN: On YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright allows anyone to make dupes of this animated short. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It is unlikely anyone will do a 4K restoration of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":33693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[219,2514,2513,1988,1987,1986],"class_list":["post-33692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-comedy","tag-james-l-neibuar","tag-lucky-ghost","tag-mantan-moreland","tag-race-films","tag-william-beaudine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33692"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33697,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33692\/revisions\/33697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}