The Live Ghost 1934

On a weathered coast, a gruff sea captain commands a ship that struggles to recruit sailors because rumors label it haunted, a stigma that chills would-be volunteers. The captain, Walter Long in the role, wrestles with the ship’s ill‑reputed reputation and the difficulty it creates for filling the crew.

During a quiet fishing outing, the captain crosses paths with two unlikely prospects: Stan and Ollie, who step onto the scene as a humorous, stubborn pair. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play the would‑be sailors who initially refuse enlistment, insisting they aren’t drawn to the sea and joking that even waters rumored to be shark‑infested wouldn’t tempt them.

Not easily deterred, the captain conceives an audacious plan to pressgang them into service. He recruits their help to carry out a shanghaiing scheme, involving the forcible enlistment of a drunken sailor from a local tavern. The man is brought into the fold by the captain’s coercive method, with the act involving Arthur Housman in the role of the drunken sailor.

As the ship departs, tensions rise among the coerced crew. The men are unsettled by their predicament, while the captain administers discipline with firm, almost camp commands. In a moment of sharp temperament, he declares that the next person who says the word “ghost” will have his head twisted around so that when he’s walking North he’ll be looking South—an ominous warning that underscored the precarious order aboard.

The captain vows that the next person who says the word “ghost” will have his head twisted around so that when he’s walking North he’ll be looking South!

When the vessel reaches a distant port, shore leave is granted, but Stan and Ollie opt to stay aboard, wary of venturing onto land with the crew still unsettled and under the captain’s stern gaze.

The mystery of the supposed ghost takes a comic turn. The spectral figure is revealed to be the captain’s inebriated first mate, whose farcical misadventures unfold until a scorned former lover—in this case Maisie, the vampish blonde played by Mae Busch—forces him off the ship. Maisie’s intervention marks the resolution of the rebellion at sea and tees up the final twist of the tale.

In the end, Stan and Ollie repeat the moment that sparked the farce: they blurt out the line, “We Just Saw A Ghost!!” — and the captain, true to his vow, enforces his threat, bringing the caper to a darkly comic close.