The Cockeyed Miracle

1946, Movie, NR, 81 mins

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Happy ghost stories were all the rage at the time (the TOPPER series, HERE COMES MR. JORDAN), so they decided to take a not-very-successful George Seaton play and transfer it to the screen in the hope that the audience's taste for other-world humor would include this story. It didn't. It's the early 1900s and Frank Morgan, a 63-year-old New England shipbuilder, is called to his reward by his own father, a thirty-six-year-old wastrel played by Wynn. He'd been dispatched by a whiskey bottle over the head or, as he puts it, "I was launched." Since Morgan's family has lots of troubles when he passes away, the two men have to stay on to straighten out the problems. Naturally, no one can see them or hear them, so much of the visual and verbal humor stems from that hoary trick. Totter, Morgan's daughter, is in love with Quine (who became a director years later), a bumbling and dotty rock hound who is too intent on everything else to propose to Totter. Wynn creates a rainstorm while Trotter and Quine ride in an open shay, so they have to go into a barn. Once inside, the magnetic attraction erupts, and Quine is a gone goose. Thompson, Morgan's son, wants to quit his job with dogmatic uncle Ames. He'd like to build ships again, like his daddy did, but all of Morgan's money was sunk into a real estate deal with former partner Kellaway, and the property they purchased is not turning over. Meanwhile, Kellaway, knowing full well that Morgan's family doesn't know a thing about the real estate, sells the piece in question to Space and is preparing to run off with all the lucre when he, Kellaway, is struck by lightning. A check for Morgan's share of the sale is found on Kellaway's body and turned over to Morgan's widow, Cooper. Now that the family is straight, Wynn and Morgan go to their rest, still arguing. leave a comment
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The Cockeyed Miracle
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