Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

MartinHafer The fact that Will Hay is playing an incompetent school teacher isn't much of a surprise. After all, he played this sort of guy in several films. However, what makes this one unusual is that the comedy becomes a murder mystery!When the film begins, Will Lamb (Hay) is on his way to a boys school in Northern Scotland. This actually makes a lot of sense, as children throughout England were either sent abroad or to the most rural portions of Britain in order to avoid the German blitz. In this case, an entire school has been packed off to an old castle on the Island of Skye...about as remote a location as you can get! However, very soon it's apparent that Lamb is an idiot and can't teach much of anything well but before he can get the sack, the headmaster is dead--either a suicide or murder. The new headmaster knows Lamb and his incompetence and his first act is to fire Lamb. But, very soon after, this new headmaster is also dead...poisoned just like the first one. So, Lamb, one of the professors and some of the students decide to investigate. But they are warned repeatedly about some sort of ghost and some bagpipes...and what do they have to do with any of this?!This is a pretty good film, though compared to some of Hays' other films, comedy is less important to the film and the murder mystery often takes precedence. And, considering it was made during WWII, the Nazi angle didn't come as much of a surprise. Definitely a product of its times but a good one as well...one that stands up pretty well today.By the way, Hay playing an incompetent science teacher is rather funny, as in real life he was, in addition to being an actor, an engineer and astronomer!

clivey6 I'm giving this seven out of ten, back as a kid it would have been a ten but this time round, well, I suppose you know you're getting old when you find yourself sympathising with Will Hay's incompetent teacher, and rather hoping the obnoxious, snotty school kids get a slap; Charles Hawtrey's smart alec schoolboy in particular seems a nasty piece of work. Otherwise the absence of Moffatt and Marriott are keenly felt, because they allowed Hay to be both blustery incompetence but also sarcastic - here he doesn't get anyone to be sarcastic or superior to, so it's a relatively one-note performance. In his earlier roles you never knew if he'd be the fool or the sarcy one at any given time, it kept you on your toes.Huntley and Laurie would appear in the war movie The Way Ahead of course. Personally I'm not sure the plot machinations of St Michael's stand up. Was it Huntley's ink on the forged suicide note? What gives? Still, the ending has a few surprises and some genuinely sinister moments.

Igenlode Wordsmith I thoroughly enjoyed this Will Hay comedy, which successfully combines the school story and the requisite nod to wartime concerns with the spoof haunting theme that had featured in some of his most successful earlier work. The old team of Graham Moffat and Moore Marriott are here absent, but Hay is teamed very effectively with chinless Claude Hulbert and a young Charles Hawtrey as a precocious schoolboy. Hay's protagonist treads a skilfully effective line between annoying (we relish watching him get taken down a peg, rather than wincing) and sympathetic, while Hawtrey's gadfly-like persistence as a boy far brighter than his teachers is equally well judged, and Claude Hulbert makes ineffectuality likable.The film has its share of broad comedy (watch for what Hay does with that piglet...) but often avoids obvious expectations, and is the funnier for it. The suspiciously Teutonic teacher is not, of course, what he seems; the ghost is, of course, not what it seems either; and the motivation which ultimately enlists the boys on the side of their erstwhile petty dictator is certainly not the type customary in school stories! Overall "The Ghost of St Michael's" is a blend of guffaw-rich visual humour with accomplished misdirection to produce a very appropriate vehicle for its star. The beginning is a little hit and miss, but the film is still full of laugh-out-loud moments.

Glenn Walsh I like all of Will Hay's films, but apart from 'Oh, Mr Porter,' this is my favourite. It is jam packed with funny one-liners and comic situations and gives Hay full reign to play his seedy music hall schoolmaster. A wee gem of a film.