THE GHOST GOES GEAR (1966) BAD MOVIE REVIEW

THE GHOST GOES GEAR (1966) – Okay, how could anyone resist a film that features a song titled Show Me Your English Teeth? This movie was the Spencer Davis Group’s addition to all the imitation Help! flicks from the 1960s as so many British bands tried to replicate the Beatles’ big screen success but fell below even some of the worst Monkees episodes in quality. 

And speaking of the Monkees, the show starring that pre-packaged “rock band” came out in September of 1966, the same month as The Ghost Goes Gear. Must have been something in the drinking water on both sides of the Atlantic that month. 

For those readers not familiar with them, the Spencer Davis Group was made up of THE Steve Winwood, his brother Muff Winwood (but not his sister Dick Winwood), Pete York and of course Spencer Davis.

Let’s face it, NO multi-band movie could possibly be as bad as Musical Mutiny, the Iron Butterfly (and others) Golden Turkey that I fell in love with back in 2021 and wrote a scene-by-scene review of. Musical Mutiny featured the ghost of a pirate plus a teenage mad scientist, but The Ghost Goes Gear had just a ghost. And just barely at that.

A more accurate title would have been The Ghost Was Barely Arsed to Show Up. But I’ll get to that. This Spencer Davis Group flick was cut from the same cloth as the groaningly “zany” British Invasion movies like Ferry Cross the Mersey with Gerry and the Pacemakers or Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter with Herman’s Hermits but came off more like the unbearably inane Cuckoo Patrol with Freddie and the Dreamers. 

The Ghost Goes Gear also showed the influence of American rock-schlock movies by mixing in multiple bands and a few solo performers with its lame story about the Spencer Davis Group and an Elizabethan ghost.

And that’s certainly not a compliment. I’m talking about the likes of American turkeys like The Fat Spy, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, Catalina Caper, A Swinging Summer and of course Musical Mutiny.

I’m reviewing the 79-minute version of The Ghost Goes Gear, but it’s also available in a 41-minute version. 

Our flick opens with an animated ghost dressed in Elizabethan garb and carrying a mandolin walking the halls of an old British castle that we will learn is called Rowthorpe Hall. The title tune gets warbled by somebody who seems to be half-assing it.

The opening credits play along with that barely a minute song. I actually grew optimistic with what came next. Steve Winwood and the rest of the Spencer Davis Group are riding down the river as Steve sings the band’s song When I Come Home.

The mid-sized vessel they’re on is loaded with young people dancing to the tune as our stars lip-synch and pretend to be playing their instruments. This is actually a very strong scene and, in fact, many of the band segments from The Ghost Goes Gear are well done and can be found online edited from this film.

When the boat docked, hope drained from me as we were apparently in for the desperate, pathetic, Komedy with a K “humor” typical of all these flicks. The Spencer Davis Group (SDG) is greeted by their forcibly zany, sub-vaudeville manager Algernon Rowthorpe Plumley. (Are you laughing yet?)

Algernon is played by Nicholas Parsons and he plays his “upper crust Britisher slumming as a rock group manager” part to an almost Lord Haw-Haw degree. Algernon is clumsy as well as imperious and drops Pete York’s drum in the river.

Parsons and all the band members strain spectacularly but unsuccessfully at being funny as they chase the floating drum down the river. Seriously, even small children would surely groan at what passed for comedy in these flicks.

In case you’re worried that missing musical instruments will be a key plot point like in the Gerry and the Pacemakers movie, you can rest easy. The SDG members and Algernon soon catch up with the drum and retrieve it, albeit not until after it’s damaged by Old Edwards, played by Jack Haig.

As luck would have it, Old Edwards is the butler at Algernon’s ancestral home Rowthorpe Hall. The butler excitedly hopes that “Algy” and the SDG will come and spend a few days at the Hall, much to the discomfort (Komedy!) of their prim manager. The band agrees to stay there. 

I’ll spare readers any description of the painfully prolonged and sadistically unfunny “fish on a spear” gag that follows. You’ll thank me if you ever watch this thing. (By the way, pay attention to how Steve Winwood wisely tries to hide behind his bandmates during the godawful comedy scenes. He called this movie “a career mistake.”)

Eventually, the SDG members, Algernon and Old Edwards reach Rowthorpe Hall with their speared fish. It turns out that Algernon’s mother and father (Joan Ingram and Tony Simpson) are as over-the-top senile as Old Edwards, resulting in repeated gags with no other point than “Get it? They’re dull-witted because they’re OLD! Get it? Do ya?” 

Next, fans of Oliver! will recognize Sheila White who was introduced in this movie. She outshines the other main cast members in The Ghost Goes Gear as Polly, the cute and spunky maid of Rowthorpe Hall.

Sheila makes the most of the lame material and is like a dynamo performing her intro song I’m a Miss Fit and the “wacky” dance that goes with it. Next, she helps the SDG members get settled in the wine cellar because Algernon is ashamed to have his parents meet them.

I mentioned above that this film came out the same month and year as The Monkees tv series, but the scene in the wine cellar is rendered like the director saw several Monkees episodes but didn’t understand English. The band members act self-consciously zany and make funny faces but there are no laughs to be had. “Cringe” doesn’t begin to cover it.   

At long last, the Ghost of the title returns, making his first appearance since the opening credits. This time he’s played in live action by Lorne Gibson of the Lorne Gibson Trio. He’s depicted as translucent to emphasize his ghostliness but rather than walk through the wine cellar wall he has to open a secret passageway in order to enter.   

He’s replaced his mandolin with a guitar and sings his song Like Free. The SDG members are excited to meet an actual ghost and pursue the phantom through the secret passageway which leads to the upstairs bedrooms. More Komedy! as we get uninspired slapstick chase scenes.

Ultimately, the band and Polly are back downstairs as the SDG performs an instrumental bit that seems like it would be titled Cocktease the way Polly vamps the rock stars but is actually called On the Green Light. 

Algernon admits that his mother and father are broke and can’t even afford to pay Polly or Old Edwards. Or the light bill, for that matter. The band members talk Algernon into raising money by hyping Rowthorpe Hall’s ghost to help attract tourism.

Parsons now does some unwatchable schtick as he unsuccessfully tries to attract passing motorists to leave the road near the Hall and come visit for a shilling a head. He also clashes in a very unfunny way with some hippies protesting nuclear arms.

Finally, Algy gets a Vicar (Arthur Howard) and his Ladies Gardening Club to visit Rowthorpe Hall. One of the Spencer Davis Group dresses in a suit of armor to fake an appearance by the ghost but this sends the Vicar and company into a panic and they flee.

Our cast members fear that negative word of mouth will now doom their fundraising efforts. However, British television and newspapers are filled with accounts of the first sighting of the Rowthorpe Hall Ghost in decades. 

Not only do tourists flock to the place, but so do several musical acts to do a benefit for Rowthorpe Hall. I like to think of it as Woodschlock, but our stars call it a Gear Garden Party. (Insert your own Ricky Nelson joke here.)

OKAY, THIS JEKYLL AND HYDE MOVIE NOW MOVES INTO ITS ALTER EGO STAGE. From this point on, schtick is held to a bare minimum as viewers get treated to several musical performances in a row. At times multiple acts in a row perform with no interruption at all from Old Edwards or Algernon or his parents.

Honestly, fans of the British music scene of the 1960s would probably love the remaining footage of nearly nonstop performances. I couldn’t help but reflect that several of these obscure acts probably rubbed shoulders with the infamous Kray Brothers. 

In addition to more numbers from the Spencer Davis Group and Sheila White, we get songs and/or instrumental numbers from St. Louis Union (I Got My Pride and Show Me Your English Teeth), the M.6. (Seven Deadly Sins and The Place), plus an oddly coy Dave Berry (Mama and Now) in a tree and behind shrubbery.

There’s also the gorgeous female trio the Three Bells singing and performing choreographed dances to their songs No One Home and The Original Lemon Tree. For the older crowd, Acker Bilk and His Paramount Jazz Band do a few instrumental pieces.     

At last tying back into the whole “Ghost” part of The Ghost Goes Gear, Lorne Gibson returns as that phantom and materializes in modern day garb. He performs Listen to My Jingle Jangle and Meddlesome Matty with the two other members of his eponymous Trio.

I want to emphasize how enjoyable this second half is, considering how lame and cringe the first half is. Once the faux benefit performances begin, it’s mostly all music until a member of the SDG breaks the Fourth Wall to announce the movie’s end.

So, part Psychotronic wonder and part British music trivia concert, The Ghost Goes Gear – as Algernon claims about Rowthorpe Hall during his hawking – “has it all.” I can’t believe that as of this writing there are only five user reviews of this flick at the IMDb.

P.S. Steve Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group to form the band Traffic the following year, so we never got The Ghost Goes Gear 2: Gear Harder.

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