After the musical prologue and the opening credits, all of which are sung, I was certain that German supernatural musical comedy The Haunted Castle was going to be insufferable; however, the film's frivolous nature, general quirkiness and jaunty tunes eventually worked their magic on me and I found myself having a good time, even though I wasn't quite sure what they were singing about a lot of the time and much of the humour left me perplexed (the subtitles might be to blame for my lack of understanding).
The lovely Liselotte Pulver (another reason I enjoyed the film) plays Comtesse Charlotte von Sandau, who is in financial dire straits and about to lose her ancestral castle to greedy developers, who want to turn her home into a hotel. Help comes in the unlikely incorporeal form of several ghosts - thieves who were executed for their crimes and who now seek to atone for their misdeeds. Things get really crazy when the Comtesse plays host to a foreign prince (Hans Clarin), but is arrested when her royal guest's jewels go missing.
The supernatural silliness sees the ghosts helping Charlotte with chores around the castle (these scenes employing plenty of fun old-school special effects), cooking up a recipe to become corporeal again, and in the amusing final act, trying to convince the Comtesse's love interest, Martin Hartog (Heinz Baumann), that they exist, to no avail (he's too drunk to appreciate their spooky shenanigans). For me, though, the film's most memorable moment comes when Hartog assumes the role of the castle's tour guide and proceeds to lead the visitors through the rooms at speed, everyone wearing roller skates hidden by oversized shoes (having said that, the 'race to the moon' final scene is also extremely wacky!).
6/10.
