the always over-the-top underrated don knotts kicked off his first of a string of family films with this delightful comedy with a dash of horror . luther heggs ( knotts ) is a bug-eyed type-setter for the local newspaper , he's always dreamed of becoming a first-class reporter but newspaper manager ollie ( skip homeier ) makes fun of him and won't let him write any stories . luther is driving along when a man is hit over the head in front of the town's spooky old simmons mansion that everyone says is haunted . convinced that they can scare him away from the paper for good , ollie and george beckett ( dick sargent ) decide to let him write a story , what's the catch you ask ? he has to write it about his overnite stay in the simmons house . much to his horror he finds that things go bump in the night , the organ plays by itself , and a pair of garden shears are stabbed in the neck of a bleeding portrait . he writes of his experiences and the town declares him a hero . finding it unsuitable against the family name , nicholas simmons ( philip ober ) challenges luther to prove what he saw . of course , the same things never happen again , and he can't prove the secret passageway that he found . nicholas is trying to bulldoze the house because he wants to cover up the family's secret past . the film is classic knotts , the movie sets him up well and he's wonderful as usual . sadly the film is flawed , most of the character's motivations and thoughts are pretty obvious from the beginning . most non-knotts dialouge is boring and weak . plus , the trailer ( which appears before the movie ) shows almost every second of luther's confrontation in the spooked house . but i am a fan of knotts , where the geeky wide-eyed man gets the girl . the film is funny , but predictable , and not original , so it gets * * * stars . 
