Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)

The new track coach (Dean Jones) arrives at a small Maryland seacoast town to begin his new position. However, after winning an antique bed warmer at an auction by the Daughters Of Buccaneers (elderly women descended from pirate crews), he discovers a spell hidden in the bed warmer's handle. After reciting it out loud, the ghost of Blackbeard The Pirate (Peter Ustinov) appears! Based on the novel by Ben Stahl and directed by Robert Stevenson (MARY POPPINS). Walt Disney's live action films were often fantasy oriented: VW bugs that have a mind of their own, fathers and district attorneys turning into shaggy dogs, cats from outer space, absent minded professors inventing flubber etc. This one is very pedestrian but Ustinov manages to add a twinkle to the proceedings. It's very hard to go wrong by having an entity (in this case Ustinov) that no one but the protagonist (in this case Jones) can see and double takes and reactions are the most amusing parts of the movie. But really, it's no more than a big screen sitcom and one's affection for it is probably the result of nostalgia rather than for its qualities. With Suzanne Pleshette, Elsa Lanchester, Joby Baker and Richard Deacon.