Honest, I dreamed this one.

Matt Barclay is a sleazy, down-and-out private eye with a drinking problem. Matt thinks that his cowardice caused the death of his old partner, Hiram Lake, and he’s haunted by Hiram’s ghost that only he can see. Hiram went out on a domestic case after Matt had been threatened by the husband, Wilbur Short, who is now in jail for killing Hiram.

Hiram keeps telling Matt it wasn’t his fault, but Matt says things like “Who am I supposed to believe? My conscience, or a figment of my imagination?”

“Well, you haven’t brought in a nickel since I got killed, you have to go back to work, Matt.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Matt. “I’m trying to lose weight anyway.” He takes another drink.

“The drinking man’s diet, I see,” sneers Hiram.

Matt waves him away. He hasn’t been able to pay the electric bill in his office, so he resorts to stringing an extension cord out the window and into another office. Afraid he will fall while doing this, he ties the end of the cord in his office to the radiator. While he’s crouched on the ledge with the cord, he overhears a cop, a gangster and another private eye agreeing to cover up a murder. Matt didn’t get the details, though, like who it was who was murdered.

After the conspirators leave, Matt goes into the office, plugs in the extension cord, and then has a long discussion with Hiram about what he should do. They go back to Matt’s office, and Hiram says, “You don’t have a corpse, you don’t have a clue, what are you supposed to do about it?”

“I take the fifth on that,” says Matt.

Hiram sighs. “I know you,” he says. “You always take the case.”

“I’ll drink to that,” says Matt and pulls out a hidden bottle to take a swig.

Maggie, Hiram’s old fiancée, shows up; she used to be the partnership’s secretary. She keeps trying to save Matt from his drinking, but he hides booze from her and sneaks drinks when she isn’t looking. She finally tells Matt that she knows why he keeps drinking, that he is just trying to kill himself slowly instead of fast like Hiram. She leaves, and Matt takes a drink and offers one to Hiram, who says he’s trying to quit, too.

Matt goes to see the other private eye, Ted Flattery, to try to get some clues about what exactly happened. After a lot of double-talk, Flattery invites Matt to become his new partner. Hiram and Matt discuss this while Flattery is out of the room. Matt thinks it is really suspicious, and Hiram thinks it’s really stupid.

“Him or me?” asks Matt.

“Not a lot to choose between you,” says Hiram.

Matt and Flattery agree to partner, but Flattery says only on one condition: Matt has to give up drinking. Matt goes through a bit of business with twitching and grimacing, then shrugs and says, “Anything for a laugh,” and they shake on it.

Flattery leaves, and Matt searches the office while he and Hiram argue. At one point, Matt opens a file drawer and pulls out the Maltese Falcon. He stares at it and shows it to Hiram, and Hiram says, “Wrong movie,” so Matt puts it back.

A few days later, Matt is trying to sneak into his own apartment past the landlady, DeeDee Dunn, when someone takes a shot at him. He tries to chase the guy down; he’s mad because the bullet broke the bottle of bourbon he was carrying in a paper bag. The shooter gets away.

Hiram says, “Thought you were a coward?”

Matt gets the shakes, realizing he almost got killed. “Now I really need a drink,” he says. Hiram just laughs at him.

DeeDee reads the paper about Wilbur Short insisting that he is innocent of killing Hiram, while Matt searches for more booze. “I know I had a few bottles hidden around my apartment,” he says.

“Your girlfriend called and told me to search for them and throw them out,” says DeeDee. “Call it an intervention. I’ve been in AA myself since my husband tried to drive his car up the side of the Flatiron Building.”

“You’ve got a girlfriend?” asks Hiram.

“It must have been Maggie,” says Matt. He heads back downtown, intending to find Maggie and have an argument with her.

Back at his new office, Matt meets with Flattery, and they argue about the new sign on the door that a workman, Sid, is painting while Hiram kibitzes. It says Barkley and Flattery, and Flattery insists it should say Flattery and Barkley. No, says Matt, his name is Barclay, not Barkley. Hiram laughs. “That’s you, Mutt Barkley.”

After the three-way argument, which Flattery wins because he says he is the one paying for the sign, Sid scrapes the new lettering off and starts over just as Matt pulls a flask out of his pocket to take a nip. 

“I need a drink more than you do,” says Sid, snatching the flask just as Flattery comes back and says he’s going to run an errand.

“Don’t let him have any of that,” Flattery tells Sid, and Sid puts the flask in his own pocket. Matt and Sid glare at each other, and Sid threatens Matt with a paintbrush, warning him that it’s loaded with lead paint.

Maggie shows up and compliments Sid on a nice job on the new sign. She says that Flattery has hired her to be the new secretary, and she will start tomorrow. She congratulates Matt on being sober, “Not like that sign painter,” she comments, “I could smell liquor on his breath.” She adds that she’s going to be moving Matt’s files from the old office.

She also mentions that the husband who shot Hiram has escaped from the courthouse during a bail hearing. This scares Matt so much that he forgets about having an argument with Maggie about his drinking right in the middle of starting it. “That guy still scares me, “ he admits.

Maggie gives him a peck on the cheek. “That’s for staying sober,” she says.

Matt and Hiram admire Maggie as she leaves. “You’re a ghost,” Matt reminds Hiram.

“There’s dead and then there’s dead,” says Hiram.

“I’m not dead,” says Matt, touching the spot where Maggie kissed him. He looks surprised.

The gangster, Neal Parker, shows up at the office. Hiram comments snidely while Parker makes vague threats against Matt, then offers him a bribe to leave town, then threatens him again and implies a threat against Maggie. Matt throws him out of the office, almost bodily. Hiram laughs, “Some coward,” he says.

Matt remembers all the booze he hid in his old office and goes there to find some. He pulls out a bottle, but Maggie shows up and pours it down the sink. She dashes around the office, finding bottles and smashing them or pouring them out. 

Matt trips over the extension cord while trying to stop her. Maggie leaves, carrying files to take to the other office, and Matt starts looking for more hidden booze when Hiram says, “Someone is at the door.” Matt hides, and Hiram tries to hide, then says, “Oh, right, I’m a ghost,” and just stands there while Bill Hicks, the crooked cop, sneaks into the office.

There’s a bit of business with Hicks tiptoeing around and Hiram following him and shadowing his moves, while Matt keeps having to change his hiding place. They keep stepping over or tripping over the extension cord. Hicks is obviously looking for something specific, but finally scratches his head and leaves.

Desperately looking for booze again, Matt finds a gun. Hiram says, “That’s mine.” Matt pockets it, then finds a folder hidden behind a painting, and Hiram says, “Oh, that. That’s probably what Hicks was looking for.” Matt reads the folder, it’s proof that Hiram was taking money to help Parker cover up his crooked business with the city.

“Is this true?” Matt demands of Hiram.

“Why do you think they killed me?” says Hiram.

“Parker killed you?”

“Had me killed, Hicks probably pulled the trigger,” says Hiram.

“You mean, you’re the corpse, the murder they are trying to cover up? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I’m a figment of your imagination,” says Hiram. “I couldn’t tell you until you figured it out yourself.”

“You may be imaginary, but you’re still a pain in the neck,” says Matt.

“That makes you a hypochondriac,” says Hiram, smirking.

More running around as Matt tries to find Flattery to maybe get some truth out of him. He goes home, has another run-in with the landlady, who offers to sponsor him in AA if he is serious about trying to stay sober. 

Then Matt finds Flattery in his own closet. Dead. Some business with the corpse, with Flattery being all bug-eyed and creepy. Matt finally stuffs the dead body back in the closet. “Everybody is trying to get me to drink,” Matt mutters.

Hiram says, “You collecting dead partners? If he’s going to haunt you, too, we’re going to need a bigger apartment.”

“Maybe we can get a group rate,” says Matt, annoyed. He finds a note in Flattery’s handwriting, Flattery confessing that he agreed to help cover up Hiram’s murder while he looked for more evidence of the crooked city business. Parker was paying off a building inspector named Wilbur Short.

“Isn’t he the guy who shot you?” Matt asks Hiram.

“No, that was probably Hicks, remember?” says Hiram. “This guy Short must be innocent. Well, not innocent, looks like he’s a crook too, but he probably didn’t kill me.”

“I don’t know,” says Matt. “He’s certainly mean enough to do it. He still scares me.”

“Look,” says Hiram. “I don’t think you need me anymore. You know now that nothing you did had anything to do with getting me killed.”

“Yeah,” says Matt. “It was you being a louse all by yourself that got you killed.”

Hiram agrees. “But if you keep messing with this stuff, you’re going to be dead, too.”

The phone rings. It’s Maggie. She says she’s down at the office and thinks she’s found more evidence of what’s been going on. Then she screams, and the call is cut off.

Matt rushes out and gets a cab. It’s being driven by Sid, the sign painter, who explains that he has to moonlight to make enough money because every time he gets a sign-painting job, he ends up doing it twice or three times for the same price. Matt says he may need his door repainted again soon. Sid says he hopes it can be done without arguments this time.

Hiram is in the cab. “I thought you left?” says Matt.

“This is important; heaven can wait,” says Hiram. “Why don’t you call the cops?”

“There’s one crooked cop in this. How do I find the honest ones?”

“Good point,” says Hiram. “But if you go rushing in there, what good can you do?”

Matt pulls out the gun he found in Hiram’s office. “I’m going to sneak up on them,” he says.

He does, using the ledge outside the window where he listened in before. He’s crawling along the ledge with Hiram just strolling along behind him when they see someone else on the ledge on the opposite side of the window. 

“You!” whispers Matt.

“You!” whispers the other guy.

“It’s Wilbur Short!” whispers Matt, looking terrified. Wilbur Short is a short, weasel-faced, deranged-looking guy.

“Oh,” says Hiram in a normal voice. “That’s definitely not the guy who shot me.”

“You sure?” whispers Matt. “That guy scares me.”

“What are you doing here?” Wilbur whispers.

“Me? What are you doing here?” Matt returns.

“I got a score to settle,” whispers Wilbur.

Matt whispers, “I’ve got a gun!” pulling it out.

Wilbur snarls like a ferocious hamster. “Not with you,” he gestures in the window. “With them!”

Inside, Parker and Hicks are discussing how to get rid of Maggie and Matt. “I’m afraid that with Flattery and Lake, there are just too many murders and that Short guy is on the loose, too,” says Parker.

“You worry too much,” says Hicks. “I can hide a dozen murders in this town, I’ve done it before.” He goes to the window to light a cigar and sees Matt hiding out there. He shouts and lunges for Matt. Parker pulls a gun and points it at Maggie. She struggles with him, shouting for Matt.

Hicks tries to shove Matt off the ledge. They grapple, Matt’s gun goes off, Maggie screams, Short pulls Hicks out the window, and Hicks and Matt fall off the ledge.

The wild shot from Matt, falling off the ledge, hits Parker, causing him to drop the gun. Cut to the old office, and the extension cord tied to the radiator goes taut. Cut to see Short going in one window, then back to the old office, and Matt pulls himself in that window. Cut back and Short and Maggie beat the crap out of the mobster; Matt arrives from the hallway just in time to deliver a final blow.

Later, Maggie and Matt are explaining things to Sid, who turns out to be an FBI agent investigating police corruption. Sid says there’s some kind of whistleblower reward. “Good,” says Matt. “I can afford to get my door repainted after all.” Sid tells him he’ll have to get someone else to do it; the department frowns on moonlighting.

Maggie points out that Matt hasn’t had a drink in four days.

“There’s always tomorrow,” says Matt.

“But that’s the way you have to do it,” says Maggie. “One day at a time.”

Matt makes faces and shudders. “I’m still going to need a secretary, I guess,” he says.

Maggie agrees. “Anything for a laugh,” she says. They kiss awkwardly, laugh, then kiss again with a little more skill.

Pull back to reveal Hiram pouring a drink from one of Matt’s bottles. “I’ll drink to that,” he says.

*

This was a dream I had about thirty years ago. I wrote it down then so I would remember it. Found the file recently and cleaned it up. I dreamed I watched a black-and-white movie from 1951 with the following cast:

Cast:

Matt Barclay (Mutt Barkley) Bob Hope
Hiram Lake Edward Everett Horton
Maggie Townsend Maureen O’Hara
Ted Flattery Don Ameche
Sid Holt Sid Melton
DeeDee Dunn Marjorie Main
Wilbur Short Arnold Stang
Neal Parker Edward G. Robinson
Bill Hicks Andy Devine

The image at the top is by ArtFlow and is a remix of Bob Hope, Humphrey Bogart and George Reeves.

I was the director of the movie, too. Most of the cast had alternate choices, like Humphrey Bogart or George Reeves for Matt, Lucille Ball, or Noel Neill for Maggie, Shemp Howard for Sid. Strother Martin for Bill Hicks. Bing Crosby wasn’t available to play Hiram; he was on the Road to Somewhere which is a different dream.