The Live Ghost is a 1934 American comedy short film starring Laurel and Hardy, directed by Charles Rogers, and produced by Hal Roach at his studios in Culver City, California.

Leveraging their unwitting cooperation, the captain orchestrates the forcible abduction of an inebriated crew from a local tavern, subsequently incorporating Stan and Ollie into the ranks of the conscripted.

[6][7] Also, while the former sports columnist had distinguished himself at Roach Studios as an excellent and prolific writer of intertitles during the silent era, Walker's contributions to scripts or "dialogue" were comparatively minor at the film company with the advent of sound.

[10] The scenes and dialogue that comprise The Live Ghost were likely the products of a collaborative effort by Hal Roach himself, Stan Laurel, and one or more of the studio's team of "gag writers".

[11] It also appears that elements of the production's storyline were an adaptation or "reworking" of the 1915 silent short Shanghaied, which was produced by Jess Robbins for Essanay Studios and stars Charlie Chaplin.

[12] Yet, despite any ambiguities regarding the principal author of The Live Ghost or any perceived similarities to earlier films, available sources generally agree that this short's script was drafted, revised, and finalized between late October 1934 and the first week in November.

According to Laurel-and-Hardy biographer Randy Skretvedt, the short's final shooting script and filming setups were the end-products of substantial changes to the initial screenplay, most notably to the scenes in which the comedy duo first appear on screen and meet the captain of the "ghost ship".

[14]Filming at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City began immediately after the script's final revision and required only a week to shoot, "wrapping up" by November 14, 1934.

[17] That schedule provided the company a little over three weeks to edit the footage, adjust and supplement the short's soundtrack, produce the necessary supply of finished copies, and ship them to designated theaters across the country before the comedy's official release on December 8.

"[23] The popular American trade magazine Boxoffice reviewed the short the day of its release in 1934, rating it an "'A-1 comedy'" with "'good old-fashioned slapstick'" and laughs "'that come fast and often during the scenes aboard a haunted ship.

[26] That New York-based trade paper, another leading source of news and advertising in the American entertainment industry, then sums up the two-reeler in just nine words in that same issue: "Very comical short, meaty on both ideas and laughs.

[27] Everson also states that the production's cinematography was "carefully executed" in portraying the "sleazy waterfront saloon and mist-shrouded ghost ship" and, in his view, is superior to the camerawork used in the comedy team's later shorts.

[12] In his 1995 book Another Fine Dress: Role-Play in the Films of Laurel and Hardy, Sanders contends that the two-reeler marks an "artistic decline" within this specific area of the comedy team's motion picture catalog.