GAUCHE

GHOST (1990)
dir: Jerry Zucker

GAUCHE
MAD #301, March 1991
w: Stan Hart
a: Angelo Torres

Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) works at a Wall Street banking firm, sees errors in records at his job and fixes them, and the only way they can be changed are through passwords he has created. That night he is killed on the way back to the loft he shares with his girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore). He turns into a ghost who can see everything but nobody can see him.

   -In the upper left of the splash panel are movie critics Leonard Maltin and Gene Shalit.
   -The other ghost talking to Patrick Swayze's ghost is Warren Beatty's character in Heaven Can Wait, on of the many references to other movie ghosts throughout this parody.
   -The man commenting on black stereotypes is talk show host Arsenio Hall, whose show happens to be in the background in the movie.
   -Outside the window in the office in the first panel on the bottom is Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko in Wall Street.
   -The man reading the newspaper in the alley is former New York mayor David Dinkins.

Sam is at his old apartment watching Molly and when she's gone the apartment is robbed by Willy Lopez, the man who killed him (Rick Avilez). Anything Sam touches goes through him, so he can't do anything to scare Willy but he does manage to scare his cat, which chases Willy away. He then follows Willy on the subway to his home in Brooklyn, where Willy tells someone on the phone he knows who lives there and he's coming back for Molly. Sam doesn't know what to do but he spots a medium (Whoopi Goldberg)'s storefront in the neighborhood. He suspects Oda Mae, the medium, is a fraud, but talks to her as a last resort, and it works. He convinces Oda Mae to warn Molly she's in danger, Molly initially doesn't believe her, but starts to when Oda Mae reveals personal things.

The other ghost on the subway is Richard Dreyfus in Always.

Molly has now started dating Carl (Tony Goldwyn), Sam's co-worker and best friend, but is not quite ready to move on. What she doesn't know yet and what Sam is finding out is that Carl and Willy have been working together. It was Carl who arranged to have Sam killed for the wallet that contained his passwords. The discrepancies in numbers from earlier were actually numbers Carl was funneling to a fake bank account and he has been using her to get access to the passwords. To avenge his death and bring Carl to justice, Sam now must get help from Oda Mae again. Somehow word got out that the con game she was pulling is real and other ghosts are now coming to her for help.

Another part of Sam's plan requires his ability to touch things without going through them so he can haunt Carl and Willie. Earlier he was attacked by another ghost (Vincent Schiavelli) who felt Sam was invading his turf, and tracks him down to get the guy to teach him how to touch things.

The ghosts on this page are the Chicago Black Sox from Field of Dreams.

Sam convinces Oda Mae to pose as the name Carl has the fake account as close it before Carl can gain access to it (Not shown: he makes her give the money to charity to get rid of all evidence). Later Oda Mae allows Sam to possess her body so that he can touch Molly once again. Carl finds out about the whole plan and now tries to kill Molly and Oda Mae, but now that Sam has mastered the ability to touch things he can fight Carl without being seen and ends up killing him. Since Carl was evil he is dragged by spirits to Hell. Sam is good and can be seen before he ascends to heaven.

Yeah, there are lots of things that don't make sense. Why does Carl still need Willy now that he can get the passwords through other means? How did the other ghosts find out about Oda Mae's ability to see and talk to them? Why are evil ghosts dragged away immediately while it takes good ones a few days? How is Sam still good after having just killed someone? Hey, I'm just the messenger.