The Ghost Comes Home (1940)

Mild mannered Vern runs a pet store that seems to gather more pets than he sells. One day he receives a telephone call from John 'old fishface' Thomas in Australia. He wants to leave a considerable amount to the town and Vern is to come down and help him decide where it should go. Vern goes to the Inter Pacific Steam Lines to catch the ship and with hours until sailing, heads to a nightclub to hear his favorite band. Vern winds up doing 60 days in jail. When he gets out, he goes home to find that the 'Mariluna' had sunk with all hands and that the family has already spent the travel insurance money. So Vern hides out to keep everyone from going to jail for fraud. But mild mannered Vern soon becomes a tiger and he and Lanny need to figure a way out of his predicament.