The Ghost Breakers
Directed by George Marshall
Written by Walter de Leon based on a play by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard
1940/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Larry Lawrence: [the power goes out in the storm] Basil Rathbone must be having a party.[/box]
I am somewhat immune to his charms but this is really one of Bob Hope’s funnier films.
Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard) has inherited a reportedly cursed and haunted mansion on an island off the coast of Cuba. Before she can even set sail to visit the property, she receives many warnings and threats with regard to the place. Radio announcer Larry Lawrence (Hope) gets dragged in via a complicated gangster sub-plot, falls for Mary, and rallies to her assistance with the reluctant aid of his African-American factotum Alex (Willie Best). The two battle ghosts, zombies, and all-too-human opponents on the island. With Paul Lukas as a suspicious real estate agent, Anthony Quinn as twins, Richard Carlson as a friend of Mary’s, and Noble Johnson as the zombie.
It is hard to believe there was a time in which the mere color of someone’s skin was thought to be hilarious. That is the basis of several of the quips here. If you can overlook the lapses into crude stereotyping, the movie is otherwise an entertaining romp. Goddard and Hope are good together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xZMQ2-XQvI
Trailer
