Daily Archives: April 13, 2014

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

Broadway Melody of 1940
Directed by Norman Taurog
Written by Leon Gordon and George Oppenheimer from an original story by Jack McGowan and Dore Schary
1940/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

[box] When they begin the beguine/ it brings back the sound of music so tender/ it brings back a night of tropical splendor/ it brings back a memory of green — “Begin the Beguine”, lyrics by Cole Porter[/box]

There is some really splendid dancing in Fred Astaire’s only pairing with tapper extraordinaire Eleanor Powell.

Johnny Brett (Astaire) and King Shaw (George Murphy) are a small-time dance team in New York.  One day Broadway producer Bob Casey (Frank Morgan) spots the pair and decides Johnny is just the dancer to be Clare Bennett’s (Powell) leading man in her new show.  However, there is a classic Hollywood misunderstanding and the call comes to King instead.  Even though Johnny has long loved Clare from afar, he supports King’s good luck 100%, even contributing some dance moves to him.  But King has a bit of an alcohol problem and newly swelled head and Johnny’s friendship is tested to the max.  .

Astaire and Powell are fantastic together and their numbers are really something to see.  Murphy also excels, keeping up with both of them step for step as needed.  Powell, while very pleasant, is no Rogers in the acting department, though, and the script lacks the luster of the Astaire-Rogers classics.

Clip Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell tapping to “Begin the Beguine”