Bob Hope’s nutty and witty comedic talent lights the screen in this spoofedy (a spoof comedy) of ghostly places with folk tales of treasures attached to them. George Marshall’s The Ghost Breakers (1940) makes good use of Hope’s silly screen persona for an adaptation of the play “The Ghost Breaker” (1909) by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard.
Hope stars as Larry Lawrence, radio broadcaster whose tongue and body move ceaselessly while his brain races in the other direction to grasp the affair at hand. Unsurprisingly, he ends up hiding inside the suitcase of a young heiress Mary (Paulette Goddard) while mistakenly believing he shot a guy dead. As Mary travels to Cuba to visit a supposedly haunted castle she inherited, Larry becomes her companion, investigator of the strange things happening around Mary, and of course her love interest.
The plot of The Ghost Breakers may have been relatively fresh still when the movie was made; it may not feel so to today’s viewers after all these decades of spoof comedies about haunted places. Yet this rather simplistic plot serves to enhance the spoofedic effect of the presentation.
For giggles and guffaws, your main squeeze in The Ghost Breakers is undoubtedly Bob Hope (who else?). Being a play, it’s predominantly dialogue and necessary action. In the supporting role of Alex, the valet, Willie Best offers his best scaredy-cat lost mind on the screen. Paulette Goddard is pretty and good, and she complements Hope’s comedic timing.
To point out the plot’s setting precisely, a good half of the screen time goes before the characters reach the supposedly haunted castle – that is at the hotel, dock, and on the ship. So don’t let the title mislead you into assuming it mainly involves encounters with ghosts and experiencing the paranormal.
The Ghost Breakers is entertaining and perfect for a stormy night with and yet without real horror.
