THE GHOST BREAKERS

US, 1940, 82 minutes, Black and white.
Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson, Paul Lukas, Anthony Quinn.

The Ghost Breakers is an early Bob Hope comedy. It creaks somewhat now but Bob Hope's style is unmistakable. Teamed again with Paulette Goddard (from The Cat and the Canary), the film in an enjoyable ghost story. Anthony Quinn, very young, is a villain. The film was re-made in the fifties as a Dean Martin- Jerry Lewis vehicle called Scared Stiff. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby make brief guest appearances in the latter. Director George Marshall made them both.

1. The qualities of the comedy thriller? The nature of its appeal?

2. The quality of the Bob Hope comedy: gags, the persona, the hero, situations? Relevant and topical humour?

3. The thriller aspects: the conventions of the Gangster film, mistaken identities, threats, castles and zombies, ghosts? Excitement, fear?

4. The opening New York setting: the storm and the establishing of Larry as fearless, Larry and his radio programme, relationship with gangsters? Comment on Alex and the old-style black comedy? The blending in of the sinister people?

5. The quality of the comedy pieces: the search of the room, Larry in the trunk and Diary talking to the trunk?

6. The atmosphere of Cuba, the twins, Montgomery?

7. The castle and its conventional stairs? deaths, music, ghosts?

8. The showdown and the revelation of the truth?

9. The jokey ending about the real ghost?

10. The forties style for entertainment?