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By PAUL BRENNER
This Bob Hope spook comedy, released by Universal as part of
it's Bob Hope Tribute Collection, was the film that solidified Hope's
popularity as a film comedy star. Released after the first Road movie, "The Road
to Singapore," "The Ghost Breakers" is a sequel of sorts to Hope's previous
horror comedy, "The Cat and the Canary." Both films co-star Paulette Goddard,
winding up her coital Chaplin years all fresh-faced and gleaming ("a poor
working girl -- honest but tough"). Hope, still lashed to his radio persona,
plays a Winchellesque radio columnist whose undercover reports on the mob causes
him to fear for his life.
For reasons too convoluted to mention Hope and Goddard find themselves forced to
spend the night in Goddard's inherited and haunted Cuban castle. Once there
every variation of the haunted house movie is unveiled -- zombies, clutching
hands, secret panels, self-playing organs, corpses, skeletons, a moving suit of
armor, hidden passageways, buried treasure and even a flying ghost that rises
from its grave (everything is explained away at the denouement -- all except the
ghost). And, as usual with Hope's films, he is always provided with political
quips that are so old that they become reborn after sixty-plus years. As an
example, Richard Carlson is portentously describing a zombie to Hope and
Goddard: "A zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes, walking
around blindly with dead eyes. Following orders. Not knowing what they do. Not
caring." Hope remarks, "You mean like Democrats?"
The only glitch in this otherwise pleasant time-killer is Hope's "boy" -- i.e.
Willie Best, black stereotype extraordinaire (Hope tells him, "You look like a
blackout in a blackout. If this keeps up I'll paint you white."). Here is racism
that is so second natured in its virulence that it is more horrifying for its
banality than anything else.
Universal has provided a barrel full of interesting archival materials as
bonuses -- a featurette on Hope and the USO, a filmed excerpt from one of Hope's
Command Performance radio broadcasts from 1944, a World War II Hollywood Victory
Caravan short, a photo gallery, the theatrical trailer, production notes, cast
and crew bios, and DVD-Rom features (including the shooting script). The film is
subtitled in English, French, and Spanish. |
