Rating: 3.5/5
Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard reunite after The Cat & the Canary for another spooky house story in which Goddard inherits a castle in Cuba that everyone seems to want
Bob Hope is a an informant on the mafia who says the wrong thing and becomes a wanted man who ends up on the ship with her — it’s way more convoluted than that, but close enough — his cover being that he’s a Ghost Breaker, who helps folks deal with the skeletons in their closest and the ghosts of their past
(I found out after that this movie is cited as an influence for Ghostbusters. It also feels like the foundation for Scooby-Doo in the way the house is investigated and Hope’s skepticism throughout)
Bob Hope gets a few opportunities for physical comedy throughout, most notably after spending some time stuffed in a luggage trunk. He’s not great at it, he’s much better with the quippy one-liners, but it’s still amusing
William Best, playing Bob Hope’s assistant Alex, feels progressive in the sense that he’s a black man in one of the speaking main roles. But of course, he plays “simple” and “cowardly”, to use the terms of the day… In Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, Tommy Davidson plays “Sleep n’ Eat”, which was William Best’s stage name, so Best’s legacy seems… controversial, at the very least
The movie’s biggest problem from a filmmaking perspective is the plot getting in the way of the movie — complete with the twin of a dead character showing up 45 minutes in. Also, it’s an hour into an 84 minute movie before we even get to the house
But man that last half hour rules. So many great set pieces, jokes (at least for the 1940s), and fun mystery — including one involving an organ that is reminiscent of The Goonies
Really cool lighting during the opening lightning storm, especially once the window flies open and blows out the candle — long shadows, Edward Hopper shapes
The house looks so cool, I love the overgrown grounds and the tall, cracked walls. There’s a beautiful, enormous floor lamp that looks as elaborate as a chandelier and couldn’t fit through the front door of my apartment
I got a lot of time to write about this movie as it took me three days (!!!) of movie buffering and other technical issues to get through it. But it was worth it