Bob Hope Collection - The Ghost Breakers (1940) - Nothing but th

2014.04.15


Bob Hope Collection - The Ghost Breakers (1940) - Nothing but the Truth (1941) DVD9 [DDR]



The Ghost Breakers (1940) Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Anthony Quinn

The Ghost Breakers (1940) is a comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. The movie was adapted by Walter DeLeon from the play The Ghost Breaker by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, no relation to Paulette.

Along with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Hope's own The Cat and the Canary, it is cited as a prime example of the classic Hollywood horror-comedy.

CAST:-
Bob Hope as Larry Lawrence
Paulette Goddard as Mary Carter
Richard Carlson as Geoff Montgomery
Paul Lukas as Parada
Willie Best as Alex
Pedro de Cordoba as Havez (as Pedro De Cordoba)
Virginia Brissac as Mother Zombie
Noble Johnson as The Zombie
Anthony Quinn as Ramon Mederes/Francisco Mederes
Tom Dugan as Raspy Kelly
Paul Fix as Frenchy Duval
Lloyd Corrigan as Martin

Directed by George Marshall
Produced by Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
Written by Walter DeLeon
Music by Ernst Toch
Running time 83 min.

OTHER VERSIONS OF 'THE GHOST BREAKERS"
The Dickey and Goddard play The Ghost Breaker was filmed twice previously by Paramount, first in 1914 by Cecil B. DeMille, with stars H. B. Warner and Rita Stanwood.
It was filmed again in 1922 by director Alfred E. Green, starring Wallace Reid and Lila Lee. Both these silent film versions are now considered to be lost films.

George Marshall, director of the 1940 version, remade The Ghost Breakers as Scared Stiff (1953), featuring Martin and Lewis (Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis).
The remake featured cameos not only from Hope, but also from Bing Crosby. A year before Scared Stiff, Martin and Lewis appeared in the Crosby/Hope film Road to Bali.

The film was adapted for radio on Screen Directors Playhouse on April 4, 1949 with Bob Hope re-creating his film role and Shirley Mitchell as Mary. Hope appeared again on the program for an hour-long version on June 14, 1951.



SYNOPSIS:- The Ghost Breakers (1940)
The film opens in a Manhattan radio studio during a broadcast by crime reporter Lawrence Lawrence (Bob Hope)—"Larry" to his friends, as well as his enemies, who are many in number among the local underworld.

Listening in on the broadcast is pretty brunette Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard), whose high-rise hotel room goes dark as a violent thunderstorm causes a city-wide blackout. In the near darkness, a knock comes at her door. It is Mr. Parada (Paul Lukas), a suave, vaguely sinister Cuban solicitor. He delivers the deed to her inherited plantation and mansion, "Castillo Maldito," on a small island off the coast of Cuba. Despite Parada's discouragement, she impulsively decides to travel to Cuba by ship to inspect her new property.

During Parada's visit, Mary receives a telephone call from Mr. Mederes (Anthony Quinn), an even more sinister gent who warns Mary not to sell the newly inherited property to Parada. Mary agrees to meet Mederes later.

Meanwhile, after Larry Lawrence has finished broadcasting the evening's exposé of a local crime boss, he receives a telephone call from the crime boss, Frenchy Duval (Paul Fix). Frenchy invites Larry to his hotel to discuss the broadcast so he can "give it" to him straight.

Coincidentally, Frenchy is living in the same hotel where Mary Carter lives. Mederes arrives on the same hotel floor as Larry. However, Mederes is looking for Parada. Mederes confronts Parada and Parada shoots and kills him. Larry hears the shot and fires his gun at random. In a mix-up in the still-darkened building, Larry sees the body and believes he's killed one of Duval's henchmen. In the confusion he finds himself in the rooms of Mary Carter, who is already busy packing for her journey. Believing that he is being pursued by Duval's men, Larry hides in Mary's large open trunk. Unaware of Larry's presence, Mary locks the trunk and arranges for its transport to the harbor.

Later at the dock, Larry's valet Alex (Willie Best) searches among the luggage bound for loading and finds Larry among them. Although not in time to prevent the trunk's transfer to the ship's hold, Alex manages to get on board, hoping to extricate his employer before the ship sails.

Once in her stateroom, Mary is surprised to unpack Larry along with the rest of her belongings. Larry and Alex decide to remain on board, partly to act as bodyguards to the plucky beauty, but also to keep out of reach of Frenchy Duval and the police.

As Larry and Mary strike up a flirtation, they run into an acquaintance of Mary's, Geoff Montgomery (Richard Carlson), a young professorial type who regales them with tales of the local superstitions of their destination, particularly voodoo, ghosts and zombies.

Upon reaching port in Havana, Mary, Larry, Alex go to the island. En route they find a shack occupied by an old woman (Virginia Brissac) and her catatonic son (Noble Johnson), whom they believe is a zombie. The imposing plantation manor proves to be a spooky edifice indeed. They begin to explore the long-abandoned, cobweb-ridden mansion, and discover a large portrait of a woman who is nearly an exact likeness of Mary—most certainly an ancestor.

Soon they are terrorized by the appearance of a ghost, and the reappearance of the zombie. Are these real, or are they a ruse to frighten Mary away from her inheritance?

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Nothing but the Truth (1941) - Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard



Nothing But the Truth (1941) is a comedy film starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, their third movie together in three years. The movie was directed by Elliott Nugent.
The premise of the film, that the protagonist must tell the truth for the next 24 hours, is a remake of the 1929 film of the same name starring Richard Dix and Wynne Gibson.
Twenty years later, this similar plot was used in The Twilight Zone's episode The Whole Truth and later still in Liar Liar (1993 film starring Jim Carrey).
The film lay unseen for years after its 1941 release due to legal tangles, but was finally made available again through the auspices of film historian Leonard Maltin in the early 1980s

CAST:-
Bob Hope as Steve Bennett
Paulette Goddard as Gwen Saunders
Edward Arnold as T.R. Ralston
Leif Erickson as Van
Helen Vinson as Linda Grahm
Willie Best as Samuel
Glenn Anders as Dick Donnelly
Grant Mitchell as Mr. Bishop
Catherine Doucet as Mrs. Van Dusen
Rose Hobart as Mrs. Donnelly
Clarence Kolb as Mr. Van Dusen
Mary Forbes as Mrs. Ralston
Leon Belasco as Dr. Zarak
Helene Millard as Miss Turner

Directed by Elliott Nugent
Produced by Arthur Hornblow, Jr.
Written by Ken Englund
Running time 90 minutes

SYNOSIS:- Nothing But the Truth (1941)
Steve Bennett (Bob Hope) is a stockbroker in Miami, fresh out of school, working for a man named T.R. Ralston (Edward Arnold). He is persuaded by Ralston to invest a sum of $10,000 for Ralston's beautiful niece Gwen Saunders (Paulette Goddard). Ralston has promised his niece that the money will be doubled in a short period of time.

It turns out Steve's honesty gets in the way of business, when his boss Ralston makes him sell wothless stocks, and he cannot keep his mouth shut to the clients, revealing the fact that the investment is a dead end.

Ralston and his partners Tom van Dusen and Dick Donnelly bet with that Steve that he can't be completely honest for twenty-four hours straight. Steve bets the $10,000 he got from Gwen. One of the conditions is that no one can reveal the bet to an outsider and it can't be cancelled.

Steve is meticulously watched by the three men during the next twenty-four hours. They are entertaining guests and clients on Ralston's yacht during most of this time, and when Steve is honest with everyone he meets, he manages to insult most of them. In the late evening, an exotic dancer named Linda Graham enters the yacht, looking for Dick. He has pledged Steve's money to her show. Linda meets and talks to Steve, telling him about the show. Mrs. ralston and another distinguished woman overhears the conversation and mistakenly believes Linda is Steve's wife.

During the night, the partners steal Steve's clothes to prevent him from leaving the ship, but he borrows a dress from Linda. In disguise, Steve sneaks into Gwen's room at her invitation. He tells her that he isn't married to Linda and that he is in love with her.

The next day Steve gets heat from every direction. Gwen finds out that he has been in Linda's room during the night, the ladies sees him as indecent, and Tom because he is in love with Gwen and jealous. On top of this Linda is telling everyone that she is indeed married to Steve and that they have a child together, being in cahoots with Dick to make things harder for Steve.

Close to when the twenty-four hours are up, a man named Mr. Bishop enters the ship. He is the head of the charity organization which Gwen intended to give the $10,000 to. Mr. Bishop asks to see the money, and Gwen who has learned about the bet, tries to keep the man occupied, buying some extra time to help Steve win the bet.

The clocks on the boat have been put forward by the partners, and when they strike four Steve is able to lie to Mr. Bishop about the money. The partners celebrate since they have won the bet, but it turns out someone wound the clocks back again while they weren't watching. Thus, Steve wins the bet, and has managed to double Gwen's money after all. He tells everyone on the yacht that he had made a bet that he would lie for the past twenty-four hours, and his honor is restored. Gwen takes a liking to him and awards him a kiss.



TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-
Video Codec: MPEG-2
Video Bitrate: 4999 kbps
Video Resolution: 720x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1
Frames Per Second: 23.976
Audio Codec: AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: English
RunTime 173 mins
Subtitles: None
Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]
Duration: 173 mins