Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard) is in her hotel room with a member of the Cuban consulate, Havez (Pedro de Cordoba). Mary has just inherited a castle and an island off of Cuba called Black Island. It is said that the castle, called Castle Maldito, is haunted. A knock at the door brings Mr. Parada (Paul Lukas), an attorney with the transfer papers for Mary to sign giving her ownership of the island and castle. After the transactions are completed, both men leave. Mary plans on immediately going to the island to inspect her inheritance. She starts to finish packing so she can make her ship.
Lawrence Lawrence AKA “Larry” (Bob Hope) is a radio broadcaster who dishes out dope on New York’s underworld criminals. His latest scoop concerns a boss man named Frenchy Duval (Paul Fix). Frenchy is not happy with Larry’s program, so he tells him to come see him at his hotel room to discuss things. Frenchy lives in the same hotel as Mary. When Larry shows up, he runs into several men roaming the hallways. Someone gets shot. Larry gets spooked and fires off a round from a gun given to him by his valet, Alex (Willie Best). Someone screams. Larry’s shot went wild, but he thinks he shot the man in the hallway, so he believes he needs to escape.
At about that time, Mary opens her door to see what the commotion was. Larry talks his way into her room and somehow manages to convince her that he killed the man in self-defense. He hides in her steamer trunk when the police show up to inspect her room. The moving guys show up to take her trunk to the ship. Larry ends up locked inside and put on board. Alex finds out what happened and goes to the dock to try to get Larry out of the steamer before the ship leaves. He is too late and also ends up on the ship when it sails.
Larry and Mary quickly become attracted to each other and begin to fall in love. On the way to Havana the two are regaled by Parada about ghosts and zombies on the island. An acquaintance of Mary’s, Geoff Montgomery (Richard Carlson) also warns her about the island and to be wary of Parada. When they get to Havana Larry and Alex go to the island to check it out ahead of time. Later Mary decides to go there on her own. Once they are all on the plantation grounds, the real spooky stuff starts.
“Ghost Breakers” was released in 1940 and was directed by George Marshall. It is an American horror comedy with some old dark house elements. The film was based on the play “The Ghost Breaker” by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard. The play was made into a silent film in 1914 by Cecil B. DeMille and again in 1922 by Alfred E. Green. Both silent films are believed to be lost.
The 1953 film “Scared Stiff” is supposedly a remake of the story by Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The story is also supposed to be the inspiration for the film “Ghostbusters” 1984.
This was a lot better than I expected. Hope has a tendency to crack jokes with a smirk on his face while breaking the fourth wall but here he plays it mostly straight. He still wise cracks but he does it to a fellow actor and not staring at the camera. I found that refreshing and enjoyed his performance a lot more than I did in “The Cat and the Canary” 1939. The film also has some red herrings which made some confusion but once you ignore those parts it ends up being a fun film.
The castle in the film is called "Castillo Maldito" which means "Cursed Castle".