The Ghost Breakers (1940)

My Review

Bob Hope is at his wise-cracking best in the horror-comedy film “The Ghost Breakers.” Director George Marshall (“The Goldwyn Follies” 1938) and screenwriter Walter DeLeon assembled this fast moving picture based on a 1909 play of the same name about a woman and her friend who are investigating a house she inherited that is supposedly haunted.

Hope’s co-stars include Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson, Willie Best, Paul Lukas, Noble Johnson, Paul Fix, Tom Dugan, Virginia Brissac, Anthony Quinn, and Robert Ryan. “The Ghost Breakers” was a big hit at the box office for Paramount Pictures. It was one of the inspirations for the “Ghostbuster” film series which sprung up later, starting in the 1980’s.