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Review by E.C. McMullen Jr. |
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USA Release: June 21, 1940 Paramount Pictures Rating: USA: N/A |
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THE CAT AND THE CANARY was a smash hit in 1939, marking the second time the adapted play had been remade in only 12 years and each time, with a different cast, it was a hit. The 1939 adaptation was the biggest hit of all and Paramount were convinced it was thanks to the star power of Bob Hope and his chemistry with new leading lady, Paulett Goddard.
We've got to rush another Horror Comedy into production!
Then as now there was no end to source material and Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard's 1909 play, THE GHOST BREAKERS, was still a stage hit and so a modern fan favorite. Let's go for that!
New on the scene was veteran comedy director George Marshall (THE HAUNTED VALLEY). As before, screenwriter Walter DeLeon (THE GHOST BREAKER [1922], THE CAT AND THE CANARY [1939], SCARED STIFF) adapted the play from his original adapted screenplay from 18 years earlier of the same movie (yes this was another remake. Bob Hope was taking no chances) and Arthur Hornblower Jr. (THE CAT AND THE CANARY [1939]) was the producer. Paramount's top Costume Designer Edith Head (THE MAD DOCTOR, I MARRIED A WITCH, THE UNINVITED, FLESH AND FANTASY, MINISTRY OF FEAR, NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES, WHEN WORLD'S COLLIDE, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, SCARED STIFF, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, REAR WINDOW, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, VERTIGO, THE BIRDS, MARNIE, COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT, THE SCREAMING WOMAN, FAMILY PLOT, FACE OF DARKNESS, DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID), was back, as were Art Directors Hans Drier and Robert Usher, who created the spooky settings as well as the Haunted Mansion.
You gotta have a haunted mansion in these movies along with crazy rich but dead relatives willing it to some lucky kid a few generations down the road.
In this case, the lucky kid is a grown woman named Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard: THE CAT AND THE CANARY [1939], THE UNHOLY FOUR). Staying in a New York City hotel skyscraper, she was packing her luggage, preparing for a trip to Cuba, where she has inherited a whole island: Black Island and the ancient but palatial estate known as Casa Maldito (House of the Damned). Then the lightning storm blacked out the city. With her is the Cuban ambassador from the consulate, Havez (Pedro de Cordoba: THE DARK MIRROR, THE DEVIL DOLL, EARTHBOUND, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY [1945], THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS) who is helping her make arrangements to see her new property. Excited with her windfall, not even a powerful storm can dampen her enthusiasm and she throws open the window to exhilarate in nature's power.
Havez: "New York has had many storms, but never has the whole place gone dark. It's very strange."
Mary Carter: "Exciting, isn't it?"
Havez tries to reign in Mary's giddiness and warns her that there is also no electricity in her new mansion. It is as her Great, Great Grandfather built it.
Mary's attitude is all, "No problem!"
Havez presses further, telling her that the mansion has remained abandoned for many years.
No problem!
Exasperated, but still genial, Havez lays his cards on the table, "The mansion is haunted."
Mary is unphased, chuckling at the idea.
Mary: "Don't tell me you believe in ghosts?"
Havez: "We must admit, there is a fine line between Superstition and the Supernatural."
... uh... there's what, now?
Havez delivers that quote with the gravitas of wisdom, but Mary's expression gives it the weight such a thing would deserve.
On the ropes, Havez finally utters,
Havez: "No one who has entered Casa Maldito in the last twenty years has come out alive."
Mary: "I bet I will!"
Mary's Can-do Americanism, delivered with confident anticipation instead of false bravado, is infectious and charming. Clearly, old-world Havez has never met a woman like Mary before and he finally surrenders to her determination.
This conversation tells us everything we need to know about Mary for this movie and I'm hooked!
Now we meet Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence (Bob Hope: THE CAT AND THE CANARY), who goes by Larry Lawrence to his friends and he ain't got many.
What Larry does have is a wildly popular radio show where he gossips not about actors and singers but about politicians and mobsters. Larry makes so much money from his show that he has his own posh high-rise apartment and Alex (Willie Best: THE MONSTER WALKS, MUMMY'S BOYS, WHO KILLED AUNT MAGGIE?, A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO, THE HIDDEN HAND, THE MONSTER AND THE APE, THE RED DRAGON [1945], THE FACE OF MARBLE), his butler/manservant: that's a friend you have pay to keep around.
In fact, Larry makes enough to get inside information on mobsters by paying top dollar to informants like Raspy Kelly (Tom Dugan: DOCTOR X, THE HOUSE OF FEAR, WHO KILLED AUNT MAGGIE, THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, A-HAUNTING WE WILL GO, GHOST CATCHERS). Mid-level 1940 henchmen may make $50 a week but Larry pays $50 per scoop (over $1,000 in 2023 dollars)! Plus they get to spend time talking to a big celebrity and hearing their words come out of Larry's mouth on the air.
Larry's always aware of the edge he pushes and uses his informants to also feel the pulse of certain mobsters, in case they think Larry is pushing too far. Apparently, the city mob bosses are torn. Many want to shut Larry up for good yet at the same time enjoy hearing their names on the country's most popular radio show and basking in the same kind of celebrity status that big shot Broadway and Hollywood actors get.
In the underworld racket, you're only Somebody if Larry is talking about you.
Raspy: "They don't mind a little publicity, in fact they kinda like it."
Larry: "So I plug them and they'll plug me."
Raspy: "You get the idea."
Larry: "Uh... wait."
This keeps Larry nervous but rich. Homeless and on the move but highly successful in a job that takes a lot of mouth and little labor. A lethal mixture like that also brings the groupies and in the Great Depression its all an intimidating rush of dangerous excitement, beautiful women, and big money to a guy like Larry.
So we have two Great Depression era people experiencing wild success and fortune while facing forbidding futures.
It's about to get worse for both of them.
Despite the blackout, the radio station finds an auxilary power source and Larry is on the air. This is the night he goes too far.
The electricity returns and the lawyer for the Maldito estate, Parada (Paul Lukas: THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR, SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM, THE LADY VANISHES, THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, TEMPTATION, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA) arrives at Mary's hotel room. Now the transfer of ownership can be signed with Sr. Havez as witness for Cuba.
Before Mary can sign, Parada tells her he represents an anonymous party who will pay $50,000 for the island (over $1 million in 2023 dollars), provided she never goes there. Both Mary and Havez are keen to know who would pay so much for a purportedly run down place, but Parada is not at liberty to say.
As Mary is trying to figure this out, she gets a phone call. A stranger identifying himself as Ramon Mederos (Anthony Quinn: the HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME [1956]), warns her that whatever she does, do not sell the island to Paradas.
It's all too much at once for Mary and something smells way too fishy about all this, so she sticks to her guns and original plan. Mary is going to claim her estate on Black Island and she's going alone!
Now we've got a mystery to solve, gang!
From here on in it's all pure hijinks as Mary and Larry meet under tense circumstances. Police search room to room believing he's a killer, and before Mary can do anything about it, she discovers that Larry has stowed away in her steamer trunk to avoid the cops.
We've got political intrigue, International agents, crime drama, ghosts, and actor Nobel Johnson (THE HAUNTED VALLEY, THE MYSTERIOUS DR. FU MANCHU, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE [1932], MYSTERY RANCH, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME [1932], THE MUMMY [1932], KING KONG, SON OF KONG, MUMMY'S BOYS) as one of the most frightning Zombies seen at that time. He's not a motor nerve sloth, staggering on its way to eat human flesh. He's willful, cunning, yet a creature who elicits sympathy as the mind behind his eyes is enslaved by the will of an unseen other.
As Geoff Montgomery (Richard Carlson: BEYOND TOMORROW, HOLD THAT GHOST, THE AMAZING MR. X, THE MAGNETIC MONSTER, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, THE MAZE, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, TORMENTED, THE POWER [1968], THE VALLEY OF GWANGI) explains,
Geoff: "Yes, that's more voodooism, and not very pleasant. When a person dies and is buried, it seems there are certain voodoo priests who - who have the power to bring him back to life."
Mary : "How horrible!"
Geoff: "It's worse than horrible because 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.
Larry: "You mean like Democrats?"
All in all THE GHOST BREAKERS is wild fun and its ancient but clever Special Effects don't ruin it.
As for the poster, well that's fait accompli now, but the red-haired woman on there isn't in the movie and she's certainly not Paulette Goddard.
Bob Hope experienced back to back success with Horror Comedies, but his heart wasn't really in it and with this movie he was done and never looked back.
Pity, as over 80 years later in 2023, and long after nearly all of his audience of that era have died, THE CAT AND THE CANARY and THE GHOST BREAKERS are his only movies that remain in print at premium prices and keep up with the latest upgrades in disc formats.
A lot of big studio movies of the new millennium can't make that claim.
Four Shriek Girls.
This review copyright 2023 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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