The Ghost Breakers is a 1940 comedy horror film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. It's the third film adaptation of the 1909 stage farce The Ghost Breaker.
Larry Lawrence (Hope) is a Walter Winchell-type radio broadcaster in New York, who goes on the run after supposedly murdering the crime boss (Anthony Quinn) he's been exposing on the air. He gets mixed up with Mary Carter (Goddard), an heiress who has just inherited a plantation in Cuba with a supposedly haunted mansion. Traveling there together, they find themselves confronted by zombies, a ghost, and the twin brother (Quinn) of the dead gangster.
The story would be remade yet again in 1953 as Scared Stiff.
Tropes used in this film:
- Mistaken for Murderer: Larry flees New York after mistakenly believing he's shot Ramon Mederos to death.
- Repetitive Name: Larry's full name is Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence. As he explains to Mary, "My folks had no imagination."
