The Ghost Breakers

**The Ghost Breakers** is a 1940 feature film from Paramount Pictures starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

## Summary

Lawrence Lawrence (Bob Hope) is broadcasting from a Manhattan radio studio. He is a crime reporter known as "Larry" by his friends, as well as his many enemies among the local underworld.

Listening to the broadcast is pretty brunette Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard), whose high-rise hotel room goes dark as a violent thunderstorm causes a citywide blackout. In the near darkness, a knock comes at her door. Mr. Parada, a suave, vaguely sinister Cuban solicitor delivers the deed to her inherited plantation and mansion, Castillo Maldito, on a small island near Cuba.

During Parada's visit, Mary receives a telephone call from Mr. Mederos (Anthony Quinn), an even more sinister gent who warns Mary not to sell the newly inherited property to Parada. Mary agrees to meet Mederos later. Despite Parada's discouragement, she impulsively decides to inspect her new property.

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. 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. Mederos arrives on the same hotel floor as Larry. However, Mederos is looking for Parada. Mederos 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 searches among the luggage bound for loading and finds Larry. Although not in time to prevent the trunk's transfer to the ship's hold, Alex manages to board the ship, hoping to extricate his employer before it sails.

Once in her stateroom, Mary is surprised to unpack Larry. He and Alex decide to remain onboard, 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, 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, and Alex go to the island. En route they find a shack occupied by an old woman and her catatonic son, 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 her 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?