The Ghost Breakers: Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard Star

Main cast:

 

Bob Hope as Larry Lawrence

Paulette Goddard as Mary Carter

Richard Carlson as Geoff Montgomery

Paul Lukas as Parada 

Willie Best as Alex

Pedro de Cordoba as Havez

Virginia Bissac as the mother of the Zombie

Noble Johnson as the Zombie

Anthony Quinn as Ramon Mederos & Francisco Mederos

Paul Fix as Frenchy Duval

This 1940 comedy/horror film has crime gossip radio celebrity Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence saying his names are the same because, "my folks had no imagination." After a broadcast about a major racketeer, Larry, as he is commonly known, is to go see the crime boss at a hotel. Larry's valet, Alex, gives him a gun to take along, just in case. Inside the hotel, as he searches for the room, a man in the hallway opens a door just a short distant away and is shot. Larry turns and fires his gun just in time to see the man crumple to the floor. Larry thinks he has killed the guy, and that the man had fired at him, because he was one of the racketeers sent to kill him. Larry ducks into a room, which happens to be the room of Mary Carter, who is about to leave on a ship for Cuba (this was long before Fidel Castro) to claim her newly inherited castle there on a small island with no electricity, built by her great-great grandfather. The castle is believed to be haunted and the name of the island is "Black Island."

A short time before Larry barged into her room, Mary had gotten the deed to her castle from a Cuban man named Parada who says he's been authorized by a nameless person to offer her $50,000 for the castle. Remember, this was 1940, when such an amount would be worth more than $800,000 in today's money. She can't understand why someone would offer so much for a castle located on a small island off the Cuban coast, with no electricity, but complete with its own spooks. During her conversation with Parada, she gets a phone call from a Ramon Mederos who tells her not to sell the castle. Mary wants to know more, so she tells Mederos she'll meet him in 20 minutes. Parada is suspicious about the call, but says nothing. When Larry goes to the hotel, it is Mederos who is shot and killed by Parada, with Larry mistakenly believing he killed the man.

When Larry goes into her room, he tells Mary (they hadn't known each other) that he killed a man who fired at him. Mary is satisfied that he's not a murderer, so she tells him to hide when the police come to check her room. They find no one, but near the end of their check, the baggage attendant comes and takes Mary's trunk to be sent to the ship. Of course, Larry is hiding in the trunk, and we later have Larry, Mary and Alex, who came looking for his boss, all bound for Cuba. Parada is also on the ship and whenever he talks with Mary, he tries to scare her about the castle. He also talks to Larry and tells him about zombies and voodoo. As the ship enters Havana, at one point when Mary returns to her cabin, there is a voodoo death symbol stuck to her door with a knife. A man is outside of her door listening, but he is chased off by Geoff Montgomery, an acquaintance of Mary, who spends most of his time in Cuba and so is familiar with the area and with voodoo. While having a drink with Geoff in the ship's lounge, Mary thinks she sees the ghost of Ramon Mederos, the man shot and killed at the hotel earlier (she had seen his picture in the newspaper), but the man introduces himself as Francisco Mederos, the twin brother of the murdered man. He demands to know why his brother was killed, but Mary tells him she doesn't know. Mederos goes off to a table, and when Geoff goes to take a telephone call, Mary writes him a note excusing herself.

The scene shifts to Black Island as Larry and Alex arrive in a row boat. They see an old woman and when they look through the window of her old house, they see a man lying there, and they figure this is the woman's son, the zombie they had heard about. I'll tell you, you never know what kids will become when they grow up. Larry and Alex go to the castle and enter. On the wall hangs a large portrait of Mary's great great grandmother. Mary looks almost exactly like her ancestor. The guys see what appears to be a ghost emerge from a crypt, but Larry is skeptical. Mary arrives in a boat, but she has to swim to shore, as the boatman will not go any closer to the island, due to its reputation. The old woman sees Mary arrive and awakens her son. Mary goes inside the castle, but here comes the zombie son into the castle too. Mary goes to the upstairs to get away. A wall panel opens and we see Parada observing Mary, but then a hand covers his mouth and Parada disappears. Mary looks down and sees her great great grandmother's portrait and a slight smile comes over her. Meanwhile, Larry and Alex continue through the castle when the zombie, in a suit of armor, tries to kill them. As he moves toward the two guys, down the staircase comes Mary, dressed as her great great grandmother. Larry and Alex are able to overpower the zombie and lock him in a room. Mary feels that her great great grandmother is pointing to something in her portrait; that is, the secret of the castle, and the reason people have been trying to keep her away from her inherited castle. Geoff shows up and talks with Alex, but then leaves when he hears a motor boat. Larry and Mary investigate further and they find Parada dying from a stab wound. They then find musical notes on the wall, which when played on the castle's organ, causes a large section of the wall to open, exposing a stairway to an underground room, complete with a burning lantern. The two find nothing of value, but then out steps Francisco Mederos with a gun, only another panel opens and out comes Geoff with a gun, and he wounds Mederos. Geoff tells them there is a large vein of silver under the castle and he will have to kill them now to protect the secret and get the silver. Suddenly a trap door opens and Geoff falls through. Alex asks Larry if he pushed the right button. So, Mary, Larry, Alex and Mederos leave the island in Geoff's motorboat and Larry proposes to Mary. They ask Mederos how Geoff had arranged the walking ghost, but he tells them Geoff had nothing to do with the that, it was the real ghost of Mary's ancestor.       

Photo is of the 2002 Universal Studios Home Video DVD

WORD HISTORY:
Fetch-This verb, distantly related to the nouns "vat" and "foot," goes back to the Indo European root "ped/pod," which meant, "foot," and in an extended sense, "support;" thus, "hold." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "fatjanan," which meant, "to grasp, to grip, to hold." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "fetian/fatian" (by dialect), meaning, "to bring to, to bring near, to take on," which developed further into, "to marry" (bring together in life). The basic verb developed the variations, "feccan/fæccan" (also by dialect), which meant, "to bring to (someone or some place), to go and get, to fetch." This then became "fecchen," before the modern form. While the word is still alive and kicking, it once was much more extensively used in many senses, and it's only been in the last century or two that its role diminished. The other Germanic languages have: German has "fassen" (to grasp, to hold onto), ^ Low German Saxon has "faten" (grasp, hold on to), West Frisian "fetsje" (take, grasp [including in the sense, "understand"] ), Dutch has "vatten" (grasp, seize). The North Germanic languages seem to have only noun forms that are more closely related to English "vat," rather than to "fetch."

^ German uses "holen" to mean, "to fetch," and Dutch uses "halen." Both are close relatives of "haul."