The Ghost Breakers (Blu-ray)

Screen greats Bob Hope (My Favorite Blonde, Road to Utopia) and Paulette Goddard (Nothing But the Truth, Reap the Wild Wind) co-star in another comedy-thriller, a year after their smash hit The Cat and the Canary. Ghosts and gags collide in this witches’ brew of laughs, with Bob Hope as a Manhattan radio commentator who finds himself marooned on an island of the walking dead! Larry Lawrence (Hope), sought in connection with a murder he did not commit, eludes New York police by hiding in a steamer trunk. Soon the trunk (and Larry) are aboard a ship bound for Cuba, where the trunk’s owner, pretty Mary Carter (Goddard), is sailing to take possession of a recent inheritance: a “haunted” castle. Sensing that Mary is in danger, Larry and his valet Alex (Willie Best, Whispering Ghosts) precede her to the island, which is inhabited by a ghost, a zombie and perhaps even a flesh-and-blood fiend. There’s romance, comedy and chills as Hope and Goddard contend with earthly and un-earthly foes—and try to keep from ending up as ghosts themselves. Director George Marshall (Murder, He Says) also directed the 1953 remake, Scared Stiff, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The stellar cast includes Paul Lukas (The Lady Vanishes), Anthony Quinn (Zorba the Greek) and Paul Fix (El Dorado).