Why, you may be asking yourself, would anybody remake Ghostbreakers, which was a funny Bob Hope vehicle? It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the result isn't a better movie. It's just a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis movie.I'm sure I've confessed my love of Dean and Jerry before. I thought they were great on TV and in their early movies. Some of Jerry's antics in this one are still funny to me, but I'm probably the only one.
The story's this: Lizabeth Scott has inherited a scary old dark house in the Caribbean. Through a ridiculous series of events, Dean and Jerry stow away on the ship that's taking her there, and Dean becomes romantically involved with her. There are, naturally, musical numbers, and we get to see Jerry in Carmen Miranda drag. So that's a plus. The events in the old dark house aren't scary at all, though they probably seemed scary enough to me when I saw this as a kid, and we do get to see Lizabeth Scott in a bathing suit, so that's another plus. There's an unnecessary cameo at the end, and it seemed funny to me in the long ago. Not so much now.
This isn't my favorite Martin and Lewis picture. It was barely okay, but it's no Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.
4 comments:
George Marshall directed both versions, but neglected the spooky atmosphere in the remake. Even the original's genuinely frightening zombie became more like a sleepwalking thug in this one.
Agreed. This was not a good Martin & Lewis movie nor did it improve on anything in Ghostbreakers. The only things really memorable about this movie is that it was Carmen Miranda's last film and the "unnecessary" cameo at the end. Other than that when I try to recall this film, I seem to mostly remember Ghostbreakers' scenes instead.
I was never a fan. I'll take BELA LUGOSI any day.
And Lizabeth Scott couldn't do much to save it, I gather. (As a non-fan of Lewis, I'll believe it.)
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