Funny movie quotes from The Ghost Breakers (1940) starring Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard
Funny movie quotes from The Ghost Breakers with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard (The Great Dictator). Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard) inherits her family’s ancestral home, located on a small island off Cuba, and, despite warnings and death threats, decides to take possession of the ‘haunted’ castle. She is joined by radio broadcaster Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope) who is fleeing New York with his butler, Alex. Once on the island the threesome enter the eerie castle …
Geoff Montgomery (Richard Carlson): It’s worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): You mean like Democrats?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): The girls call me Pilgrim because every time I dance with one, I make a little progress.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Pardon me, and I protruding?
Parada (Paul Lukas): Are you the one advising Miss Carter to sell the castle?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): No, my advice is keep the castle and sell the ghosts.
Parada (Paul Lukas): I myself have heard of only one ghost: the spirit of Don Santiago.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Tell me, does he appear nightly or just Sundays and Holidays?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Must have been a frog in my throat.
Alex (Willie Best): It’s better than havin’ a knife in it.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): This is no penny ante game, Alex.
Alex (Willie Best): Well, what are you gonna get out of it?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Heart failure.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Me, I’m mentally retarded. I’m still 11 years old when it comes to the 4th of July, circuses and haunted castles.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): [to Alex] Oh, you look like a black out in a blackout. This keeps up, I’m gonna have to paint you white.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): [the power goes out in the storm] Basil Rathbone must be having a party.
Alex (Willie Best): I just love talking to luggage. I used to be a porter.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): [about Alex] He sees the dark side of everything. He was born during an eclipse.
Alex (Willie Best): Hey, boss, you ain’t goin’ upstairs, are ya? Where those ghosts is?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Listen, you stay there, and if a couple a fellas come runnin’ down the stairs in a few minutes, let the first one go. That’ll be me.
Alex (Willie Best): If somebody passes you, that’ll be me.
Alex (Willie Best): Is that a mummy?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Yes, it’s her great-great-great grand-mummy.
Alex (Willie Best): A lot of folks don’t like you, boss. I expect some of these mornings when I come to get you outta the bed, I’ll have to pull the sheet up instead of down.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): I’m in great shape, for the shape I’m in.
Raspy Kelly: They don’t mind a little publicity. They kinda like it.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): I know. I plug them, and they’ll plug me.
Raspy Kelly: He’s drivin’ his car, see? Another car comes along, runs him into a ditch. Marky gets all smashed up.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): When did it happen?
Raspy Kelly: Well, I can’t tell you exactly, but it’ll probably be tomorrow.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): If that’s Raspy Kelly, I owe him some money.
Alex (Willie Best): Well, from the tone of his infections, you better pay him.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): I don’t mind dying, but I hate the preliminaries.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): How’d you like the program?
Telephone Girl: Oh, you were wonderful, if you’re any judge.
[last lines]
Francisco Mederes: He wasn’t playing. That was the real ghost!
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Now we have something to worry about on our honeymoon.
Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard): Our what?
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): Our honeymoon. Didn’t I tell ya?
Mary Carter (Paulette Goddard): No, but I’d like to hear about it.
Larry Lawrence (Bob Hope): You would?
Editorial review of The Ghost Breakers | Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, courtesy of Amazon.com
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 hiding in a steamer trunk. Soon the trunk (and Larry) are aboard a ship bound for Cuba where the trunk owner pretty Mary Carter (Paulette 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) precede her to the island which is inhabited by a ghost, zombie and perhaps even a flesh and blood fiend. There’s romance, comedy and chills as Hope and Goddard commend with earthly and un-earthly foes and try to keep from ending up as ghosts themselves.