The Ghost Goes West (1935) is a British romantic comedy/fantasy film starring Robert Donat, Jean Parker, and Eugene Pallette, and directed by René Clair, his first English-language film. The film contrasts an Old World ghost dealing with American vulgarity.
This rather cosmopolitan production combines an Hungarian-born British producer, a French director, and an American writer in a British film. This movie was the biggest grossing movie in 1936 in Great Britain.
Plot
Peggy Martin (Parker), the daughter of a rich American businessman (Eugene Pallette), persuades him to purchase a Scottish castle from Donald Glourie (Robert Donat), dismantle it and move it to Florida. Along with the castle goes its ghost.
Murdoch Glourie (also played by Donat) haunts the castle after dying a coward’s death in the 18th century. To find rest, he must get a descendant of the enemy Clan MacClaggan to admit that one Glourie is worth fifty MacClaggans.
Main cast
- Robert Donat as Murdoch Glourie and Donald Glourie
- Jean Parker as Peggy Martin
- Eugene Pallette as Mr. Martin
- Elsa Lanchester as Miss Shepperton
- Ralph Bunker as Ed Bigelow, Martin's rival
- Patricia Hilliard as Shepherdess
- Everley Gregg as Mrs. Martin
- Morton Selten as The Glourie
- Chili Bouchier as Cleopatra
- Mark Daly as Murdoch's Groom
- Herbert Lomas as Fergus
- Elliott Mason as Mrs. MacNiff
- Hay Petrie as The McLaggen
- Quentin McPhearson as Mackaye
Miscellany
- Both the original treatment and the final cutting continuity were published in Successful Film Writing as Illustrated by 'the Ghost Goes West' by Seton Margrave. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1936.
Reception
The film was voted the best British movie of 1936.
See also
- List of ghost films
References
External links
- The Ghost Goes West at AllMovie
- The Ghost Goes West at the TCM Movie Database
- The Ghost Goes West at the Internet Movie Database
- The Ghost Goes West on Screen Guild Theater: 21 August 1944
