Film Review
The Ghost Goes West was the
first English language film to be directed by the great French
filmmaker René Clair, who had previously scored several notable
successes in France with films such as
Le
Million (1931) and
À nous la liberté
(1931). The subject and style of Clair's films both showed a
strong American influence, and this is most evident in his
appropriation of Hollywood's most popular genres, the musical and the
screwball comedy.
The Ghost
Goes West is both a screwball and an all-out satire on American
materialism, and remains one of Clair's funniest films. Audience
in Europe and America loved this film and it was the most commercially
successful British film of 1936.
With a plot that appears to have been inspired by Oscar Wilde's short
story
The Canterville Ghost,
The Ghost Goes West
was written in July 1935 and filmed shortly afterwards at Hounslow
Studios in England, for Alexander Korda's company London Film
Productions. Korda had a reputation for being a hands on producer
and this film would be no exception. So great was Korda's
directorial input into the film that Clair seriously considered
removing his own name from the credits. One area of disagreement
between the two men was the choice of lead actor - Clair wanted
Laurence Olivier but producer Alexander Korda preferred the more
bankable Robert Donat, who was the biggest actor in British cinema at
the time and had just starred in Alfred Hitchcock's
The
39 Steps (1935).
The Ghost Goes West is without
doubt one of the most entertaining British films of the 1930s - and not
just because of Robert Donat's amusing attempt to keep up a Scottish accent
whilst playing two different characters, "Och, aye".
Clair had perfected the visual gag in his silent films so by this stage making audiences roll
in the aisles was second nature to him. Amongst the plethora of
jokes this film has to offer are: a Medieval suit of armour which has
been turned into a radio; a Scottish Castle rebuilt amongst the palm
trees of Florida; and, best of all, an American's idea of genuine
Scottish music, which turns out to be a West Indian jazz
band. And the special effects aren't bad either.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next René Clair film:
I Married a Witch (1942)
Film Synopsis
In 18th Century Scotland, there is only one thing that the McLaggan and
Glourie clans hate more than the English, and that is each other.
On his deathbed, Old Glourie gets his only son, Murdoch, to swear
that he will prove himself worthy of the Glourie name. Before he
gets his chance to do this, Mudroch is killed in battle, dying a
coward's death. His reward is to stay amongst the living as a
ghost, haunting Castle Glourie until the day he can get a McClaggan to
admit that one Glourie is worth fifty of his own clan. Two
hundred years pass, the castle falls into disrepair, but the ghost of
Murdoch Glourie is still there - to the annoyance of his sole
descendent, Donald, who is desperate to sell the castle so that he can
pay his debts. One day, Peggy Martin, the daughter of a wealthy
American businessman, falls in love with the castle and persuades her
father to buy it. The latter is not put off when he learns the
castle is haunted. On the contrary, he sees that this may be put
to good use in marketing his line of grocery products. So,
without any delay, Mr Martin buys the castle and has it transported,
brick by brick, to his Florida estate. It looks as if
Murdoch Glourie will remain a ghost forever, exiled to a strange and distant land...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.