Favourite GHOST movies

[imtrying]

I love "A Christmas Carol", especially the versions with Alastair Sim and Mr. Magoo as Scrooge. I also remember enjoying an Abbott and Costello movie called "The Time of Their Lives". It's been awhile since I've seen it. Lou and a woman are shot as traitors during the Revolutionary War. Trying to clear their names, they haunt a house where Bud and some others have come to live. It's very different from the usual A and C fare, but still funny.

[snorkie]

Topper & Topper Returns
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Ghost Town
And...oh...what was it called? Ghost! That's it!

I agree "The Others" is superior.

[MaxJoker]

Several have already been mentioned that i unholy heartedly agree with , but i also liked


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnt_Offerings_(film)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stir_of_Echoes



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candyman_(film)


This ones maybe not a full out ghost story but it's spooky enough


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_9


And not forgetting


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist_movies

[Wendigo]

I liked Burnt Offerings too, the movie that is not my normal cooking. I got the 25th anniversary special edition of Poltergeist when it came out, nice one JoBeth.
Thanks for the heads-up GreenSkull I'll check out Session 9 and Stir of Echoes.

[MaxJoker]

For me one of the very best Ghost movies , ok ok ok horror films ever .But then it`s the exact same genre really right ,so why post this anywhere else ?.

I mean if Wendigo will allow me the slight dispensation of course



What makes it so good ?

1) Well John Cusack is outstanding in it , as are the entire supporting cast

2) The story which although not brand new has a brand new slant ,and is as pacy as they come

3) Plus it includes at the beginning , middle and end one of my favourite poems from one of my favourite poets William Hugh Mearns

[scoundrel]

Nicole Kidman acts a blinder in this film (I don't think she was even nominated) and is well supported by Alekina Mann and James Bentley (?) as her photo-sensitive children. Brenda Blethin excellent as the new housekeeper. The plot is very clever and nothing is exactly as it seems. The inspiration from Henry James' book The Turn of the Screw is reflected in the multi-layered ingenuity of the plot and the ambiguity of the characters rather than in the mere storyline.

Close to the end, when it looks as though the spooks are crawling out of the woodwork at last and they have come to take Nicole's kids, she is really magnificent and really scary: the ghosts need to be worried about her rather than the other way round.

As they close in, she calmly tools up with the double-barrelled shotgun and lots of spare ammo, then takes up battle-stations. If they want to harm her kids, first they need to get past her and she is up for the fight! What a woman! Tom Cruise never deserved her.

As for the ''others'', the original 'Poltergeist' is good stuff. The Shining has been mentioned elsewhere if not on this thread but so what. Jack Nicholson is first rate as the writer who gradually loses his mind as the evil spirits work on him.



I also enjoyed Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in The Ghost Breakers (1940): this is essentially a sequel to the wonderful thriller The Cat and the Canary, which was one of my choices for best films ever. The Ghost Breakers isn't quite as good but it is well worth a watch. It is both funny and, at times, genuinely scary. Bob Hope is in prime form in his customary role of likeable coward, very easy to identify with.

[snorkie]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I also enjoyed Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in The Ghost Breakers (1940)[IMG]

I like this for several reasons, not the least of which is they allowed Willie Best's character to have some intelligence; unlike the stereotyped performances of the day. If you know what I mean - and I think you do.

Sometimes, one film can explain a classic actor's appeal. You get this result with both Bob Hope, and Paulette Goddard at her appealing best (the tease shot in her hotel room is terrific).

I've read that Martin and Lewis liked "Ghost Breakers" so much that they initially refused to do the re-make "Scared Stiff." A little studio arm twisting changed their minds.

[bignubber]

two of my favorites are:

the uninvited (1944) starring ray milland and ruth hussey. i watched it about 20 years ago on a saturday afternoon. it scared me witless.

the ghost train (1941) starring arthur askey. i watched this when i was about 13 years old and again it scared me witless.

i think a lot of people like the older ghost films because they don't rely on loud music to scare the audience, nor did they rely on the corny situation which is in every scary film nowadays - that is where someone sneaks up behind a character and scares them but its not the villain or ghost but one of their colleagues.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by snorkie

I like this for several reasons, not the least of which is they allowed Willie Best's character to have some intelligence; unlike the stereotyped performances of the day. If you know what I mean - and I think you do.

Sometimes, one film can explain a classic actor's appeal. You get this result with both Bob Hope, and Paulette Goddard at her appealing best (the tease shot in her hotel room is terrific).

I've read that Martin and Lewis liked "Ghost Breakers" so much that they initially refused to do the re-make "Scared Stiff." A little studio arm twisting changed their minds.

Very true. If you look at this film only with 21st Century eyes it is easy to forget what black actors had to contend with in 1940, and some of Hope's dialogue cuts straight through to the bone. There was no such thing as political correctness then. But that isn't the whole story: in the film Hope and Best are master and man, employer and valet, but they also friends and allies who stick together through some pretty dangerous stuff and are unflinchingly loyal to one another. In 1940 a film which presented such friendship between a white character and a black character was definitely testing the boundries.

Incidentally it is a decent acting performance by Willie Best and a real achievement on his part to invest this part with dignity and courage. He got some help from Hope and from Paulette Goddard but had to rise above the script.

And yes, Paulette Goddard was decidedly cute, both in the flesh and in the portrait of her Spanish ancestor.

[scoundrel]

I've just finished watching this one on DVD: its a total chickflick but really really well done, a sentimental weepie with style, depth and substance (ironic that a film about a ghost should have substance but it does). The cast:

Mrs Muir: Gene Tierney, looking delightfully pretty, charming and sweet-natured, but much tougher than she seems. Look at this still and tell me she isn't absolutely beautiful.



Captain Gregg: Rex Harrison. It should be Captain Gregg RIP, but he's too stubborn to do any such thing. He is thoroughly annoyed by the whole untimely demise situation, greatly displeased that other people feel entitled to enter his house just because they're alive and he isn't, and quite unco-operative, until Mrs Muir charms him, exactly as she is accustomed to getting her way by charming everyone. It is the abrasive seamanlike toughminded character created by Harrison which saves the film from being unbearably sentimental.

Natalie Wood: Anna, Mrs Muir's little girl. A characteristic and excellent turn from one of the greatest child-actors of the 20th Century.

Edna Best: Good supporting player, very credible as stalwart maidservant Martha Huggins, a loyal family retainer who in the way it used to be is not merely a paid employee at all.

George Sanders: the suave, handsome and charming snake in Mrs Muir's paradise.

The core of the film is it's surprisingly wise and benevolent portrayal of the unrequiteable love and deeply loyal friendship between Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison, both of whom act their parts superbly. Its also full of little side jokes. Part of their treaty of mutual understanding is that the ghost must not haunt the others, Anna and Martha, but Captain Gregg was more than a little bit naughty in life and certainly Anna is aware of him, and not frightened in the least. Vanessa Brown as the adult Anna remembers Captain Gregg with deep affection.

The film is fascinating as a social record: it shows how as a young widow Mrs Muir is constantly being patronised and told what to do for her own good by people who feel they have some sort of property rights over her, even if mostly they mean well. The film starts with a rather unpleasant and mean-spirited altercation with her late husband's mother and sister, who feel she is morally obliged to behave like a dependent relative and are frankly furious that she would dare to be independent. Even the estate agent openly says she mustn't look at Gull Cottage, he knows whats best for her: she is right to be silently offended but forgives him when she realises that he knows about Captain Gregg's ghost and wants to shield her from it. All through the film she calmly and patiently fights to get her own way in a world where everyone talks down to her as though she weren't really an adult. Part of her love for Captain Gregg is formed out of deep gratitude because, for all his salt-water bad manners, he never does this. Always, for all his avowed mysogyny, he treats her as an intellectual equal.

The revelation at the end by adult Anna that she also loved him and also misses him is very touching: it is easy to imagine the two of them as great friends. We never find out exactly where he stood with Martha, but there are clues, particularly when Mrs Muir wishes to relegate the Captain's portrait to the attic and Martha gives it wallspace in her own room, that perhaps she also knows and likes the Captain.

The Captain's dearest wish for Mrs Muir is that she will find a living man to be her partner, make her happy and thus deserve her love. It is a truly noble and unselfish wish, which springs from his own love. The scene where he says goodbye and sets her heart free to love a living man is classic sentimental schmaltz but done wonderfully well, a great piece of acting by Harrison. But as it turns out, George Sanders has feet of worse than clay: the humiliation of the moment when Sanders' wife not only knows what has been going on but instantly forgives and pities Mrs Muir, her unwitting rival, is a moment of deep pain and humiliation, silently dramatised by Tierney in expression and gesture. There is only one man in the world of this film who deserves Mrs Muir, and he will have to wait for her for a very long time. That's OK: he has the relentless patience of a man who knows what he wants.

This is a little gem of a film, quite perfect in its own way. Strongly recommended.