The Crystal Ball (1943)



“You’ve been turned down by a man.”

“Just one man? How about nine?”

            The Crystal Ball starring Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland  offers a different spin to the old story of a woman, who upon first sight, gains a huge crush on a man and will do anything to pursue him and win his love.

            Toni Gerard (Goddard) has come to New York from Texas to try out for a beauty contest but lost: “… if you saw the blonde she bombed from a low altitude.” Now she is in NYC with no job and thirty-eight cents to her name. Toni goes to a psychic named Madame Zenobia. The gracious psychic after hearing how well Toni can shoot offers her a place to stay and a job next door at a shooting game booth next door where she will be a decoy to get people to come and play.

            While at the stand one day Toni sees a handsome man with a woman friend get out of a nice car. The woman, Jo Ainsley, has come to Madame Zenobia at the suggestion of her maid (who so happens to be friends with Zenobia) to help her locate an emerald ring. All Toni can do is stand and stare with a goofy grin on her face at the man. To make the man more appealing he can shoot really well. His name is Brad Cavanaugh and he is Mrs. Ainsley’s attorney.

            Madame Zenobia falls and hurts her back. The following night she is supposed give readings at a party but she cannot go so she has Toni be the psychic. Zenobia has Toni find out about the people who will be there and go to interview them so she can tell their “fortunes” at the party.  Toni finds out from Brad’s chauffer and friend Biff that his employer has a heart shaped buck shot scar. At the party she covers her face with the veil of her costume and puts on an Indian (Native American) accent and gives her name as “Big Injun”. She gives each person their fortunes according to what she was able to find out. Brad does not believe in psychics but decides to receive his fortune and is astonished when Toni tells him about his scar.  Zenobia has Toni tell Brad about a parcel of land in which the government is planning to build a defense plant on. Zenobia is looking to make money off of Jo by telling her this but will later get everyone into trouble.

            Toni has her own fortune for Brad: he will eventually meet a red headed woman eating an apple.

            The next day Brad gets a call from a restaurant saying they are having an issue with a woman who claims to have found something in her soup and is threatening to sue the place and wants his help. The woman turns out to be Toni and the red headed woman who is eating an apple.

            Brad and Toni get along fantastically and begin to fall in love. Many comical scenes abound as the two become clumsy in love. Their relationship is threatened when the government investigates Brad for buying the land and Toni sees that Madame Zenobia is not the woman she thought she was.

            I cannot begin to say how much I adored Paulette Goddard in this film. From beginning to end she was just fabulous. I cracked up at the beginning when Toni says to Madame Zenobia “I entered a beauty contest…” and then flashes this hysterical phony smile. I can’t even tell you why I found that part so hilarious but I did and laugh just thinking about it. What I adore so much about Goddard is that she could be funny or she could be serious and not over act. Her comedy throughout The Crystal Ball was never over the top it was just perfect it was subtle and light. In the films I have seen Goddard in she just always seemed to enjoy being silly and it shows.

            Before this film I had only ever seen Ray Milland as the villain (if that is the correct term) in Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder and I really did not think anything of him to me he was alright. I found myself enjoying Milland in this film. He was also very good comically.

            William Bendix as Biff and Cecil Kellaway as Pop the owner of the shooting game booth also offer up some comedic gems.

            I have to comment on the clothes Toni wore throughout the film: she was supposed to not have that much money yet she had a fantastic wardrobe! Edith Head and Adrian provided the costume for the film. If you follow movie costume designers you can tell right away in the suits Paulette Goddard wore that they were designed by Edith Head.

            The Crystal Ball is a very funny film. This was one of four films Paramount paired Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland. They were very good together here you can see they had  good screen chemistry.

            TCM recently aired The Crystal Ball and as of right now this is the only way I was able to view it. If TCM airs the film again I highly suggest seeing it for some good laughs and fabulous acting.  

The Ghost Breakers (1940)

“Are you the one advising Miss Carter to sell the castle?”
“No, my advice is keep the castle and sell the ghosts.”

            The Ghost Breakers is not a typical ghost story. It is a comedy film starring two very funny people, Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope. The film has its silly moments just like all old comedies but the silliness does not go over the top here. There are many small, sneaky jokes that you have to sometimes listen for carefully.

            Goddard plays Mary Carter who has just inherited an old family castle called“Castillo Maldito” on an island off of Cuba. She is repeatedly warned with death threats against going to the mansion but curiosity and, in a way, a sense of family pride gets the better of her and she decides to go anyway. Hope plays a radio host named Larry Lawrence (“Your name is Lawrence Lawrence?” “My parents had no imagination.”). He gets into trouble with a crime boss after he does an expose on him. The crime boss calls Larry to the hotel where he lives and where Mary also happens to be staying. The hotel experiences a blackout along with the rest of the city during a lightning storm. Larry jumps at the sound of a gunshot and accidentally fires his own gun. When the lights go on there is a body on the floor and he thinks he shot the man lying on the floor.

            Mary hears the shot as well and opens the door. Larry comes into Mary’s room. She had just been listening to his broadcast on the radio and takes a liking to him. The police arrive and knock on Mary’s door; they have to search every room on the floor. Larry hides in Mary’s luggage case. Before she can open the case to let Larry it is taken away to be boarded on a ship to Cuba.

            On the boat, Larry and Mary as well as Larry’s friend Alex learn that Larry was not the killer someone else killed a man named Medereo who was supposed to be taking Mary to Cuba. Larry and Alex act as Mary’s bodyguards keeping watch on her door and outside on the ship’s deck. A man named Geoff Montgomery who Mary knows said that he knows Cuba inside and out and he could be her guide around the island. 

            On the night the group arrives in Cuba, Larry and Alex go to the castle leaving Mary behind so nothing will happen to her but she comes by later on determined not to be left out of the action. They come across strange goings on and a killer no one saw coming.

            Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope were so adorable together. This was their second film together they had made a film called Cat and the Canary before this.  Their camaraderie is perfect they just worked so well off of each other. Both actors did wonderfully in their parts. One scene I really enjoyed between Goddard and Hope was when Larry was trying to comfort Mary after someone had posted a death threat on her door. Larry starts pretending to be a society person saying how he would like to take Mary to a dance and Mary plays right off of him and does the same thing. I give Goddard so much praise for her comedic timing she was very capable and able to keep up with Hope and deliver her lines perfectly.

            As I said in the beginning, there are many funny lines where if you are not listening carefully or paying attention you will miss them. I found many of the line quiet clever. In the castle Larry and Alex fight off a zombie. The zombie put on armor to hide so he could attack the two men. Larry yells out as he is fighting the zombie “Quick get the can opener!” When Mary got to the castle she ripped her bathing robe (she swam up to the castle when she got off a small fishing boat) on the stairs after something frightened her. She finds an old dress in the trunk and puts it on. When she comes down the stairs after changing Larry and Alex have just finished fighting off the zombie. The zombie opens the door and scares Mary into Larry’s embrace. Larry likes this reaction and jokingly tells Alex to open the door again.

            This was the third time The Ghost Breakers was made into a film. The story originally appeared on Broadway then as a film in the years 1914 and 1922. The 1922 version was directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Unfortunately both original prints of the films are considered lost. In a scene in this version before the boat pulls into harbor, Larry comments on the history of the castle saying “Sounds like a Cecil B. DeMille script.”

            Iconic movie costume designer Edith Head designed the clothing worn in the movie. Her costumes were a great touch of chic.  

            No “scary” movie would be complete with a little zombie action. Larry and some of the other character mention how there is voodoo being done around the castle and a zombie is said to roam the grounds. They talk about how horrible it must be to not have a mind of your own like a zombie. This reminded me a bit of the film I Walked With a Zombie.

            The Ghost Breakers is a good old comedy film that is guaranteed to make you laugh. What is so great about this film is that something like this was not done before. To this day The Ghost Breakers is still fresh and funny.