The Ghost Breaker (1922 film)

The Ghost Breaker is a 1922 American silent horror comedy film about haunted houses and ghosts. It was produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures.[1] It was directed by Alfred E. Green and starred Wallace Reid in one of his last screen roles. The story, based on the 1909 play The Ghost Breaker by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, had been released on film in 1914 (bearing the same name), directed by Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel.

The Ghost Breaker
Film poster
Directed byAlfred E. Green
Written byJack Cunningham (adaptation)
Walter De Leon (scenario)
Based onThe Ghost Breaker
by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard (play)
Produced byAdolph Zukor
Jesse L. Lasky
StarringWallace Reid
Lila Lee
Arthur Edmund Carewe
Snitz Edwards
CinematographyWilliam Marshall
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
  • September 10, 1922 (1922-09-10) (New York City)
  • October 15, 1922 (1922-10-15) (United States)
Running time
57 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

The 1922 version is now considered lost.[2][3] Two of the actors in this film, Snitz Edwards and Arthur Edmund Carewe, later appeared together in the 1925 Lon Chaney silent classic The Phantom of the Opera. Two uncredited "ghosts" in the cast, Mervyn LeRoy and Richard Arlen, later went on to successful film careers.[4]

The Ghost Breaker would be remade in the sound era as The Ghost Breakers (1940) with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, and later as Scared Stiff (1953) starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.[5]

Arthur Edmund Carewe, Lila Lee and Wallace Reid in a scene.
Promotional material in Loew's Weekly program

Plot

Warren Jarvis and his manservant Rusty Snow help a beautiful young heiress named Maria Theresa to rid her father's mansion of ghosts. The spooks turn out to be fakes however, fabricated by the Duke D'Alba to scare the young lady away, thus allowing him to steal her father's hidden gold.

Cast

See also

References
  1. The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:The Ghost Breaker(Wayback)
  2. Soister, John T. (2012). American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913-1929. McFarland. p. 222. ISBN 978-0-786-48790-5.
  3. Reid, Wallace (May 5, 1922). "The Ghost Breaker" – via memory.loc.gov.
  4. Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). "Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era". Midnight Marquee Press. p. 250.ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.
  5. Kabatchnik, Amnon (2011). Blood On the Stage, 1950-1975: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection. Scarecrow Press. p. 306. ISBN 978-0-810-87784-9.

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