The Ghost Goes West

Infobox Film
name = The Ghost Goes West


image_size =
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director = René Clair
producer = Alexander Korda
writer = René Clair
Geoffrey Kerr
Robert E. Sherwood
Eric Keown (story)
narrator =
starring = Robert Donat
Jean Parker
Eugene Pallette
music = Mischa Spoliansky
cinematography = Harold Rosson
editing = Henry Cornelius
Harold Earle-Fishbacher
distributor = United Artists
released = 1935
runtime = 95 min.
country = UK
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:19641
imdb_id = 26406

"The Ghost Goes West" is a 1935 British romantic comedy / fantasy film starring Robert Donat and Jean Parker and directed by Rene Clair. This film was Clair’s 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.

The film was referenced in Is There Honey Still for Tea? an episode of Dad's Army, when it is proposed a cottage is moved in a similar style to the castle in the film.

Plot

Peggy Martin (Jean Parker), the daughter of a rich American businessman (Eugene Pallette), persuades him to purchase a Scottish castle from Donald Glourie (Robert Donat), dis-assemble it and move it to Florida. Along with the castle goes its ghost.

Murdoch Glourie (Donat again) haunts the castle after dying a coward’s death in the 18th century. To find rest, he must find a descendent of the enemy Clan MacClaggan and have him admit that one Glourie is worth fifty MacClaggans.

The plot resembles Oscar Wilde’s "The Canterville Ghost" (1887).

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.

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
*Hay Petrie as The McLaggen

Awards

Rene Clair was nominated for the Mussolini Cup at the 1936 Venice Film Festival.