Geoff: "When a person dies and is buried, it seems there's certain voodoo priests who have the power to bring him back to life. "
Mary: "How horrible. "
Geoff: "It's worse than horrible because a zombie has no will of his own. You see them sometimes, walking around with dead eyes, following orders, not knowing what they do, not caring. "
Larry: "You mean like democrats?"

- Geoff explaining to Mary and Larry about zombies. - (Reviewer's Note: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Amen brother! You tell 'em Bob!)

Alex: "Hey boss you ain't goin' upstairs are ya? Where those ghosts is?
Larry: "Listen, you stay there, and if a couple a fellas come runnin' down the stairs in a few minutes, let the first one go. That'll be me. "
Alex: "If somebody passes you, that'll be me. "

- Larry giving Alex instructions before he goes upstairs in the castle to have a look around. - (Reviewer's Note: And if you hear someone laughing, that'll be me. This movie is so awesome. Why the hell did the road movies get so much attention? This one's great!)

In 1903 a shining light entered the world. This shining light had a name, and that name was Leslie Townes Hope. I personally can’t think of any entertainer who has given more to this country and touched more lives in a positive way than the late Bob Hope. As a comedic actor, he was legendary. He brought us smiles through some of the darkest times in this country’s history and entertained our brave fighting men and women throughout many wars and conflicts. He gave of himself selflessly and for that his memory must be honored for all time. To the world’s detriment, there will never be another Bob Hope. Look at all the loudmouth actors of today. The way many of them talk, you could almost see them spitting on our soldiers as they were spat upon when they returned from Viet Nam. These people have no conscience and they don’t really care about anything or anyone but themselves. That’s what made Bob Hope different, and what made him such a special human being.

His movies and appearances were always fun and made us laugh even though the jokes almost always sounded pre-written and rehearsed. It wasn't the jokes that made us laugh so much as the way he delivered them. He was the kind of person who could take the stupidest joke and make it funny with just a look or the inflection of his voice as he said it. Although his “Road” movies were among his most famous and well known films, I always felt sorry for him because he ended up playing second fiddle to Bing Crosby and never ended up with the girl at the end. Basically he always got the shaft while Crosby always got the girl and everything else. I find that I enjoy the films more where Bob is the focal character and we really get to see him shine. This film was a prime example of that.

The long and the short of this film is that Mary Carter, played by Paulette Goddard, has inherited a castle on an island off the coast of Cuba. The castle has a long history including the use of slave labor and reports that the castle was haunted by some horrible demon. It was said that no one who stayed in the castle overnight, has lived to see the light of day in over twenty years. Mary was not deterred by this fact and fully intended to take control of the castle despite the warnings she received from Parada and several others. Bob Hope played Larry Lawrence, who we find out is actually named Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence. Yes I know, bizarre but true. He’s a radio show host who had just that evening managed to upset the local gangster by spilling his dirty laundry on the air. The gangster, Frenchy Duval, calls Larry and tells him to come over so he can give him the straight story. When Larry goes to Frenchy’s apartment, which just happens to be right across the hall from Mary’s, a strange sequence of events leads up to Larry thinking he shot and killed one of Frenchy's men, when actually what really happened is that Perada killed Ramon Mederos and Larry was so scared when he heard the shot that his own gun went off. This leads to Larry and his intrepid and frequently frightened assistant Alex to take refuge in Mary's apartment and lands them right in the middle of Mary’s little castle inheritance situation. When Larry finds out that someone has it in for Mary, he insists that they go to Cuba with her to help her out and look after her. So the three go to Cuba together and eventually discover that the reason people were trying to keep them away from the castle is that embedded in the island was actually a huge vein of silver that was enough to make anyone rich beyond their wildest dreams. It turns out that the castle was indeed haunted but that didn't have anything to do with why people didn't survive the night in there. I don’t know where the zombies came from or why they were there as that was never explained. Their presence did make for some nice comic moments between Larry and Alex though, so I'm really happy they were included in the film despite their lack of back story. In the end, the bad guy turns out to be not who you thought it was, and all the guys you thought were bad, turn out to be good. It was a nice way to play out the story and it kept you guessing about who the real villain was. The scene where the villain is finally done a way with made me laugh harder than almost anything else in the movie. The laugh came not so much from how he met his end, but how it came about and what Alex said afterwards. I don’t want to spoil it because you really should see this movie.

Anthony Quinn was credited as being in this movie, and he was. The thing is, he didn't have all that big of a part in it, so it seemed a little disingenuous to list him as one of the starring characters. He played twin brothers Ramon and Francisco Mederos, and although his acting was fine, the characters just didn't seem to really fit into the movie properly. They had a very small involvement with the plot and if they weren't in the movie at all, I don’t think they’d have been missed all that much. They were basically there to steer events a certain way and that's it. I would have thought that they’d have given Anthony Quinn a bigger role than that. He probably would have been better as Parada or maybe even as Geoff.

Paulette Goddard played her role in a rather bizarre fashion. Sometimes she would get wild eyed and bizarre and other times she was mellow and nice. Mary was very strong willed, and the way Paulette portrayed her character really made that sense of independence and strength come across on the screen. My only problem with her performance is that some of the lines that were written for her character, which normally would have been fine, were delivered in an odd fashion. It made it feel like something wasn't right, but this was only a problem at the beginning of the movie. Eventually she settled into her character and everything was just fine.

One thing that still has me puzzled is that there’s a character in this movie that Mary keeps bumping into all over the place. He was a friendly little chubby kinda guy and since he kept popping up I kind of expected him to end up being a cop or something. In fact, there was a certain point about three quarters of the way though the movie where he just disappeared and we never saw him again. I don’t know if he was supposed to play a part in the end and got written out or what, but there just didn't seem to be any real reason for him to be there.

Overall, the performances in this movie were excellent and if you’re looking for a really good time, then this is the movie you should grab. Normally I don’t review Bob Hope movies since I am by definition a B-Movie reviewer, but I'm thinking I might just expand myself and do regular classic movies as well when I come across a gem like this one. It was a pleasure for me to review this film, and I'm very happy to give it my highest rating of…

B-Movie Central's Rating: 5 Bees!