The Ghoul is a boilerplate thirties horror movie. But in the early portion, it has a script that is rather funnier than most. And some of the lines either sound exactly as whipsmart as you'd expect from a current movie, or surpass them in terms of brevity and guffaws. The 4 lines below make me bust out laughing every time. It probably helps that both the lawyer and the servant are a little too heavily made up and look like bedraggled zombies:
Cedric Hardwicke (lawyer): "I advise you to be very careful."
Dishonest servant: "I've a careful nature."
Lawyer: "You could be putting yourself perilously near dishonesty."
Servant (bulging his eyes at the lawyer): "I've seen men nearer..."
The lines are merely dry. But the delivery by the guy playing the servant always makes me laugh out loud. Sadly, the movie passes on this sort of drollery after only about ten great exchanges. After which, a dim-bulb housemaid (Katie) arrives as the official comic relief, but she's given much more uninventive material.
Commonplace settings are lit beautifully, almost anticipating noir. The lawyer's ramshackle office set is way cool; a pile of boxes and one spotlight.
Cedric Hardwicke (lawyer): "I advise you to be very careful."
Dishonest servant: "I've a careful nature."
Lawyer: "You could be putting yourself perilously near dishonesty."
Servant (bulging his eyes at the lawyer): "I've seen men nearer..."
The lines are merely dry. But the delivery by the guy playing the servant always makes me laugh out loud. Sadly, the movie passes on this sort of drollery after only about ten great exchanges. After which, a dim-bulb housemaid (Katie) arrives as the official comic relief, but she's given much more uninventive material.
Commonplace settings are lit beautifully, almost anticipating noir. The lawyer's ramshackle office set is way cool; a pile of boxes and one spotlight.