Ghost ***** (1990, Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn) – Classic Movie Review 1820

Patrick Swayze etches his way into screen history with his starring role as the ghostly Sam Wheat here in director Jerry Zucker’s truly, madly, deeply entertaining and captivating 1990 romantic supernatural thriller. This crowd-pleasing tear-jerker is a double Oscar-winner for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay.

Demi Moore also stars in another iconic screen role as Sam’s true love Molly Jensen, a perfect couple whose love for each other extends beyond the grave. After a night out at the theatre, Sam and Molly are walking back to their new apartment but encounter a thief in a dark alley, and Sam is killed during the botched mugging. 

Swayze then plays a ghost trying to solve his own murder but, as he does, he realises that his death wasn’t an accident. He needs to warn Molly about the danger and rescue her. But, as he now can’t be seen or heard by anyone alive, he tries to do this with the reluctant aid of a supposedly phony medium called Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) who doesn’t realise her psychic powers are actually real.

Ghost is an enchantingly sweet and gentle film that became a surprise blockbuster worldwide. On a $22million cost, it earned more than $508million, $217million of that in the US.

It weaves its magic spell thanks to the sweet romantic performances from Swayze and Moore, plus an adroitly witty one from Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe-winner Goldberg, fun special effects by Industrial Light & Magic, a strong yarn that won screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and actor-friendly, attentive direction by Zucker. Tony Goldwyn plays Carl Bruner.

Gentle and sweet though it is, there is one four-letter word and some adult content.

It was remade in Japan in 2010 and has also become a long-running stage show.

Patrick Swayze (1952-2009) stars in one of his two most famous roles (the other is 1987’s Dirty Dancing).

Bruce Joel Rubin is also known for the screenplays of Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Deep Impact (1998), Stuart Little 2 (2002) and The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009).

There’s a strange story about Goldberg’s Oscar, which disappeared from a sealed shipping container over the weekend of February 2 2002. Goldberg, via the Academy, had sent it back to the manufacturer of the statuettes, R S Owens Co of Chicago, for cleaning and re-plating. The statuette was found in a trash bin at Ontario airport, California, on Tuesday 5 February. ‘Oscar will never leave my house again,’ Goldberg said.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1820

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