This year we recognize the 30th anniversary of that film that mad everyone cry in 1990, Ghost! It’s easy to forget the existence of the movie these days. However, it was the highest grossing film of 1990 and at the time of its release the third highest grossing film of all time.
That’s the power of Swayze.
The movie was directed by … Jerry Zucker.
Yes, THAT Jerry Zucker.
The guy who was writer for The Kentucky Fried Movie and The Naked Gun and whose directing credits also include Airplane!, Top Secret! and Rat Race. Ghost was Zucker’s first film he directed on his own and not part of ZAZ (which also included Jim Abrahams and his brother, David Zucker). It seems to also be the first film (and only one of two films) that he ever worked on that was not a comedy. (It’s this and First Knight.)
Zucker’s main contribution to the film was the pacing, which he learned from the spoof movies he had been involved in. The original script by Bruce Joel Rubin had originally been darker, but Zucker gave the film a more light touch. Rubin, by the way, won for Best Original Screenplay.
That’s another thing that we tend to forget: it was nominated for five whole Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The other person other than Rubin taking home the Academy award was Whoopi Goldberg, who won for best Supporting Actress on her way to earning that EGOT.
Do you know what’s kind of appalling? She was only the second ever African-American woman to win an award for acting. The first being Hattie McDaniel for Gone With The Wind.
Vincent Schiavelli is also on hand in what is probably his most iconic role as the distressed ghost that lurks in the subway and teaches Swayze the way of the spook-em-ups.
Huge box office, Academy Award nominated, and features some great acting. Of course, nowadays we mostly remember it as the movie with the sexy pottery scene.
Today’s prompt: what is your favorite supernatural romance?
Next week: scariest scene in a non-horror film
You must be logged in to post a comment.