THE GHOST CAMERA (1933): Ida Lupino’s Film Debut

THE GHOST CAMERA is one of those little movies that is of no great significance. It’s an early 1930s British movie which was made as a “Quota Quckie”. That’s the term used to describe British B films made between 1928 and 1938 which were meant to bolster the British film industry. No American movie could be shown in Britain without it being accompanied by these second features which featured all British casts and crews and were partially funded by Hollywood. Like American B movies, they were quickly and cheaply made but they employed British artisans, captured the British culture at that time, and launched a number of careers outside England. 

One of those careers was Ida Lupino’s. Lupino made her first film appearance in THE GHOST CAMERA (1933). She would go to America and become celebrated in Hollywood as an actress and later as an independent filmmaker. The male lead, Henry Kendall, was a popular stage actor of the day but the second male lead was a young John Mills who was just starting out on his distinguished career. The film editor was David Lean who later became a major film director making LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO in the 1960s. The director Bernard Vorhaus, an American, would later return to the U.S and make the cult film THE AMAZING DR X (1948).

A young man, while out driving in the English countryside, has a camera thrown into his car which he doesn’t discover until later. When he develops the film, it appears to show someone being murdered. Among the other photos is one of a young woman waving. After he is distracted, someone steals the camera and the photo of the murder so now the young man sets out to find the woman in the picture and track down the murderer. Despite its basic plot, most of GHOST CAMERA is quite lighthearted. Our protagonist finds the woman and discovers that it’s her brother’s camera and that he has disappeared. Together they go looking for him and try to figure out what happened.

I was pleasantly surprised by THE GHOST CAMERA as I had never heard of it. It was one of 3 movies on a British Region 2 DVD from the Renown label which I purchased for the Boris Karloff melodrama JUGGERNAUT (1936). Also on the DVD is a 30 minute short feature about English ghosts called THE HAUNTED PALACE (1949). While the Karloff movie was in OK shape (apparently no decent prints of JUGGERNAUT exist), both GHOST CAMERA and HAUNTED PALACE were in very good condition which added to my enjoyment of them. I will add that all 3 movies were specifically made for British audiences with little thought of showing them outside the U.K.