Ghosts Can't Do It

Ghosts Can't Do It (1989)

BOMB (out of 4)

Director-writer John Derek and wife Bo made a total of four films together starting with FANTASIES and then moving onto TARZAN THE APE MAN and BOLERO. All three movies were pretty bad but nothing in them was bad enough to prepare for you how downright awful their fourth and final film was. In the film, Bo plays a young woman married to a much older man (Anthony Quinn) who ends up killing himself. The old man's spirit sticks around to have conversations with his woman and soon the two of them decide it's best for his spirit to enter a younger man so that they can have sex again. GHOSTS CAN'T DO IT is without question one of the worst films I've ever seen and especially one of the worst romances I've seen. I really would have loved to have been a fly on the wall whenever the Derek's were discussing the films that they should make. There's no question that John loved his wife and was proud of her body and thankfully he wasn't a prude about showing it off. Bo has always been an amazingly beautiful woman and that's true here as she has several scenes where she's totally naked. Without this cheap nudity the film would be completely horrible so at least John was smart enough to add nude scenes but this could be said for all four of their films. As for acting, I've never quite found Bo to be as bad as many others but there's still no question she doesn't give that much of a performance here. Quinn basically stands around behind some filter meant to make him look like his in another world. His performance is pretty campy and over-the-top. Vets Don Murray and Julie Newmar also appear but add very little. Again, I'm really not sure what John Derek was trying to do here unless he was really preparing his wife for his own death since he was much older. Perhaps this was just some sort of perverted fantasy that he had about dying himself. I'm not sure what the goal was but the end result is just a complete disaster that's certainly not romantic, never funny and just a real painful experience to try and make it through.

The Derek's have over the 1980s produced a few decent bids to acquire the title "worst movie of all time", and this is probably their prime achievement in these stakes. In fact, this film can be regarded as belonging to the "so bad, it's good" category, right up there with the products of the likes of Edward Wood Jr. or Doris Wishman. This explains the IMDb voting pattern for this film with some people handing out top marks.

Anthony Quinn made the odd dodgy film in his time, but this performance as a randy ghost is so incredibly bad, it has to be seen to be believed.

Scott (Anthony Quinn) and Katie (Bo Derek) are happily married living on a remote ranch. Scott suffers a heart attack and cannot get it up anymore. In despair, he commits suicide by gunshot. He finds himself in an empty purgatory and able to communicate only with Katie. They work for him to possess men who have sex with her.

This deserves every Golden Razzie it won. The only shame of this is that it taints the legacy of Anthony Quinn by turning him into a talking floating head. He's not romantic. He comes off as a sex-obsessed controlling dirty old man. Bo Derek is never a good actress. This one has walking around talking to herself. She makes her naked body less attractive. I imagine this is what real life with the Dereks look like. It's a lot bickering where sex is reduced to an ugly transaction. This is simply the worst.

Bo has some animal attraction to her that makes up for poor cinematic performance.

After having endured the mental torture of watching " Ghosts can't do it " that cannot be said any more.

Bo should have ended her career after "TEN" which was a funny movie, although the credits must go to Dudley Moore.

With a Bo Derek movie, the audience get just what they expect. A paper thin plot and a few shots of Mrs. Derek in no clothes. 'Ghosts can't do it' is just that. The first fifteen minutes is ordinary TV drama, as long as Scott [Anthony Quinn] is still alive. He is a very good actor with long experience in a lot of different roles, but it seems as even a famous actor need to work just for money sometimes. Bo Derek is the opposite, always playing a strikingly handsome young woman with or without clothes. The movie is a complete waste of time. If you want to see Quinn, rent Lawrence of Arabia or La Strada. If you want to see nude women or bad acting, rent any porno movie.