Kurt Cobain died in 1994, 1+9+9+4=23, Caesar was stabbed 23 times, etc. Whether you think its coincidence or not it's still pretty cool, and The Number 23 wouldn't have been half as interesting without this knowledge.Walter is a happy-go-lucky dogcatcher who receives an unfortunate gift from a used book store, a novel about a detective who sees 23 everywhere and believes the number is out to get him. Walter reads the novel and starts seeing weird parallels between himself and the detective in the story. No surprise: he develops his own obsession with 23. The big problem being the detective character kills his lovely girlfriend and as everything in the book already seems to mirror Walter's past, he starts to worry that he'll kill his wife, so he attempts to track down the author before it's too late.Schumacher does something interesting with the picture's look. In the beginning, the real world is brightly lit and the world of the novel is dark and noir-ish. Then, subtly, as the film progresses the two worlds start looking alike, paralleling Walter's transformation from a chipper fellow to a driven, paranoid fanatic. Carrey owns this movie... how could he not when he's in virtually every scene! This is a great film... well at least it was until I worked out that I could make the numbers in my birthday add up to 23! So do the math and join me in my newfound paranoia.'

A detective (the kind who looks like he may have played football in a previous career) investigates a murder in a house that turns out to be haunted - which gives Tex Avery a chance to spoof two genres at once.

The detective is modelled on veteran character actor Fred Kelsey, who specialised in playing dumb, bull-headed detectives.

Well sloshed after partying all day (probably all month), Marion and George Kerby (Bennett and Grant) crash their car into a tree and find themselves fashionably dressed ghosts. Since neither of them has ever performed either a good or a bad deed (there was a more relaxed view towards drink driving on the part of heavenly authorities in 1937), theyre doomed to remain in Limbo until they can do something to tip the balance.

They decide that their good deed will be to reform their neighbour, bank president Cosmo Topper (Young, who managed to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the title role). Their plan is to follow him around and make his life difficult until he can learn to loosen up and enjoy himself. Marion-the-ghost starts flirting with him - harmlessly enough, but it places a strain on his marriage, and even on hers.

This light, very funny, immensely popular supernatural fantasy spawned two sequels and made the ghostly afterlife a staple subject of romantic comedies for the next decade. Previously, cinematic ghosts had been the kind we're more likely to encounter in movies today: spirits whose death seemed to have robbed them of the power to form complete sentences, let alone say anything witty. Cary Grant as a ghost changed all that.'