Bela Lugosi Week Film 3: Spooks Run Wild

This week I've decided to do something a little different here at Blues In The Night. Every film reviewed this week will star Bela Lugosi. For film #3, Bela Lugosi teams up with the East Side Kids to bring laughs with the fright.

Spooks Run Wild
1941 - Monogram
Directed By Phil Rosen



SYNOPSIS

The East Side Kids are busted again and are sent to a camp in upstate New York. A radio broadcast announces the 'Monster Killer' is in the area. When Muggs (Leo Gorcey) Danny (Bobby Jordan) and Glimpy (Huntz Hall) set out to meet up with a girl in town, they get lost. The rest of the gang meets up with them, and one gets hurt. The group heads to a seemingly haunted mansion where they meet a man (Bela Lugosi) who just might be the Monster Killer!



MY THOUGHTS



Lugosi gets to spoof his dark, creepy, mysterious screen image that defined him since Dracula. He doesn't play the role that much noticeably different... except in how he delivers his dialogue. It's not as straightforward, filled with many pauses done for comedic purposes. Lugosi also looks like he's relishing in the fun and that adds much to his performance.

Lugosi also gets his very own mini-me in the film played by Angelo Rossitto, who's there for more menace than laughs (and there's not much menace.)



All the East Side Kids have their roles down pat, and with little strife among the characters in the plot, the group works as one to bring the laughs. There's many funny one-liners, slaps and malapropisms shared by all. This was the group's second encounter with a haunted house (the first was Boys Of The City) and there would be even more when they became the Bowery Boys.

The gags are sharper than usual film in the East Side Kids series... but most of the interplay between the boys was ad-libbed. Screenwriter Carl Foreman would later win an Oscar for High Noon but certainly not for this script.
The script has many (if not all) of the staples of a haunted house story like secret passages, people in the shadows, suits of armor, etc. They appear one after another in little vignettes as if Foreman is working with a checklist.
The film also has many "Huh?" moments like when Lugosi and Rossitto simply disappear in a cemetery. Also, the injured kid (David Gorcey) seemingly turns into a zombie.
The 'twist' ending is almost expected and is a cop-out. Lugosi is revealed to be a simple magician and the killer is someone else. How could he turn the kid into a zombie or vanish in thin air without supernatural powers? I've probably thought through this more than Mr. Foreman.

The cinematography is better than normal for the series, possibly because most of the film is in the dark! The lighting crew did a terrible job following the cast with spotlights to augment the candlelight. A candle is supposed to blow out but the spotlight goes off before the candle.

These are some of the problems with tiny budget films cranked out in a week's time. Still, many of these 'b' movies still have a great charm, and Spooks Run Wild is no different.

The kids made 23 films in this series. This one ranks, if not the best, definitely in the top 3, partially thanks to Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi and the East Siders would team up again a few years later in the vastly inferior Ghosts On The Loose.

This DVD probably has the best transfer of any release of this public domain film.