Monday, April 25, 2016

Movie review - "Ghosts on the Loose" (1943) **

Bela Lugosi and the East Side Kids were well liked enough as a team in Spooks Run Wild for Sam Katzman and Jack Dietz at Monogram to reunite them in another comedy-horror. Well, comedy-thriller is probably more accurate, as this one has the Kids bust a Nazi spy ring.

The plot revolves around the wedding of one of the kids' sister - she's played by Ava Gardner! And she was stunningly beautiful even then. Unfortunately both Bela and Ava are hardly in it; most of the action consists of the East Side Kids poking around an old house, wondering if it's haunted, and the Nazis trying to scare them away.

There's not really enough story here for a feature - it's about 20 minutes worth. We do get the East Side Kids singing in a choir (for the wedding), some funny stuff as they help prepare the wedding - this whole film probably should have revolved around the wedding. Its a bit piss weak that all the Nazis are up to his printing propaganda leaflets - they should be making bombs and/or kidnapping or something.

Very light but amiable. Tom Weaver got stuck into this film in his book Poverty Row Horrors but I didn't mind it. Too light to be offensive.

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