Legendary one-take helmer William Beaudine (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula) directed Bela Lugosi in Ghosts on the Loose, an alleged comedy starring The East Side Kids, who look to be almost 30. They’re kind of a gang of juvenile delinquents who sing and slap each other and fall down a lot, and are led by pint-sized Leo Gorcey and lanky Huntz Hall.
When Hall’s sister (Ava Gardner in an early role) gets married, The East Side Kids decide to fix her new house, yet they mistakenly enter the one next door that’s rumored to be haunted. It’s not — although the best scenes involve them thinking it is — but rather occupied by a group of Nazis in the cellar who print propaganda on “The New Order” (not the band) and are led by Lugosi.
Watch for when he sneezes and slips in a “Shit!” The loosely plotted Loose is filled with stoopid comedy (“I said sweep, not sleep! Now get to woik!”), to the point that it’s virtually laughless, but also utterly harmless. —Rod Lott
You should check out ‘Spooks Run Wild’. As you probably know, it also has Lugosi and probably a better ‘haunted house’ element. Secret passageways were EVERYWHERE in those good ol’ days…