Earlier this year, I had watched the East Side Kids' horror/comedy Boys of the City. So this one is in the same vein with the added attraction of Bela Lugosi to provide the atmospheric flavor. I remember enjoying the earlier one but this one had me partly bored since it took a while before Bela showed up and I didn't notice too many wisecracks from the kids during most of the narrative. In fact, whatever funny lines and scenes there were came mostly from Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison doing a patented scared Negro stereotype caricature but not in too demeaning a manner. There's also some nice scares near the end and I also liked the final scene. So on that note, Spooks Run Wild is at the least, worth a look for fans of the East Side Kids and Bela Lugosi.

Fairly innocuous East Side Kids movie that's notable primarily for the presence of Bela Lugosi. Bela doesn't get much to do and appears to only be in this because of his name value. He doesn't seem to be taking the part seriously, either. This is also the first of several movies Bela did with dwarf Angelo Rossitto as his pointless sidekick.This is one of the movies that is often cited when people talk about the crap movies Bela did when Universal wasn't calling. Truth be told, it's not a bad movie. I actually enjoyed it. But then, I happen to be a fan of the Bowery Boys. Well, they're the East Side Kids here. They were the Dead End Kids first, then East Side Kids, then the Bowery Boys. I like them a lot, especially the movies they made during the Bowery years. They made some of the better movies Poverty Row studio Monogram put out. Obviously, as with all comedy teams, their style won't appeal to everybody. Spooks Run Wild isn't their best movie, and God knows it isn't Lugosi's, but it's an enjoyable way to pass an hour.

SPOOKS RUN WILD (Monogram, 1941), directed by Phil Rosen, the seventh in the "East Side Kids" series, is probably best known due to its presence of top-billed Bela Lugosi, the master of horror, whose role as Dracula (Universal, 1931) has made his legendary. Although routinely done on a limited scale, and being a far cry from similar themes produced over at Universal, this entry gets by for what it is - a comedic horror mystery.The story begins briefly in the tenement district of New York where the East Side Kids, consisting of Danny (Bobby Jordan), Glimpy (Huntz Hall), Skinny (Bobby Stone), Pee Wee (David Gorcey), Scruno (Sammy Morrison) and its leader, Muggs Maginnis (Leo Gorcey), labeled underprivileged, being escorted by the police into a bus headed to the country for summer camp, as arranged by Jeff Dixon (Dave O'Brien). Dixon, a young man studying to become a lawyer, has a rough job ahead of him looking over these kids while working on his thesis. As the bus makes a stop in a small town called Hillside, the boys enter a sweet shop where Muggs takes an interest in a counter girl named Margie (Rosemary Partia). As Muggs arranges a meeting time with her, an announcement is heard over the radio warning residents to be aware of a "Monster Killer" on the loose. In the meantime, a mysterious man, Nardo (Bela Lugosi) and his dwarf assistant, Luigi (Angelo Rossitto) drive through town in a trailer full of coffins heading for the Billings Estate, which has been unoccupied for ten years. Later that evening, Muggs, sneaking out of camp to keep his date with Margie, is followed by his friends. Taking a short cut through the cemetery, Pee Wee is shot by a caretaker. Injured, the boys take him to a nearby mansion on top of the hill where Nardo offers his assistance by giving Pee-Wee a sedative and a room to rest for the night. As overnight guests, the East Side Kids encounter strange happenings, including Pee Wee roaming about in a zombie-like trance. As Linda Mason (Dorothy Short), Jeff's girlfriend and the camp nurse, goes out to search for the missing boys in the dead of night, she soon encounters a Doctor Von Grosch (Dennis Moore) for assistance.As with most film series placing its central characters in horror genre cycle or in a residence believed to be haunted, SPOOKS RUN WILD offers nothing new considering how the East Side Kids were involved in similar situations earlier in its second entry, THE GHOST CREEPS, re-titled BOYS OF THE CITY (1940). SPOOKS RUN WILD benefits greatly with Lugosi aboard dressed mostly in black attire as if he were Count Dracula. At one point he's addressed by Muggs as "Mr. Horror Man." There's the usual antics provided by kids ranging black member Scruno's encounter with a white spider; Muggs nearly getting trapped inside a coffin; to Glimpy's reply to Danny of having "gone to night school" as his reasoning as to how he can read in the dark, a reply repeated by Huntz Hall playing Sach to Leo Gorcey's Slip in THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS (1954). Containing much of the familiar Monogram and P.R.C. stock underscoring, SPOOKS RUN WILD, set mostly in the dark of night with the gang carrying lighted candle plates, makes way to some fine suspense with laughs. Actually not bad of this type, with an interesting conclusion rounding up its story.Distributed on home video in the 1980s, later available on DVD as companion piece to GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE (1943), the second and last East Side Kids comedy featuring Bela Lugosi; SPOOKS RUN WILD has turned up on occasion on Turner Classic Movies (with re-issue Astor Pictures Studio logo in place of Monogram) where it premiered in May 2004. Next in the series, MR. WISE GUY (1942)(**).

Would anyone have believed that an Academy Award would be in the future for one of the participants in Spooks Run Wild back in 1941? I think one would have been told to get a cranial examination. Yet Carl Foreman who wrote the screenplay would be getting one eleven years later for High Noon. Unfortunately blacklist was also in his future.Academy Award winners didn't usually work at Monogram Pictures, but one starts to learn the trade somewhere in the film business. In this case it's with The Bowery Boys. They've been sent in the charge of Dave O'Brien and Dorothy Short to a summer camp. The boys go wandering off and come upon a haunted house occupied by Bela Lugosi.The usual Bowery Boy monkeyshines are present throughout. When the boys go wandering off however, we're informed that a serial killer is also loose in the area. It's from Monogram so don't expect all that much. Still it's interesting to see the genesis of High Noon?