In the film, the members of a club are vacationing in a summer camp. The area is reputed to have its own "monster killer", and suspicions fall on a strange man who has taken residence in a long-abandoned house.
The film was intended to combine the most popular stars of Monogram Pictures, Lugosi and the East Side Kids. The film was released shortly before Halloween. The film marked the last film appearance of Donald Haines, who died in the Battle of Kasserine Pass (1943).[2]
Plot
Members of the New York City East Side boys club—leader Muggs, Danny, Glimpy, Scruno, Skinny, and Peewee—reluctantly board a bus bound for summer camp.
The bus stops in the town of Hillside, where Muggs and his pals flirt with Margie, a soda fountain waitress. While they are there, a radio broadcast announces that a maniacal "monster killer" is in the area. When they arrive at the camp, the counselor, Jeff Dixon, complains to his girlfriend, camp nurse Linda Mason, that he will get no work done on his thesis because of the rowdy juvenile delinquents.
One night, Nardo, a mysterious caped figure, and his dwarf assistant, Luigi, ask a local gas station attendant for directions to the hilltop Billings house, which has been deserted for years since its owner was murdered. After he leaves, another car arrives and the attendant recognizes the driver from his mystery magazines as Dr. Von Grosch. The attendant believes that Nardo is the killer and Von Grosch is hunting him, and he alerts the local constable that Nardo is a suspect. One night, Nardo and Luigi sneak into the local graveyard and are shot at by a grave digger.
That same night, Muggs slips out of camp hoping to rendezvous with the soda fountain girl, and is followed by all his pals. The East Side Kids get lost in the woods, and when they wander into the graveyard, Peewee is also shot by the digger. The boys take Peewee to the nearby Billings house, where Nardo tends to his minor injury and gives him a sedative. Nardo lets the boys spend the night, but Peewee disappears while sleepwalking. The rest of the boys are unable to sleep because of Nardo's strangeness and Peewee's disappearance. Linda, meanwhile, also disappears while out searching for the boys, and Jeff goes to the police for help.
When the boys confront Nardo, he claims not to know where Peewee is, but insists that the boys remain in the house. Muggs distrusts Nardo and on his command, the boys attack him and roll him into a carpet. Skinny and Glimpy disappear through a secret passage, and Scruno is spooked when Nardo reappears. At constable Jim's office, the grave digger recalls seeing the boys, and Jim believes they may have fallen into the killer's hands at the Billings estate. The boys, meanwhile, search for Peewee, but are continually being surprised by the appearance of coffins and objects that move themselves, and by the disappearance of their pals through walls and closets.
Linda, meanwhile, accepts a ride from Von Grosch, who takes her to the Billings house, ostensibly to help the boys. Muggs and the boys succeed in terrifying Nardo by pretending to be a ghost, and they finally find Peewee back in bed. Just after Linda and Von Grosch arrive at the house, Von Grosch attacks Linda.
The police burst in and accuse Nardo of being a killer, but Muggs has already learned that Nardo is merely a magician. When they all hear Linda screaming inside a locked room, Muggs climbs onto the roof and enters the room through a window. While he struggles with Von Grosch, who is the real "monster killer", Linda opens the door, and the police arrest Von Grosch. Later, Nardo performs magic tricks for Jeff, Linda and the boys, and when Muggs goes into a cabinet after a disappearing girl, he emerges with Scruno in his arms.
Since the series' inception in 1940, the East Side Kids films had been, for the most part, a well balanced mix between comedy, drama, and social relevance. Following Huntz Hall's introduction into the series with 1941's Bowery Blitzkrieg, which made famous the Gorcey/Hall banter, producer Sam Katzman decided that the seventh film in the series would not only be a change of pace, but, would also be one of the biggest East Side Kids extravaganzas yet.
With that in mind, Katzman enlisted the screen writing team of Carl Foreman and Charles R. Marion to write the screenplay, which would feature Monogram's two most popular draws for the first time together on screen: Bela Lugosi and the East Side Kids. Foreman was paid $25 for his original story and $200 for the script.[3] The film was originally known as Trail of the Vampire[3] then Ghosts in the Night.[4]|In April 1941 Monogram announced that Lugosi would make two starring vehicles for the studio, The Night of Horror and Kiss of Death and would also appear with the East Side Kids in Ghosts in the Night.[5]
At the last minute, with Bowery Blitzkrieg director Wallace Fox already attached to Columbia's The Lone Star Vigilantes, Katzman hired Russian-born director Phil Rosen, who had just finished filming Monogram's "The Deadly Game" to helm the production.
Ghosts in the Night began filming in early August 1941, around the same time as Bowery Blitzkrieg was making its way into theatres. By the time filming wrapped only a week and half later, the film's working title was changed to Spooks Run Wild and hit theaters on October 24, 1941, just in time for Halloween.
David O'Brien began the series as Knuckles Dolan; in this film he would play a different role. The following year he would team up with Guy Wilkerson at Producers Releasing Corporation for the Texas Rangers Western film series.
The Los Angeles Times said that "for some fans it will lack the usual spontaneity of these pictures, even though there's a fair measure of laughs."[7]The New York Times said the script "must have been the distillate of some addled witch's brew. The sum total as represented... is less horror than horrible."[8]
Follow up
Lugosi and the East Side Kids were later reteamed in Ghosts on the Loose, which was also originally known as Ghosts in the Night.[9]
Related Research Articles
The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York City who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Dead End in 1935. In 1937, producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film. They proved to be so popular that they continued to make movies under various monikers, including the Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids, and the Bowery Boys, until 1958.
Flying Wild is a 1941 American comedy thriller film directed by William Beaudine under the pseudonym "William West" as the fifth installment of the East Side Kids series which eventually totalled 22 films. The film is the team's first one in the spy film genre. The supporting cast includes Joan Barclay, Dave O'Brien and Herbert Rawlinson. It was distributed by Monogram Pictures.
Pride of the Bowery is a black-and-white 1940 film and the fourth installment in the East Side Kids series. It was directed by Joseph H. Lewis and produced by Sam Katzman. It was released by Monogram Pictures on December 15, 1940.
Bowery Blitzkrieg is a 1941 American comedy film directed by Sam Katzman. It is the sixth installment of the East Side Kids series. The film "introduced" Huntz Hall in his first of the East Side Kids film series.
Stanley Clements was an American actor and comedian, best known for portraying "Stash" in the East Side Kids film series, and group leader Stanislaus "Duke" Coveleskie in The Bowery Boys film series.
Docks of New York is a 1945 American comedy film directed by Wallace Fox and starring the East Side Kids.
Boys of the City is a 1940 black-and-white comedy/thriller film directed by Joseph H. Lewis. It is the second East Side Kids film and the first to star Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, and Ernest Morrison.
Clancy Street Boys is a 1943 comedy film directed by William Beaudine and starring the East Side Kids. It is Beaudine's first film with the team; he would direct several more in the series and many in the Bowery Boys canon. Leo Gorcey married the female lead Amelita Ward. There is no mention of "Clancy Street" in the film, but a rival gang at Cherry Street appears at the beginning and climax of the film.
'Neath Brooklyn Bridge is a 1942 film released by Monogram Pictures. It is the eleventh installment in the East Side Kids series and one of the more dramatic films of the series, released at a time when they were making lighter, more humorous fare. The film is now in public domain and can be downloaded legally from numerous web sites.
David Gorcey was an American actor and the younger brother of actor Leo Gorcey. Gorcey is best known for portraying "Chuck Anderson" in Monogram Pictures' film series The Bowery Boys, and "Pee Wee" in its antecedent The East Side Kids.
The Bowery Boys are fictional New York City characters, portrayed by a company of New York actors, who were the subject of 48 feature films released by Monogram Pictures and its successor Allied Artists Pictures Corporation from 1946 through 1958.
Let's Get Tough! is a 1942 film and the ninth film in the East Side Kids series, starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, and Robert Armstrong. Released in early 1942, it was directed by Wallace Fox, and features the gang caught up in World War II and fighting the Black Dragon Society, an enemy sabotage ring.
Kid Dynamite is a 1943 American film directed by Wallace Fox and starring the East Side Kids. It was based on the 1942 short story The Old Gang by Paul Ernst and features additional dialogue by comedian Morey Amsterdam. The working title of this film was Little Mobsters.
Mr. Wise Guy is a 1942 American film starring The East Side Kids and directed by William Nigh.
Smart Alecks is a 1942 American film directed by Wallace Fox and starring the East Side Kids.
Ghosts on the Loose is a 1943 American comedy horror film and the fourteenth film in the East Side Kids series, directed by William Beaudine. The picture co-stars horror film icon Bela Lugosi as well as Ava Gardner in one of her earliest roles.
Mr. Muggs Steps Out is a 1943 American comedy film directed by William Beaudine and starring The East Side Kids.
Follow the Leader is a 1944 American film directed by William Beaudine featuring the East Side Kids.
The East Side Kids were characters in a series of 22 films released by Monogram Pictures from 1940 through 1945. The series was a low-budget imitation of the Dead End Kids, a successful film franchise of the late 1930s.
Come Out Fighting is a 1945 American film directed by William Beaudine. It was the last in the Monogram Pictures series of "East Side Kids" films before the series was reinvented as "The Bowery Boys. Film critic Leonard Maltin described the film as "grating," giving it one and a half out of four stars.
References
↑ Hayes, David (1984). The Films of the Bowery Boys. Secaucus, NJ: The Citadel Press. ISBN978-0806509310.
↑ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 25047-25048). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
1 2 Tom Weaver, Poverty Row Horrors! Mongram, PRC and Republic Horror Films of the Forties, 1993 p 45-52
↑ Scheuer, Philip K. (Apr 12, 1941). "Miriam Hopkins Likely 'Mississippi Belle' Lead: Blore, Fields Assigned Lamour Back to Jungle Florodora Girl Sought 'Kids' to Scare Lugosi Sheila Ryan Re-signed". Los Angeles Times. p.A9.
↑ "Fifty-three Feature Program Announced by Monogram: Film Company Maps Season's Production at Opening of Franchise Holders' Convention". Los Angeles Times. Apr 5, 1941. p.A3.
↑ "Hedda Hopper's HOLLYWOOD". Los Angeles Times. Aug 13, 1941. p.A10.
↑ G K. (Oct 6, 1941). "Spooky Film Previewed". Los Angeles Times. p.22.
↑ Schallert, Edwin (Feb 9, 1943). "DRAMA: Ava Gardner Awarded Lead in Film Thriller MacMurray in Musical Johnson to Go Romantic Wartime Novelty Slated Lavery Signs at R.K.O. College Talent Sought". Los Angeles Times. p.9.
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