GHOSTS
ON THE LOOSE (1943)William "One Shot" Beaudine
The Roan Group
GHOSTS
ON THE LOOSE (1943)Before they were the Bowery Boys, the original Dead End Kids were the East Side Kids. Poverty row gobbled them up for agonizing comedies in the 40s that were nearly impossible to sit through. One of those had been 1941's SPOOKS RUN WILD, which featured favorite bogeyman Bela Lugosi in another cheat role as a magician who turned out NOT to be the villain of the piece. It was a poor film, even by low budget Monogram Pictures standards. Bela provided the only interest for that one.
In 1943 Bela Lugosi and the gang teamed up again for an even more dismal piece of junk -- GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE. What really made this one so lackluster was the absence of Lugosi (save for a brief moment riding in a car early on) for some 30 minutes into the 63 minute feature. GHOSTS ON THE LOOSE is probably most worthy today to see a young and luscious Ava Gardner in a role as Glimpy's (Huntz Hall's) sister!
At the film's start, Leo Gorcey as head stooge Muggs McGuiness is rehearsing the boys in a choir to prepare for their performance at Glimpy's sister's wedding. One guy even falls asleep at the organ, much to Mugg's dismay.
At the wedding, Glimpy accidentally gets pelted in the kisser with a mis-aimed hunk of wet rice that Sammy Morrison brought with him in a pot to throw at the newlyweds.
Later, the boys sneak over to the new home of the happy couple and decide to clean it up for them while they're away. As fate would have it, the kids have made a mistake and entered the wrong house; they've stumbled upon the domain of Bela Lugosi and his thugs, actually members of a Nazi ring. Few giggles sneak through as the East Siders foil the criminals and save the day in the end...but not before Glimpy contracts German measles (represented by tiny swastikas painted on his face) which he contracted from the Nazis.
The DVD from Roan looks pretty good. It's cleaner than the film itself deserves to be, and is a nice representation of the title for completists interested in obtaining the finest upgrade available. It's just too bad that better films (like INVISIBLE GHOST, for instance) don't have as nice a transfer. The sound is adequate, and a trailer is featured as a bonus.
This is as good a time as any to ask why Warner Home Video (who own the rights to the "Bowery Boys" films) do not care to release any of them. True, these films are on the lower end of the scale in terms of quality, but even Francis the Talking Mule and Ma and Pa Kettle comedies were made available on tape by Universal some years ago.
It's pathetic to realize that the only time Warner bothered with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall was way back in 1992 when they somehow must have made a marketing error and "accidentally" released VHS editions of six of the 40 Bowery Boys features. They must have caught themselves quickly, because their output for the gang came to a screeching halt almost immediately.
There are decent comedies to consider from the boys, most notably MASTERMINDS and THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS. Instead, fans have to make due with dupes recorded from cable. What's worse is that they all contain that dubious logo at the end of the their credits: that smug Warner Bothers shield that insures a kiss of death for these ever to see the light of day on home video. (Joe Lozowsky)