Haunted Spooks
About Haunted Spooks
A will gives Mildred Hillary a mansion and a plantation if she lives there for a year with a husband. Her uncle, otherwise the heir, means to frighten the couple off. A lawyer finds Harold, who has just failed at a series of suicides after a girl turned him down, and marries them on the spot. At the house the uncle stages ghosts: sheets, flour, and a pair of trousers walking around with a boy inside. Before they go into the bedroom, husband and wife ask each other their names.
Cast & crew
More about Haunted Spooks
Hal Roach produced and co-directed with Alfred J. Goulding. H. M. Walker wrote the titles. Shooting began on 9 August 1919 and stopped on 23 August, when a prop bomb exploded in Harold Lloyd's hand during publicity photographs. He lost two fingers, burned his face, and was temporarily blinded. Work resumed from 5 to 25 January 1920. His salary doubled on his return. Exterior jokes were shot at Hancock Park and at the park now called MacArthur Park. The house scenes were made at the Roach studio in Culver City. Pathé released the two-reeler on 14 March 1920.
Themes
Making
The bomb was a prop, posed for stills, not a scene in the comedy. Production shut down for more than four months while Lloyd recovered.
Preservation
The two-reeler survives.
Notes
- Mildred Davis plays Mildred Hillary. Wallace Howe is the uncle.
- After the injury Lloyd wore a prosthetic glove. The missing fingers are covered in every film he made after this one.
- Dee Lampton is the tall butler, Sammy Brooks the short one, and Ernest Morrison the boy inside the walking trousers.
- The suicide attempts use a water pistol, a streetcar, a rock in a shallow pond, a jump from a bridge into a passing boat, and a motorcar.
Scenes
- Harold's suicide tries fail, one after another, before the lawyer finds him.
- A pair of trousers crosses the hall with a boy hidden in the legs.
