Spooks Run Wild
About Spooks Run Wild
Muggs and the East Side Kids are packed off to a summer camp near Hillside, where a radio report warns of a 'monster killer.' A caped stranger, Nardo, and his dwarf assistant Luigi move into the empty Billings house. The boys sneak out, get lost in a graveyard, and Peewee is shot by the digger. Nardo treats the wound and lets them stay. Secret panels swallow the kids one by one. Camp nurse Linda accepts a ride from Dr. Von Grosch, the man a gas-station attendant had recognized from crime magazines, and he attacks her at the house. The police are ready to arrest Nardo until Muggs shows that Nardo is a stage magician and Von Grosch is the killer.
Cast & crew
More about Spooks Run Wild
Phil Rosen directed the seventh East Side Kids picture for producer Sam Katzman. Carl Foreman and Charles R. Marion wrote the script. Marcel Le Picard photographed it, Robert Golden edited, and the music is credited to Lange and Porter. Monogram released it. Shooting began in early August 1941 and wrapped in about a week and a half. Rosen replaced Wallace Fox, who had gone to Columbia's The Lone Star Vigilantes.
Themes
Making
Katzman wanted a bigger East Side Kids entry and paired the boys with Monogram's other draw, Bela Lugosi, for a release just before Halloween.
Reviews
The Los Angeles Times said some fans would miss the usual snap of these pictures, though there were a fair number of laughs. The New York Times called the script the distillate of an addled witch's brew and the result less horror than horrible.
Look
Marcel Le Picard shot the graveyard and the trick house, with coffins that move and panels that drop boys out of the frame.
Music
The score is credited to Lange and Porter.
Preservation
A full print survives.
Notes
- Working titles were Trail of the Vampire and Ghosts in the Night.
- Foreman was paid $25 for the story and $200 for the script.
- Angelo Rossitto, as Luigi, was hired off his turn in Hellzapoppin'.
- Donald Haines, who plays Skinny, never made another film. He was killed in action at the Battle of Kasserine Pass in 1943.
- Lugosi and the East Side Kids were paired again in Ghosts on the Loose (1943).
Scenes
- Peewee sleepwalks out of the Billings house after Nardo's sedative, and the others hunt him through moving coffins.
- Muggs steps into Nardo's magic cabinet and comes out paired with Scruno.
Also available
- Internet Archive (spooks_run_wild)
- Wikimedia Commons (Spooks Run Wild.ogv)
