Spooktober: Spooks Run Wild (1941)

There's an interesting backstory behind The East Side Kids, who later became The Bowery Boys. Just the same, their films were packaged in syndication in the 70's & 80's under one roof, if you will.

This all started, actually, with the feature film, "Dead End", and the launch of a series of films starring The Dead End Kids. We'll deal with the Dead End era another day, but most people remember the later eras due to the weekly broadcasts, which, in New York, were on WNEW (now WNYW), Saturday & Sunday afternoons at noon (ET).

Today, we have a 1941 East Side Kids entry, "Spooks Run Wild", co-starring Bela Lugosi. While the gang mistakenly thinks Lugosi's character is the villain of the piece, well......

"Sunshine" Sammy Morrison had previously appeared in the Our Gang comedies, and East Side Kids gave him his last major exposure.

Note, too, that this was over an hour, which meant that it would fill a 90 minute frame on WNEW.

Rating: B.