MarcoAntonio1

I've tried to like this film, but at best it's merely tolerable. I thought that there would be more to it. There are basically two parts to the film: 1)Ava Gardner and Rick Vallin's wedding 2) At the two country houses. The first half of "Ghosts on the Loose" is a total gyp. It's got nothing to do with ghosts (neither does the second half) and is frankly quite boring. The only pluses in this half of the film are the moments with young Ava and her fiancé/husband Rick. The second half of the film is a let-down. The East Side Kids arrive in the country and spend many dull moments redecorating what they think is the honeymoon couples house. They move furniture around while the most awful, dreary canned background music is played (the same awful music that was used in "The Ape Man" and other Monogram films). By the time a printing press starts getting moved around from house to house this film almost becomes a sleep inducing bore. What a shame! If Monogram had used better background music I would have added a star to my rating. Lugosi has very little time on screen here. Like others have said "Spooks Run Wild" is the better of the two Lugosi-East Side Kids outings...much better!

"The Corpse Vanishes" is not Bela Lugosi best film for Monogram, but it's not his worst either. In it he plays a doctor who has poisonous scented orchards sent to young brides to wear at the alter. When the women are presumed dead, Lugosi and his crew steal their bodies and Lugosi uses their youth serum to make his aged wife look young again. The wife is played coldly and ineffectively by Elizabeth Russell. A reporter who is more than a bit like Rosalind Russell's "Hildy Johnson" in "His Girl Friday" goes to the doctor's home to investigate. The reporter is played by Luana Walters. Joan Barclay is pretty as one of the brides. Minerva Urecal, as the female member of Lugosi's mob, has some awful lines of dialog to speak. The cheap looking stone wall with the arched doorway in Lugosi's laboratory was one of Monogram's shoddiest props and it showed up again in a Bowery Boys flick.