Spook Chasers

The Bowery Boys get mixed up with gangsters in an old dark house in this tired entry, the forty-fifth in the series. Humpbacked Percy Shelton plays the cafe owner Mike, yet another attempt to replace the irreplaceable Bernard Gorcey. I like him in many other roles but he's not quite the right fit for the exasperated old gentleman that has to put up with the boys' hijinks. Huntz Hall does OK but he continues to be 'off' without Leo Gorcey. He just doesn't have the same chemistry with boring Stanley Clements and he seems to be trying too hard with the constant mugging for the camera. David Gorcey and Jimmy Murphy are their usual forgettable selves. Eddie LeRoy also joins the gang as Blinky. He makes no impression. Darlene Fields plays the obligatory eye candy. It's a comedy but it's not very much fun. The haunted house gags are worn-out and, at this point, Sach making stupid faces just isn't cutting it anymore.

This particular post Gorcey Bowery Boys film is distinguished by having Stanley Clements adopt Leo Gorcey's gift for the malaprop without the same humor. It also is an attempt to use character actor Percy Helton as the proprietor of a Bowery diner as a substitute for Bernard Gorcey. Spook Chasers is just a pale imitation of the series at its height.

A couple of sharp real estate agents unload a lemon of a house on poor Helton who has been prescribed a nice country rest. But the joke gets turned on them when it turns out a whole lot of stolen loot from a former gang boss is found by the Bowery Boys and Helton. Now gangster Peter Mamakos is after it as well as the agents William Henry and Darlene Fields.

Some good bits are in this especially when Fields decides to vamp poor Sach and gets him drunk in the process. Also Sach manages to wreck and mix up all the house utilities in a bit lifted from Abbott&Costello.

The title Spook Chasers comes from the gangsters efforts to frighten the boys away with ghosts as a last gambit. Still it was all done before in this series and elsewhere.

Hanging out in Mike Clancy's (Percy Helton) diner, the Bowery Boys are engaged in their usual loafing sessions; Sach (Huntz Hall) works on a puzzle book; Duke (Stanley Clements) chows down on Clancy's Iris stew special, and Myron (Jimmy Murphy), Chuck (David Gorcey) and Blinky (Eddie LeRoy)are looking at the pictures in the eatery's library of comic books.

Two diner, real-estate agent Harry Shelby (Bill Henry)and his assistant, Dolly Owens (Darlene Fields), hear that Mike has been ordered by his doctor to take a long rest in the country. They sell him "Cedar Crest," -a paradise in the mountains---which actually had been a robber's hideout. Mike and the Bowery Boys move to the place and find a dilapidated farmhouse. While doing repairs, they find a secret compartment containing new banknotes. Thinking they have found a recluse's treasure, they pay off the mortgage on Cedar Crest.

This draws the attention of three hoodlums, Snap (Peter Mamakos), Ziggie (Ben Welden) and Ernie (Robert Christopher), who order Shelby to buy back the place. Sach, Duke and Mike refuse the offer, even when told the place is haunted. Meanwhile Dolly has vamped Sach---an easy task---into revealing how they got the money to pay off the mortgage, and she and Shelby devise a plan of their own of obtaining the house with many greenbacks in deposit.

A few nights later, the six residents find themselves harassed by a pair of phantom-like goons, and attacked by three loot-hungry gangsters.

Spook Chasers (1957)

** (out of 4)

The Bowery Boys must battle crooks when a real estate agent sells their friend Mike (Percy Helton) a rundown piece of land. The group end up finding money there, which draws the attention of a couple gangsters who plan on making the boys think the house is haunted so that they'll leave. Number forty-five in the series is a step-down compared to the previous film and you can't help but feel the screenwriters have gone to the well one time too many. The horror-comedy bit was something that the Bowery Boys hit upon countless times and dealing with gangsters was another plot point that they did countless times. There are a few nice jokes here, a great supporting cast but in the end there's just not enough laughs to make the film work. There are a couple good sequences and the ending is one of them as the pacing finally picks up as the boys are running from room to room trying to get away from the "ghosts" that are chasing them. There's a funny sequence early on where Sach has to wait on a table and the incident with the coffee was quite funny. Another good joke is when the group first finds the money. Sadly the screenplay doesn't offer much else as the characters just go through the motions and in the end it really doesn't add up to much. There are countless scenes where Sach proves what an idiot he is but this time it comes off rather annoying because he's just too stupid for his own good. Check out the sequence where he tries to fix a faulty drip and ends up ripping up the entire kitchen. Another example of seeing the same thing too much happens when the girl seduces him into giving out yet more information. This is something you could possible use over and over but I wish they would have at least changed it up a bit. As with the previous film, Huntz Hall and Stanley Clements actually do a nice job together as their chemistry is certainly starting to click. David Gorcey, Jimmy Murphy and Eddie LeRoy actually get more to do here and I thought Darlene Fields did a fine job as the sexy seducer. Helton clearly steals the show as the weak-hearted shop owner whose restaurant appears to be the same set that Louie's Sweetshop was at originally. Robert Shayne has a very funny cameo at the end.

The bowery boys, minus the owner of the franchise, leo gorcey, and his dad bernard. Bernard had died in an odd car accident in 1955, and leo made his last bowery film in 1956, crashing las vegas. In spook chasers, when mike and the guys buy a ramshackle house, they think it's a big money pit. But when the previous owners decide they want the house back, things begin to go wrong. And why do they really want it back? The usual wacky bowery boys shenanigans, but without the word play and slip's leadership, it's definitely a weaker story. They only made a couple more after this. Directed by george blair. He had directed a bunch of superman works. The bowery boys had also made "spook busters in 1946.