Ghosts on the Loose

It's the American dream for Ava Gardner and Rick Vallin as newlyweds. They get married and Vallin has a plan to leave the Lower East Side for that dream house in the suburbs. But right next to it is an old Gothic mansion of a house, something along the lines of Manderley in Rebecca.

Her brother Huntz Hall with Leo Gorcey and the rest of the East Side gang come up to investigate. They find Bela Lugosi there, haunting it to the best of his ability. But Lugosi is no ghost, he's got a more earthly reason for wanting solitude. Remember this was 1943 and you know what was going on.

Ava Gardner made this film a few years before she was any kind of a film name. But her beauty and talent are unmistakable. She has the distinction of being the biggest movie name ever to appear in an East Side Kids/Bowery Boys film, a dubious honor at best. This was Louis B. Mayer's way of testing her. She had done a whole lot of bit roles in films, this was her first real role of any substance.

Three years later Monogram Pictures didn't have enough money in their whole budget to acquire Ava's services. Even if they threw in all the Bowery Boys.

Ghosts on the Loose is a Leo Gorcey/Huntz Hall B film without any great pretensions. But see it if you want to see the birthing of a real star.

But there ain't no amount of acting going to convince anyone that Ava Gardner and Huntz Hall could be related.