'Haunted Spooks', starring Harold Lloyd, was midway through its shooting schedule when Lloyd suffered the bizarre accident which crippled him for life. As a publicity gag, he posed for a photo with a prop bomb of the classic 'bowling-ball' style so popular among movie anarchists: the bomb's fuse was lit, and Harold held the bomb near his face so he could light his cigarette. By a fluke, somebody spoke to him and he lowered the bomb to reply ... just before the 'prop' bomb exploded. It was a real bomb, which somebody had ordered from a props agency to use for a picnic. (Must have been quite a picnic!) When the bomb went unused, it was stupidly returned to inventory among some 'dud' bombs which had been made as genuine props. If Lloyd hadn't lowered the bomb from his face, his movie career (and his life) would have ended right there.
Lloyd lost the thumb and forefinger of his right hand (he was right-handed) and was temporarily blinded in his right eye. Production on 'Haunted Spooks' was halted until he returned from hospital wearing a latex glove with a false thumb and finger (moulded from a reverse casting of his left hand). The suicide sequences at the beginning of 'Haunted Spooks' are the last footage of Lloyd with his intact right hand. The haunted-house sequences later in this movie (and all of his subsequent films) feature him with his prosthetic glove. It's amazing to realise that Lloyd performed the stunts in all of his 'thrill' comedies (including his climb up a skyscraper in 'Safety Last' and his climb down another skyscraper in 'Feet First') with a maimed hand. In the 1950s, Jack Benny (unaware of Lloyd's handicap) invited him to guest on Benny's TV show: Lloyd declined, as his latex prosthesis had long since rotted.
SPOILERS FOR SOME OF THE GAGS. The opening sequence of 'Haunted Spooks' is very funny. Lloyd plays a young man who has been disappointed in love, and is now determined to kill himself. Finding a pistol in the street, he shoots himself in the head but gets only a faceful of water: it was a squirt pistol. Deciding to jump off a bridge into a lake, he clambers over the rail, and is about to jump when suddenly a stranger intercedes. But the stranger only wants to know what time it is. Lloyd hands the fellow his watch and tells him to keep it. Then Lloyd jumps off the bridge ... into a few inches of water. These gags are very funny on their own merit, but they have a morbid edge for viewers who are aware that Lloyd very soon would narrowly escape a real-life death.
The second half of 'Haunted Spooks' is much more contrived, and also extremely racist. I should warn you that the title of this movie is meant to be a racial pun: 'spooks' being a 1920s slang term for Negroes. Lloyd has to spend the night in a creepy old house which, in Scooby-Doo fashion, is haunted by some fake ghosts. Lloyd gets rather frightened: there's one bizarre shot of Lloyd in a fright wig which stands out from his head like a 1970s Afro. Speaking of Afros: the haunted house is full of stereotypical black characters who (of course) are even more cowardly than Lloyd. There's one outrageous shot depicting a roomful of frightened blacks, all of them quivering in fear with their knees knocking in perfect unison. Yassuh!
The immensely talented black child actor Ernie Morrison (who was usually billed as 'Sunshine Sammy') provides one very funny gag among the racial stereotypes. Morrison was about seven years old at the time, and short with it. At one point in the haunted house, little Morrison falls into an adult-sized pair of trousers which are taller than he is. Instead of climbing out of the trousers, Morrison stumbles blindly about the house, with his legs in the trouser legs and the rest of his body inside the crutch of the trousers. This looks like a pair of trousers going walkies with nobody inside them. Of course, everybody who sees this immediately gets frightened.
'Haunted Spooks' contains some fairly mean-spirited humour (including its title) at the expense of black people, but some of the gags are so inventive that I laughed anyway ... and the opening suicide sequence is first-rate black comedy in the non-racial sense of the term. I'll rate this comedy 6 points out of 10.
Lloyd lost the thumb and forefinger of his right hand (he was right-handed) and was temporarily blinded in his right eye. Production on 'Haunted Spooks' was halted until he returned from hospital wearing a latex glove with a false thumb and finger (moulded from a reverse casting of his left hand). The suicide sequences at the beginning of 'Haunted Spooks' are the last footage of Lloyd with his intact right hand. The haunted-house sequences later in this movie (and all of his subsequent films) feature him with his prosthetic glove. It's amazing to realise that Lloyd performed the stunts in all of his 'thrill' comedies (including his climb up a skyscraper in 'Safety Last' and his climb down another skyscraper in 'Feet First') with a maimed hand. In the 1950s, Jack Benny (unaware of Lloyd's handicap) invited him to guest on Benny's TV show: Lloyd declined, as his latex prosthesis had long since rotted.
SPOILERS FOR SOME OF THE GAGS. The opening sequence of 'Haunted Spooks' is very funny. Lloyd plays a young man who has been disappointed in love, and is now determined to kill himself. Finding a pistol in the street, he shoots himself in the head but gets only a faceful of water: it was a squirt pistol. Deciding to jump off a bridge into a lake, he clambers over the rail, and is about to jump when suddenly a stranger intercedes. But the stranger only wants to know what time it is. Lloyd hands the fellow his watch and tells him to keep it. Then Lloyd jumps off the bridge ... into a few inches of water. These gags are very funny on their own merit, but they have a morbid edge for viewers who are aware that Lloyd very soon would narrowly escape a real-life death.
The second half of 'Haunted Spooks' is much more contrived, and also extremely racist. I should warn you that the title of this movie is meant to be a racial pun: 'spooks' being a 1920s slang term for Negroes. Lloyd has to spend the night in a creepy old house which, in Scooby-Doo fashion, is haunted by some fake ghosts. Lloyd gets rather frightened: there's one bizarre shot of Lloyd in a fright wig which stands out from his head like a 1970s Afro. Speaking of Afros: the haunted house is full of stereotypical black characters who (of course) are even more cowardly than Lloyd. There's one outrageous shot depicting a roomful of frightened blacks, all of them quivering in fear with their knees knocking in perfect unison. Yassuh!
The immensely talented black child actor Ernie Morrison (who was usually billed as 'Sunshine Sammy') provides one very funny gag among the racial stereotypes. Morrison was about seven years old at the time, and short with it. At one point in the haunted house, little Morrison falls into an adult-sized pair of trousers which are taller than he is. Instead of climbing out of the trousers, Morrison stumbles blindly about the house, with his legs in the trouser legs and the rest of his body inside the crutch of the trousers. This looks like a pair of trousers going walkies with nobody inside them. Of course, everybody who sees this immediately gets frightened.
'Haunted Spooks' contains some fairly mean-spirited humour (including its title) at the expense of black people, but some of the gags are so inventive that I laughed anyway ... and the opening suicide sequence is first-rate black comedy in the non-racial sense of the term. I'll rate this comedy 6 points out of 10.