Beware Spooks (1939)
Director:
Edward Sedgwick
Writers:
Richard Flournoy (play), Richard Flournoy (screenplay), Brian Marlow, Albert DuffyStars:
Joe E. Brown, Mary Carlisle, Clarence Kolb, Marc Lawrence, Don Beddoe, George J. Lewis
Though Joe E. Brown's starring vehicles of the late 1930s-early 1940s were on the whole decidedly inferior to his earlier Warner Bros. films, some were better than others. In the "better" category is Columbia's Beware Spooks!, a hectic comedy-mystery set on Coney Island. On the strength of the reputation of his famous police-officer father, hapless Roy Gifford (Brown) is invited to join the "boys in blue". He soon proves himself an inept peacekeeper, and by mid-film he's been booted off the force. Cutting his losses, Roy heads to Coney Island for a honeymoon with his new bride Betty Lou (Mary Carlisle), and while in the fun house-which turns out to be a criminal hideaway--manages to solve a baffling murder. The zany climactic chase through the darkened "spook house" is the funniest scene in the picture, leaving no tried-and-true slapstick gag unturned.
