Spooks (1953 film)
| Spooks! | |
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| Directed by | Jules White |
| Produced by | Jules White |
| Written by | Felix Adler |
| Starring |
Moe Howard Larry Fine Shemp Howard Philip Van Zandt Tom Kennedy Norma Randall Frank Mitchell |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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15:44 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Spooks! is the 148th short film released by Columbia Pictures in 1953 starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard). The comedians released 190 short films for the studio between 1934 and 1959.
The Stooges are private detectives that are hired to track down a kidnapped girl name Mary Bopper (Norma Randall), daughter of George B. Bopper. They decide to trace Bopper back to where she was last seen, which leads them to mad scientist Dr. Jeckyl (Philip Van Zandt) and his assistant, Mr. Hyde (Tom Kennedy). There is also a gorilla kept imprisoned in the house for experimental purposes. The Stooges arrive to rescue the kidnapped girl disguised as door-to door pie salesmen.
Spooks! was the first of two Stooge shorts (the other being Pardon My Backfire) made by Columbia Pictures in 3D, after the 3D craze of 1953 began with Bwana Devil. It originally premiered on May 20, 1953 with the Columbia western Fort Ti (also in 3D).
Both the Columbia 3D Edmund O'Brien thriller Man in the Dark and Spooks! were originally sepia toned in order to allow for more light to pass through the Polaroid filters necessary for the dual-strip 3D projection method of that time. The process did not work as expected and the idea was dropped after these two productions.
This is also the first short in the series filmed for flat wide-screen. Although some films of this period were composed for the Academy aspect ratio and released in wide-screen during the confusion, Spooks! and future releases were composed at 1.85:1, Columbia's house ratio.
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