Dave O'Brien

The second East Side Kids film and the first to star Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, and Ernest Morrison. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis and produced by Sam Katzman for Monogram Pictures, the film follows a group of street kids who escape the city heat for a summer camp in the Adirondacks. When their car breaks down, they take shelter in the home of Judge Malcolm Parker, who is under indictment for bribery and has been threatened by racketeers. After the Judge is found strangled and his niece kidnapped, the boys must solve the murder themselves, navigating secret passages and unmasking the real killer. The film is also known by the alternative title The Ghost Creeps. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Mystery · Thriller

The East Side Kids rescue Sylvia, a young girl fleeing her abusive stepfather Morley, and hide her in their clubhouse dressed as a boy. When Morley turns up dead — killed by racketeer McGaffey for a stolen stash of money — Danny is arrested for the murder after returning to the girl's apartment for her clothes. Muggs is then blackmailed into joining a warehouse robbery, leaving the kids to clear their friend's name and catch the real killer, with help from Rusty, a former East Side Kid home on leave from the Navy. The eleventh East Side Kids picture, directed by Wallace Fox for Monogram, and one of the series' more dramatic entries. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Comedy · Crime · Drama

Bela Lugosi plays a small-town chemist who breeds a giant bat and trains it to attack anyone wearing a cologne he invented. He uses it to take revenge on the family he believes cheated him, handing out the cologne as a free sample and then sending the bat after each victim. A reporter and his photographer, played by the comic team of Dave O'Brien and Donald Kerr, arrive to investigate the strange deaths. It was the first horror film from Producers Releasing Corporation, one of the poverty-row studios, and Lugosi gives it more gravity than the budget deserves. The film was a surprise hit and PRC made a fortune on it. It entered the public domain and has circulated in countless cut and restored versions ever since.

Horror · Comedy