The only original thing about this awful film was Hal Roach's decision to embark on an all-color production schedule during 1947-48, of which this represented the final death twitch before he abandoned film production for good and moved successfully into TV during the fifties.
Feeling much longer than its mere 55 minute running time, it's basically two seen-it-all-before half-hour comedies one after the other; the first an unfunny courtroom sequence with the kids endlessly disrupting the proceedings, and the second half the kids crashing about a big spooky house at night like one of the less cerebral 'Scooby Doo' episodes, to the accompaniment of a noisy, over-emphatic score cobbled together from earlier Roach productions, and concluding with a 'surprise' revelation at the end about whose eyes it was peering through the portrait in the hall.
It's all far less interesting than it sounds. The presence of Virginia Grey and George Zucco in the cast raises expectations, but both of them are wasted; while Grant Mitchell in his final screen appearance plays that hoary old cliché, an avuncular old judge straining to keep control while personally finding the chaotic proceedings hilarious. He certainly finds things far funnier than we do.
Feeling much longer than its mere 55 minute running time, it's basically two seen-it-all-before half-hour comedies one after the other; the first an unfunny courtroom sequence with the kids endlessly disrupting the proceedings, and the second half the kids crashing about a big spooky house at night like one of the less cerebral 'Scooby Doo' episodes, to the accompaniment of a noisy, over-emphatic score cobbled together from earlier Roach productions, and concluding with a 'surprise' revelation at the end about whose eyes it was peering through the portrait in the hall.
It's all far less interesting than it sounds. The presence of Virginia Grey and George Zucco in the cast raises expectations, but both of them are wasted; while Grant Mitchell in his final screen appearance plays that hoary old cliché, an avuncular old judge straining to keep control while personally finding the chaotic proceedings hilarious. He certainly finds things far funnier than we do.