Review of Haunted Spooks

This Harold Lloyd comedy short prominently displays 2 touchy subjects: failed suicide attempts, and African American racism, which was the norm for the times. Bumbling failed suicide attempts can be funny without being too macabre, if handled well, and thus be a proper subject for comedy films. Here they are handled well. Lloyd's initial attempt involves a pistol he finds on the street. He puts it to his head ,pulls the trigger and gets squirted. Funny! Water!. Why don't I drown myself? He ties a big rock to himself, walks onto a small bridge, and dives over. Alas, there's only a couple inches of water in the stream! Funny! Next time, he measures the water depth before taking the plunge. On another small bridge, he's ready to jump, when several passerbys bother him for something they want from him. He gives one his watch. Then, he jumps, but lands in a canoe. Funny! You would think he'd get the idea he wasn't meant to die now. But he tries again. Tries to be hit by a car, albeit at a rather slow speed. But the driver won't cooperate. In fact, he gets out to inquire about Lloyd's purpose. He finds out that Lloyd is despondent over losing several girlfriends. The driver happens to be a lawyer who has a client who's desperate to find a husband. She's beautiful and stands to inherit the house she lives in if she is married. Lloyd agrees. After a superficial introduction, they are married. But, Lloyd discovers she's very bossy, at least when it comes to her car. Later, she settles down. So, Lloyd's last suicide attempts fortuitously solved the lack of a mate problem for 2 people. Irony!. ........Soon, we will come to the Haunted Spooks portion of the film, which takes up the last third. I wondered why the film title reads hauntED rather than hauntING spooks? Then, I remembered that , in that era, African Americans were often referred to as spooks. Then, the title makes sense, because the many African Americans sometimes present in that film portion are clearly scared to death, when it is announced that on this day, all the ghosts of the departed return to make mischief. Their knees shake violently in concert, and they run to hide, although a few actually take part in being ghosts. Despite professing not to believing in ghosts, Lloyd and 'the girl'(Mildred Davis) soon are shaking in their boots, too. You see, the Uncle who lives here stands to inherit the house if Lloyd and his wife don't stay here for at least a year. The uncle doesn't want them to stay even one night. But, in the end, they become convinced that the apparent spooks can be explained by natural means, and stay the night.