A generation earlier country music stars the most prominent of them being Gene Autry got an outlet in films as B western singing cowboys. The B western having gone the way of the dodo bird for country stars to make it on the big screen they would have to find other outlets.
Hillbillies In A Haunted House was the second of two films that country singer Ferlin Husky made as the same character, country artist Woody Wetherby, the first being Las Vegas Hillbillies. This time he and girl friend Joi Lansing and brain dead roadie Don Bowman are on the way to Nashville and stop at what they think is a deserted mansion. What it is though is the headquarters of enemy agents after a rocket fuel formula. A woman runs this spy ring played by Linda Ho and her three henchmen are Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, and Lon Chaney, Jr. three players who have acquitted themselves well in the horror film genre.
All I can say is that mixing country music with Gothic horror must have stunk up the drive-ins from Saskatchewan to Nashville. I don't recall this film ever making it to New York City, but just as well it didn't. Rathbone, Carradine, and Chaney have the satisfied look of players whose paychecks have just cleared the bank and they're going through the motions. The spies have a pet gorilla around also for what is no discernible reason I can fathom other than to give Joi Lansing something to scream at.
Now for country music fans there are a few interludes of some of the top C&W artists of the day like Husky, Molly Bee, Merle Haggard, Sonny James, etc. In fact the last fifteen minutes of the film is just these singers on stage doing numbers with no real attempt to give them background. Fans of the sounds from Nashville did well here, but quite frankly on the whole the film sank like the Titanic.
What a comedown for Rathbone, Carradine, and Chaney.
Hillbillies In A Haunted House was the second of two films that country singer Ferlin Husky made as the same character, country artist Woody Wetherby, the first being Las Vegas Hillbillies. This time he and girl friend Joi Lansing and brain dead roadie Don Bowman are on the way to Nashville and stop at what they think is a deserted mansion. What it is though is the headquarters of enemy agents after a rocket fuel formula. A woman runs this spy ring played by Linda Ho and her three henchmen are Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, and Lon Chaney, Jr. three players who have acquitted themselves well in the horror film genre.
All I can say is that mixing country music with Gothic horror must have stunk up the drive-ins from Saskatchewan to Nashville. I don't recall this film ever making it to New York City, but just as well it didn't. Rathbone, Carradine, and Chaney have the satisfied look of players whose paychecks have just cleared the bank and they're going through the motions. The spies have a pet gorilla around also for what is no discernible reason I can fathom other than to give Joi Lansing something to scream at.
Now for country music fans there are a few interludes of some of the top C&W artists of the day like Husky, Molly Bee, Merle Haggard, Sonny James, etc. In fact the last fifteen minutes of the film is just these singers on stage doing numbers with no real attempt to give them background. Fans of the sounds from Nashville did well here, but quite frankly on the whole the film sank like the Titanic.
What a comedown for Rathbone, Carradine, and Chaney.