HILLbillys in a haunted house
1967 - With Lon Chaney Jnr - John Carradine - Basil Rathbone.
Country-western entertainers Boots Malone (Joi Lansing) and Woody Weatherby (Ferlin Husky) and Weatherby's jittery business manager Jeepers (Don Bowman), en route to the Nashville Jamboree, are forced to take a night's shelter in the "haunted" Beauregard mansion. In the basement, a quartet of spies (John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jnr, Linda Ho and Basil Rathbone) have set up shop and are preparing to steal secrets from the missile plant in a neighboring town. The baddies try to scare off the hillbillies, but, with the help of an agent (Richard Webb) from M.O.T.H.E.R. (Master Organization To Halt Enemy Resistance) and a real ghost, the hillbillies thwart the spy plan.
After the spies have been rounded up and the movie appears to be at an end, a "Nashville Jamboree" and half a dozen more songs are still laying ahead for fidgety horror fans anxious to get on with their lives. Most movies of this type require their heavies to play it straight, but Hillbillies allows Carradine, Chaney and Rathbone to indulge in a bit of welcome self-spoofing; Chaney plays with his pet ape Anatole (George Barrows), Rathbone enthuses about their next assignment in Alamogordo ("The dry climate will be wonderful for my sinuses!") and Carradine, told by Ho that they are abandoning their haunted house operations, boyishly begs to fly the prop ghost one last time. All three appear to be having a good time - even Rathbone, who probably didn't know he would be the bottom billed heavy (even Ho is above him on the cast list!).
John Carradine on seeing the final picture said the best review of all, "I suppose it was crap, but we had to do it."
BACK TO BASIL RATHBONE LIST