Francis in the Haunted House (1956) ** (out of 4) The seventh and final film in Universal's "Francis" series was the first to be without Donald O'Connor as he left the series and was replaced by Mickey Rooney. Also new here is that Chill Willis was replaced as Francis' voice and replaced by Paul Frees so this is pretty much a new film that separates itself from the previous six and since they didn't bother with another one I think the quality is easy to see.
Mickey Rooney was the first actor considered to play the human sidekick of Francis the talking mule, but the role went instead to his friend Donald O'Connor. Six years and six mule movies later, O'Connor decided to move on to greener pastures, and workhorse Rooney was brought in to close out the series.
The Francis the talking mule series came to a limp end with both Donald O'Connor and Chill Wills as the voice of the mule no longer in the series. Mickey Rooney somehow got talked into this very silly film and to compensate overacted outrageously as to not have the mule steal any scenes.
