The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)

For this year's Countdown to Halloween, it's all-Universal Monsters, all-the-time, from Dracula (1931) to The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).  Join me daily for a fresh perspective on movies you may not have watched in a long time, if ever.  Today, it's the end of an era with The Invisible Man's Revenge!

Today's movie should really be called "An" Invisible Man's Revenge, not "The" Invisible Man's Revenge.  I know, it's just semantics, but the "The" indicates there is one invisible man and this is his revenge.  In reality, the last of Universal's Invisible Man series (unless you count Abbott & Costello Meets…) has nothing to do with the original The Invisible Man.  Don't let the name of the lead character, Robert Griffin, fool you; he's of no relation to Dr. Jack Griffin.

In fact, he's not even a doctor.  Newspaper headlines would have us believe he's a "homicidal maniac" that escaped an institution.  That's a reversal of the original story where it was the invisibility serum that drove a man insane.  However, we end up in the same place in both cases, with a crazy invisible man running around wreaking havoc.  Here, his purpose is more focused, though, as he holds Sir Jasper and Lady Irene Herrick at his mercy for cheating him out of his share of a fortune.

Who created the formula, then?  That would be Dr. Peter Drury (John Carradine), a mostly harmless gentleman who owns a menagerie of invisible pets, but sees an opportunity in Griffin (Jon Hall) to experiment with a human being.  Griffin is incredulous at first, but Drury tells him, "compared to air that has body or clear water in a bottle, it's not so strange."  Before long, Griffin is transparent and Drury is fueling his delusions of grandeur by telling him he's immortal.

I wrote that Invisible Agent was finally a fun movie about invisibility, but The Invisible Man's Revenge tops it.  At the local pub, Griffin helps Herbert Higgins (Leon Errol) win a bet in a hilarious game of darts.  And in the finale, Griffin fights rival Mark Foster (Alan Curtis) in the wine cellar.  It's the most action we've seen… er, not seen… between two characters in one of these movies, and it's well done and effective.  Bottles crash and tables flip, seemingly of their own volition.

Alas, there's one huge plot development that makes no sense, other than to advance the story.  At first, Griffin makes sure that Drury can keep him invisible: "There's no chance of turning visible until you're dead."  But then when he thinks being visible will somehow change the Herrick's minds about sharing their wealth, he changes his mind and fights to stay in sight.  Oh, well, he's supposed to be crazy, so I guess making a decision and sticking with it isn't his strong point.

Plus, this gives him an even more sinister purpose.  Since only the blood of another man will keep him visible, he first drains Drury and when it doesn't last, goes after Foster.  Hence, there's the fight in the wine cellar.  It's also a little convenient that with only 15 minutes left in the movie, Griffin announces that a dog is the only living thing he's afraid of.  It's not going to be a surprise, then, that this dog will provide his ultimate demise.  ("Rin Tin Tin Meets the Invisible Man"?!?)

Again, don't think there's a relation, but Hall was the Invisible Agent, also.  I didn't notice him much in that one, probably because he was invisible most of the time, but in The Invisible Man's Revenge, his face gets a lot of screen time.  A good-looking man who's a cross between George Clooney and Johnny Depp, he's quite charismatic.  I'm not familiar with the actor, but this makes me want to research his resume.  I'm kind of surprised he didn't become a bigger star.

Universal's invisibility movies were more miss than hit.  But in the sense that they explored the joy and wonder of being invisible, they actually got better with each subsequent installment.  None of them are my favorites, though.  I don’t think any of them really took advantage of the concept.  Their stories are contrived to fit a gimmick rather than evolving organically from the gimmick.  I guess I prefer monsters that I can actually see.

Tomorrow: The Mummy's Ghost!

The Invisible Man Returns (1940)

For this year's Countdown to Halloween, it's all-Universal Monsters, all-the-time, from Dracula (1931) to The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).  Join me daily for a fresh perspective on movies you may not have watched in a long time, if ever.  Today, a sequel that I might like more than the original... The Invisible Man Returns!

The Universal sequel The Invisible Man Returns (1940) was made seven years after The Invisible Man, but takes place nine years after the events of its story, with Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton) continuing his brother's experiments in invisibility.  Here, though, he's doing it for the specific purpose of helping his friend, Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) escape from prison so he can find the perpetrator of the crime for which he was falsely convicted.

That's already more story than The Invisible Man.  While the style and direction of an end-of-his-career Joe May may not match that of James Whale, I think the screenplay by Lester Cole and Curt Siodmak is better than the one by R.C. Sherriff.  That's perhaps because of the dynamic of an additional villain who is not necessarily Radcliffe, even though there's the ticking time bomb of him being driven crazy unless Griffin can create an antidote.

Radcliffe's love interest, Helen Manson (Nan Grey), is also a larger part of the story than her counterpart in the previous movie.  She's involved in the escape and helps hide Radcliffe when he's on the run.  His potential descent into madness carries more emotional weight because she is present to witness it instead of hanging around at home fretting about him.  The typical Universal triangle in which she's involved is also more effective because it's less overt and more sinister.

The fact that Radcliffe is not already a giggling maniac when the movie begins helps us relate to him better than to Griffin in the first movie.  He knows what's going to happen and sadly asks, "How long do you think I have before I go mad?"  Well, less than 81 minutes, because before too long he's declaring that the nation will tremble before him and wanting Helen to drink to his invincible power.

When he goes on his inevitable rampage, it's more focused.  Having identified the real killer, Radcliffe targets him directly with his deadly pranks and revenge.  In its file on the original Invisible Man, Scotland Yard must have found some clues for dealing with him, because they have become quite clever when tracking him.  This results in some interesting special effects when a not-quite-invisible Radcliffe can be seen in smoke and rain.

The Invisible Man Returns has something big going for it: Vincent Price.  This was only his fifth movie and, unless you count his voice performance in a later movie, his only Universal Monsters horror film.  Of course, we don't really see him until the end, but I sometimes forgot it was he who was playing the title role.  Early in his career, his voice was deeper and not as familiar as it became in his later run of features.

There's a glimpse of the icon Price will become at the very end of The Invisible Man Returns.  Turning visible as the antidote is cleverly and inadvertently discovered, he awakens with a look of despair on his face, then relaxes into a smile when he sees his arm… I mean, actually sees it.  With a sparkle in his eye, the young actor is already terrific.  And he gives the movie something else missing from the original: a happy ending.

Tomorrow: The Mummy's Hand!