The Invisible Woman
Rating: 3.5/5
By: Nathaniel Simpson
Claude Rains and Vincent Price made the character of the Invisible Man so iconic, crafting these characters that go mad after taking the drugs to make them invisible to everyone around them. With the third film in this world-building franchise, they decide to take the more comedic approach, similar to "The Mummy's Hand" that came out the same year as A. Edward Sutherland's "The Invisible Woman". The difference between the two is that Sutherland's film is not only a lot more fun than the Mummy sequel, but it offers up a wickedly fun and smart story that keeps the viewer hooked from beginning to end.
This film departs from the story of the Griffin family that the first two films concerned themselves with, and decides to tell the story of inventor Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore), a curious old man who is creating a machine to turn someone invisible. When wealthy lawyer Richard Russell (John Howard), who has some problems of his own, decides to finance Gibbs' work, he thinks he finally has a chance to test his machine and see if his hard work has all paid off. When he puts out an ad for his machine to find a test subject who would be willing to turn themselves invisible, he doesn't expect a female participant to show up.
This female is Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce), a department store model who has been fired from her old job by her sadistic boss (Charles Lane). When the test proves successful and Kitty is now invisible, she uses her newfound invisibility to terrorize her old boss. However, what they don't expect is for them to be pursued by a mob boss (Oskar Homolka) who wants Gibbs' machine all to himself.
I compared this film to Christy Cabanne's "The Mummy's Hand" in the sense that both took the comedic approach, but "The Invisible Woman" does comedy and tone much better than the other film that was released the same year. Cabanne's film took too long to set up the story where the mummy comes in, and it simply was boring and drawn-out until the mummy made his appearance. This film, on the other hand, is smart and witty, providing great characters and enjoyable scenarios that help keep the audience entertained. At the same time, the film moves quite quickly, and gets to the part where Kitty becomes invisible quite quickly. From there, the typical madness and mayhem you would expect from a movie in this series ensues, and, in the case of this film, it is hilariously entertaining at times. While this movie is leagues away from the genius and absurdness of the first two pictures, it still works on almost every level and does what it needs to to succeed as a monster flick.
The only thing about this comedic way of telling this story is it doesn't fit into the sheer terror of having someone invisible pursue you. In the first two films, Rains and Price are excellent in playing this character that is genuinely terrifying at times when he pursues his prey, waiting for the right moment to strike. In this picture, Bruce does her best to be creepy and have her maniacal laugh send shivers down the spines of the viewer, but it simply doesn't work as well as the first two. This one takes the more comedic approach (which does work in its own right), but there are parts where I wish they leaned more heavily into the horror aspect.
However, I think most of the actors here are really fun and enjoyable in their roles, and each of them have great chemistry with one another throughout. They spend the movie riffing off each other and bouncing witty comments back and forth, and it all works so good in a comedic sense. Unlike Cabanne's film, the comedy works in a way that doesn't make the film run so slowly or make the audience feel the runtime. The viewer would be able to welcome this comedic approach and enjoy what Sutherland is doing with these characters and this story. The Invisible Man character and sort of world he is in benefited greatly from having an absurdly fun story, and that's the reason it works so well.
What would you expect from a sort of rom-com, goofball comedy that was spun off from a horror franchise? I would have honestly expected it to fair magnificently, but Sutherland does an excellent job of taking care of the story and his characters that it all works so spectacularly in the confines of the film. Sure, I would have loved for there to be more terror and send shivers down my spine in certain points, but for what Sutherland was going for as a whole, I think he does a wonderful job and demonstrates how the Invisible Man series hasn't produced a bad film up to this point.
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