Customer Reviews

Invisible Woman [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With so many Invisible Man films in Universal's stable, I'm glad they played this one for laughs. I really don't remember seeing this one when I was growing up but, it is well worth seeing for fans of Universal Monsters. The cast is very good and the FX are more than fair for the time. This is available on DVD as part of the Invisible Man Legacy Collection along with 4 other great films that deal with invisiblity. The DVD transfers are very good and there are some very interesting extras. Look for Shemp Howard from the Three Stooges as one of the henchmen.

(Comedy/Science Fiction, 1 hr 12 min, Black & White)

DIRECTOR: A. Edward Sutherland

CAST: Virginia Bruce (As: Kitty Carroll), John Barrymore (As: Professor Gibbs), Charles Ruggles, Maria Montez (As: Marie)

COMMENTS: In the continuation of Universal's "Invisible" series, Barrymore stars as a crazy professor who discovers the secret of invisibility.

Bruce plays the model who becomes the subject of his scientific experiment and soon finds herself transparent. She gets involved with a wacky group of bandits who try to steal the machine for their own illegal use.

Bruce sets out on her own, with attempts at romance with John Howard, the man who financed the invention, and at evening the score with her former employer. The typical "invisible" special effects are employed, though this time with a little more humor. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Special Effects.

Maria Montez appears in a scene between a group of models, she only said one line.

In a wonderful twist to the serial movies "Invisible man" series we have a female heroine, way ahead of its time and a real treat. You can watch all the "Invisible" movies on a Sunday afternoon one after the other and its quite a show. Don't forget the popcorn!

that's how I would sum up the delightful movie entitled "The Invisible Woman". John Barrymore plays a "nutty professor" who has invented a machine that makes people invisible. His volunteer (Virginia Bruce) is a fashion model. Her boss, who needs a lesson in kindliness, is played by Charles Lane (a familiar face in many movies and TV). The plot thickens when a group of criminals find out about the machine and decide that being invisible would be just the thing to aid in their "profession". This merry escapade winds up with a clever surprise ending. It holds fun in store for all classic comedy buffs.

The Invisible Woman, 1940 film

The film begins in a big mansion where a servant answers the door. Playboy Richard Russell is told he is finally broke. A professor keeps asking for money for his invention, and advertises for a test subject. One woman volunteers. We see her life and working conditions. She is a live model at a dress store ($16.50 a week). Kitty Caroll shows up at Professor Gibbs' house and gets an injection before being treated by a machine. The experiment works! But she then disappears through an open window. Miss Caroll is gone. Growley gets an unexpected visitor! Three tough guys visit the `Daily Record' to learn who placed the ad. Gibbs calls Richard to tell him the invention works. We see special effects from the Invisible Woman in the fishing lodge. Flying cats!

Of course there are complications with an invisible woman (from other people's attitudes). The three tough guys break into Gibbs' laboratory to steal his invention. Kitty wants an aspirin. The brandy keeps her invisible, they must return to the laboratory to reverse the effects. But Gibbs' equipment is gone! This machine won't work without the injection of a special formula. Kitty makes herself invisible and knocks out the gangsters. So there is a happy ending for Kitty and Richard, and their baby. Just don't use rubbing alcohol on the child. "Heredity."

You know when a horror series is over when they make a comedy out of the subject. The background to this story tells about the life and culture of that time (as seen by Hollywood).

It's nothing like "The Invisible Man"- this is purely for laughs, and there are plenty! The dunder-headed "bad guys" practically steal the show with their blunders- I say "practically" because that honor goes to George the butler, one of my favorite comedic actors, Charlie Ruggles. My favorite scene is the one in the hunting lodge where the professor is trying to keep him from realizing that the invisible woman is right there and that she is the one pouring and drinking and choking on the brandy!
Another comment about the bad guys- this feature of the movie reminded me of a favorite book from 1959, THE PINK MOTEL by Carol Ryrie Brink, technically a children's book but also very enjoyable for lighthearted adults! I noticed that at least one other movie reviewer said INVISIBLE WOMAN was a children's movie, but I strongly disagree. It's just plain funny! Someone wisely said that we don't cease to laugh because we grow old- we grow old because we cease to laugh. Vive la joie de vivre!
(Disclaimer- I don't claim to know French and claim no responsibility for incorrect spelling or grammar contained above, LOL!)

What a strong cast for such a silly and stupid (but still decent) movie! Classic movie fans know these names: John Barrymore, Virginia Bruce, John Howard, Charles Ruggles, Oscar Homolka, Shemp Howard, Edward Brophy and Margaret Hamilton.

Ruggles almost steals the show as the butler. He provides most of the humor in a real slapstick manner. As in a lot of these old comedies, some of this stuff is really corny but I did laugh out loud at a couple things.

Bruce and John Howard are attractive leads and Barrymore is effective as the typically-portrayed-in-classic films eccentric scientist. It was also fun to see Shemp Howard, of Three Stooges fame, play a gangster, although a Stooge-like goofy one.

The special effects were good in their day but not now. In fact, the DVD is sharp enough that you can see the outline of Bruce's head when she's supposed to be invisible! However, you can't see it on this tape so this is one of those rare cases where you might be better off with the VHS than the DVD (which is part of an "Invisible Man" multi-disc set).

The Invisible Woman is one hour and twelve minutes long and was released on December 27, 1940. This is the second movie in The Invisible Man series and Virginia Bruce plays the Invisible Woman. The Invisible Woman is not your typical Universal horror movie. The movie was written for laughs only, so there is nothing to be scared about. Though they did a good job of trying to make Virginia Bruce look invisible; you can see that they had some trouble. In one scene, you can see her shadow on the wall. Though I was not in stitches, I did have a few laughs. So, I recommend and go ahead a buy the movie.

In a big departure from the other Universal Studios "Invisible" movies "The Invisible Woman", is played strictly for light hearted laughs and not intended to be taken too seriously. The film benefits however from some good comic writing and jokes that are laced with reasonably daring sexual inuendos for 1940. Of course with a film based around people being turned invisible one can expect the use of a certain amount of special effects and usually in such "B", efforts as this you might expect them to be fairly second rate. However even for the early 40's those created for the various invisible sequences in "The Invisible Woman", are first rate and on top of being quite impressive in their own right also greatly aid the comedy in the script. The film boasts a surprisingly illustrious cast for such an effort and the likes of the legendary John Barrymore playing a crazy madcap scientist, Margaret Hamilton fresh from her triumph as the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz", and Charles Ruggles at his most exaggerated best all greatly enhance the entertainment level of this rather trite story. As the invisible woman of the title Virginia Bruce makes an enjoyable female lead and her breezy delivery both when she is visible and when only her voice is heard is most pleasing.

As the story opens we see playboy Richard Russell being sued by yet another ex girlfriend which leaves him penniless. One of the "charitable cases", living off his formerly rich bounty is eccentric scientist Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore), who is what you would call the original crazy mad scientist. He labours away in his lab on one mad cap scheme after another until he stumbles on the process by which he can make people invisible. Desperate to try it out on a human being Prof. Gibbs decides to advertise for volunteer. Meanwhile we are introduced to model Kitty Carroll who works in a fashion house run by the tyrannical Mr Growley (Charles Lane). Sick of his harrassment of all the models Kitty decides to answer the ad asking for someone to become invisible. Her plan is then to return to the fashion house and scare the daylights out of her bossy employer. After she meets up with the professor and with the use of his brilliant machine Kitty turns invisible and then escapes from the professor's lab and proceeds to wreak well deserved havoc at Mr Growleys establishment. However all is not plain sailing for the Professor as gangster Blackie Cole (Oskar Homolka),a wanted man, hears of his dramatic breakthrough in making people invisible and decides that with the aid of his henchmen he will steal the device so he can return to his mother country. His "boys", including "Foghorn" (Donald MacBride), and "Hammerhead" (Shemp Howard), break into the lab and steal the device however a vital part is missing which means they must kidnap the Professor as well. After many comic highjinks which sorely try the sanity of worry wart George (Charles Ruggles) the Russell family butler, Kitty by once again going invisible manages to beat the crooks at their own game with some amusing distortions of the gangsters voices thrown in for good measure. All ends happily with former antagonists Kitty and Richard happily married with a young child which suddenly begins to turn invisible much to Prof. Gibbs' delight as he rejoices "Goodness, it must be hereditory"!!

While certainly no masterpiece "The Invisible Woman",is no where near as mediocre as one would first think. It is most pleasing to see John Barrymore with only one more role left in his brilliant film career after "The Invisible Woman", finish with such a comical and delightfully scatty type of character to play. The roles craziness even has shades of the frantically funny performance he gave in the classic comedy "Midnight", in 1939. His supremely funny facial reactions to situations and especially his reactions to when Kitty goes invisible and removes her clothing so as not to be seen are priceless and you can see Barrymore is having a ball sending up to the hilt every other eccentric mad scientist that have appeared in movies. As stated Virginia Bruce, generally a "B", movie actress does well in the lead and excels with her sprightly and funny line delivery in particular when she is invisible. Supporting performances are certainly higher than would usually be expected in this type of film. Charles Ruggles had the "double take", reaction he was justly famous for down to perfection by the time of this effort and his continual threats to quit his job in this story are highly amusing. The gangsters are all an amusingly incompetent lot and its interesting to see Shemp Howard minus his "Three Stooges", brothers in this effort. The special effects were rightly nominated for the Academy Award in 1940 and the image of an invisible Kitty taking a dress off or smoking a cigarette while pouring drinks are certainly one of the main achievements in this story. The invisible scenes are smoothly executed and look highly professional and it even seems that Universal have taken a few more risks with their special effects here than they had done in their earlier classic effort "The Invisible Man", with Claude Rains.

A "guilty pleasure",? Perhaps, but one that I enjoy for 80 minutes of good natured harmless fun. John Barrymore even here when he was not far off his sad death still works wonders with his material and reveals what a brilliant actor he always was in both comedy and drama. The production has a delighfully innocent air about it which makes the sexual puns sprinkled throughout the script all the more funny. With its superb collection of supporting players "The Invisible Woman", is a far better effort than it is normally credited as being. Appreciating its solid special effects I recommend a viewing of this second installment in Universal Studios "Invisible", series. Its definately good for a number of hearty chuckles.

I just enjoyed this movie.I know "The Invisible Man" was meant to be frighting.But "The Invisible Woman" is just a lighthearted film with a good cast,and still great special effects that still holds up to this day.This movie is a great one to revive,I hope they do it soon.Till then,the 1941 "Invisible Woman" will do.