THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (1940)

Playboy John Howard has just paid out $100,000 to settle yet another breach of promise lawsuit and has to break it to eccentric scientist John Barrymore that he can no longer finance Barrymore's projects, the latest of which involves making living beings invisible. But Barrymore has already placed an ad in the newspaper looking for a willing subject for his experiment. Virginia Bruce, a dress model, applies, thinking of it as a fun adventure. Her boss (Charles Lane) is a despicable bully and she plans on getting revenge against him while invisible. The experiment is a success and the invisible (and naked) Bruce goes to the office and literally kicks Lane's ass until he promises to be a better boss. Meanwhile, wanted gangster Oscar Homolka, in hiding in a Mexican border town, gets wind of the device and sends his thugs to steal it so he can turn invisible and return home. Barrymore takes Bruce to Howard's hunting lodge to prove his machine works. After some visible and invisible flirtation, the two fall for each other, and when Bruce gets a little drunk, Barrymore soon discovers that ingesting alcohol makes the invisibility last longer than it should. When the crooks get hold of the machine, slapstick scenes ensue until the machine is recovered and Howard decides to abandon his playboy ways and settle down with Bruce.

I first saw this on TV when I was a young horror movie fan and I was very disappointed to find that, despite being considered a sequel to the Universal horror classic The Invisible Man, it's not horror at all, but a kind of sci-fi screwball comedy. Watching it as an adult, I actually found the whole thing fairly delightful. The titillation factor (considering the era in which it was made) is high; much is made of Bruce being naked for most of the film, though of course we never actually see any skin because, well, she's invisible. Instead, there are several scenes of her getting dressed or undressed in addition to the various special effects, similar to the ones used in the 1933 original and its first sequel. The cast is pretty much B-level, but they're more than up to the task of giving fizzy performances. Bruce, one of my favorite B-actresses, is very good (and very attractive) in the title role; Howard is fine, Lane is nicely mean until he reforms, and Edward Brophy and Donald McBride are in good form as Homolka's bumbling goons. Barrymore, who had fallen on hard times due to his drinking, still manages to give a solid comic performance, and actually has more screen time with Bruce than Howard does. However, the most fun comes from Charlie Ruggles as Howard's butler who doesn't have a lot to do but is present for much of the film and always drily funny. Margaret Hamilton (pictured with Barrymore) has a small role as does Mary Gordon who was Sherlock Holmes’ landlady in the Basil Rathbone movies. Things bog down a bit in the middle at the lodge, but overall, at 72 minutes, the pace is about right. [Blu-ray]