Invisible Man Chiller Theater Double Feature!

Here are reviews of a pair of films that are perfect Halloween viewing, since they feature liberal mixes of humor and horror. They're also classics that star horror movie legends!

The Invisible Man (1933)
Starring: Claude Rains, William Harrigan, Una O'Connor, Gloria Stuart, Forrester Harvey and Henry Travers
Director: James Whale
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Chemist Frank Griffin (Rains) develops a formula that turned him invisible. He goes on a homicidal rampage in rural Britain after it also drives him insane.
 

"The Invisible Man" is another true classic from the formative years of the horror genre. It's quite possibly the first horror comedy and it's black humor holds up nicely even today--arrogant scientists, simple country bumpkins and incompetent cops never go out of style!

The film's special effects also hold up surprisingly well, with simple techniques employed here that were used over and over until CGI came fully into its own but rarely used as well as they were here. (Yes, there are a few places where one can see the matting, but the "invisible action" here is depicted better than it is in many films made with much more sophisticated special effects technology.)

And finally, the film has a literate, finely honed script with loads of tension that effectively translates the mood of H.G. Wells' original novel to the screen. The characters seem well-rounded and believable, and this, even more than the special effects, make the movie such a pleasure to watch even now. The film even manages to capture the point about loss of identity resulting in loss of connection with the world around you and ultimately insanity (even if the movie attributes Griffin's madness first and foremost to the chemical concoction he's created).

Lovers of classy horror and sci-fi films owe it to themselves to check this one out. The same is true if you have an appreciation for dark comedies.

 


The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Starring: Vincent Price, Cedric Hardwicke, Nan Grey, Cecil Kellaway, John Sutton and Alan Napier
Director: Joe May
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A wrongly convicted man (Price) uses an invisibility serum to escape execution and find the murderer who framed him. But, even with the help of his loving fiance (Grey) and his loyal best friend (Sutton), can he track the killer before he is driven mad by the substance that renders him invisible?
 

"The Return of the Invisible Man" is a well-conceived sequel. It's got significant ties to the original, retains some of the same basic themes, but presents a completely different and unique story. Too often, sequels either shoehorn connections to the film into the story in an artificial manner or have so little to do with the original that one wonders why a connection was even drawn (well, aside from naked greedy attempts to ride on the coat-tails of another film's success).

A well-scripted mystery is added to the invisible man shenanigans... and although it's a bit slow in getting started, it is a gripping tale once it gets going. The mystery isn't terribly hard to solve for those who like playing along--there really is only one suspect and the film never launches any serious attempt to divert the audience's attention from that villain. However, plenty of suspense arises from watching the invisible man start to lose his mind even as he identifies his prey.

The great cast of the film is also to be credited with its success. Most noteworthy among the actors are Vincent Price lends his distinctive voice to the film's unseen protagonist, and Cecil Kellaway who appears in a rare dramatic role as the inscrutable Inspector Sampson of Scotland Yard.

The only complaint I have with the film are the invisibility effects. Whether due to a lack of budget or creativity on the part of the director and special effects crew, there is nothing here as impressive as the cinematic tricks used to sell the presence of an invisible character on screen as was found in the original "Invisible Man" nor in the "Invisible Woman", a comedy dating from the same year yet featuring far more impressive effects. (Nothing in "The Invisible Man Returns" comes close to the bicycle stunt in "The Invisible Man" or the stockings scene in "The Invisible Woman".)

However, the solid story and excellent cast make up for the shortcomings in the special effects department.

Lucille Ball is the lure for a serial killer

Lured (aka "Personal Column") (1947)
Starring: Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn, George Sanders, George Zucco, Cedric Hardwicke, and Boris Karloff
Director: Douglas Sirk
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Scotland Yard's Inspector Temple (Coburn) hires sharp-eyed, sharp-witted, and sharp-tongued down-and-out American actress Sandra Carpenter (Ball) to serve as a lure for a serial killer who has been prowling through London's shadows, murdering young women he contacts through personal ads. With her Scotland Yard "guardian angel" Barrett (Zucco) watching over her, she undertakes the dangerous task of drawing out the insane killer.



"Lured" is a well-done, light-touch police procedural thriller (with touches of romance and melodrama along the way) that features an all-star cast of 1940s B-movie actors (and a respected stage actor thrown in for good measure), all of whom deliver great performances.

The dialogue is snappy, the tense moments geniuinely tense, the funny moments genuinely funny, and the many red herrings tasty. Boris Karloff's character serves as the oddest and funniest fish of them all--and it's not a spoiler to say that he isn't the serial killer. Yes, it's the sort of part he often plays, but not here, and it will be obvious to viewers almost immediately.

I think this is a film that will be enjoyed by anyone who likes classic mystery movies. I also think that fans of Lucille Ball will enjoy seeing her in her pre-screwball comedy days. (Speaking of comedy, George Zucco's scenes with Ball are always amusing, as Sandra repeatedly inadvertantly helps Barrett solve the crossword puzzles he's constantly working on with stray comments.)

The Invisible Man takes on the Nazis!

It's 65 years since Nazi Germany was broken and tossed on the scrapheap of history. I'm marking that great acheivement with a mini-blogathon.

Invisible Agent (1942)
Starring: Jon Hall, Cedric Hardwicke, Ilona Massey, Peter Lorre, and J. Edward Bomberg
Director: Edwin L.Marin
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

After he is threatened by Axis agents, Frank (Hall) decides to put the invisibility formula invented by his grandfather to use in the War Effort. He parachutes into Germany, teams up with a beautiful allied spy (Massey) and sets about destroying the organizers of a Fifth Column operation in the United States (Hardwicke and Lorre).


"Invisible Agent" is the second real sequel to "The Invisible Man". It's also an average WW2 propaganda film that shows the the Axis to be as foolish, evil and treacherous as can be imagined, while the Allies are brilliant and right-minded. Sort of.

While the Nazis are as nefarious as possible--decietful, backstabbing Hitler-worshipping sycophantic cowards every last one of them--our hero is also a bit hard to root for. Frank, as the invisible super-spy, is either dumb as a post or the invisibility forumula has a different effect on him than it had on those how used it in "The Invisible Man" and "The Invisible Man Returns". Instead of turning into the sort of megalomaniac who would try to get to Hitler and replace him as the leader of the Riech (which Griffin from the original film would almost certainly have done), Frank instead plays pranks on the Nazis at inopportune times--endangering both himself and deep-cover double-agent Massey--and falls into deep, coma-like sleeps at even worse times. Is it the invisibility formula at work, is Frank a moron, or is it just bad writing? Whatever the explanation, the Invisible Agent isn't much of a hero to root for... unless you're a 13 year old (who are probably the target audience for the film).

The target audience might also be the reason why it feels like a couple of punches were being pulled in this movie. While the Nazis are definately decadent scum in this movie, their evil doesn't even come close to approaching that displayed in indepdent productions from the time like "Hitler, Dead or Alive" or "Beast of Berlin", films that share many thematic and propaganda-content elements to this movie. Either, the fantastic elements of an invisible spy led Universal to choose to target it at a younger audience--and thus toned down some of the more unpleasant aspects of the Nazis--or maybe the very fact that Universal was a major film studio and corporation with international interests even in the 1940s and the two other films I mentioned were made by small operations limited the studio's desire to make a film that savaged the Axis as fully as it deserved.

The film is fun enough and the invisible man effects are decent--as is the idea that the invisible man here chooses to make himself visible using cold cream and a towel draped over his head instead of somehow finding yards worth of bandages everywhere he goes. The actors also give good performances, with only Peter Lorre failing to convince; he plays a Japanese intelligence agent and he is about as unconvincing as I would be if cast in the part of a Somali pirate captain. I can only imagine how bad the "Mr. Moto" films must be....

The Out-of-Character Karloff

Welcome to the Boris Karloff Blogathon, a week-long celebration that spans over 100 blogs. To experience its full scope, click here.

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Ask me to name three stars of black-and-white movies, and the first names that come to my mind are Katherine Hepburn, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. I will eventually be posting reviews of Hepburn films, but I had not intended to write about Karloff or Lugosi in this forum as I have already covered their work in The Boris Karloff Collection, The Bela Lugosi Collection, and The Universal Horror Archive.

[UPDATE (July 2010): Since writing that paragraph, most of the posts from the Lugosi and Karloff blogs have been replicated in "Shades of Gray," for ease of reference.]


However, the Franksteinia blog is serving as a hub this week for the Boris Karloff Blogathon, an event that is proving to be a fabulous source of views and reviews on one of the horror genres greatest figures. I wanted to call attention to the blogathon (in case anyone out there is checking out these posts)... and that, in turn, inspired me to take the opportunity to highlight some films where Boris Karloff is playing very different characters than he is famous for.

To any fan of classic movies and to most Americans over 45, the name "Boris Karloff" evokes images of monsters, creepy bad guys, and shadowy, fog-draped cemeteries. However, Karloff's career spanned many genres and while he admittedly mostly played creepy bad guys, he did occassionally break from that character. Here are three examples of such roles--three films I think everyone who has ever admired Karloff should see. They are "Night Key" (Universal, 1937), where Karloff plays a grandfatherly inventor whose momentary desire for revenge gets him caught up in the schemes of a bunch of gangsters; "Mr. Wong, Detective" (Monogram, 1938), where he takes a turn as a mild-mannered Chinese-American private investigator; and "Lured," ("Hunt Stromberg, 1947) where he plays a part like one he wouldn't play again until he dressed in drag on an episode of "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E."



Night Key (1937)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Hobart Cavanaugh, Jean Rogers, Warren Hull, Samuel S. Hinds, Alan Baxter and Ward Bond
Director: Lloyd Corrigan
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

After being cheated out his latest security system by his former business partner, Steve Ranger (Hinds), inventor and security expert Dave Mallory (Karloff) sets out to gain revenge and force the crooked business man to change the deal to a fair one. Together with a petty thief (Cavanaugh), Mallory sets about using another invention--the Night Key--to override the alarm system he created and cause harmless mischief in places protected by it. But, before Mallory manages to embarrass Ranger into submission, a ruthless gangster (Baxter) learn of his device and forces him to assist them in a major heist.


"Night Key" is a fun, fast-paced 1930s techno-thriller--it's like a "Firewall" or "Mission Impossible II" of its day, only with humor replacing the violence and a script written by someone who actually knew how to write and properly develop characters in a very short space. Of course, it also helps that the film features a fabulous cast, with everyone being perfect in their parts and everyone giving top-of-the-line performances.

Boris Karloff is particularly fun in this film, as he plays a character of a sort that he hardly ever got to play: A fundamentally nice person who is as kindhearted as Karloff reportedly was in real life. (Although one assumes that Karloff was not as naive and scatterbrained as the grandfatherly Dave Mallory is.)

Thanks to good direction and even better acting, the film provides many moments of touching comedy (such as the scene where Mallory and his criminal associate have fun opening every umbrella in an umbrella store) and intense excitement (such as when Mallory devises a way to escape the clutches of the gangsters who have kidnapped him and are holding his daughter for ransom). Everything in the film works perfectly, except for a rather pointless romance between Mallory's daughter and a security guard. However, this is such a minor part of the overall movie that it hardly has an impact.



Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, John St. Polis, Maxine Jennings, Lucien Prival and Evelyn Brent
Director: William Nigh
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When a powerful captain of industry is found dead inside his locked office moments after police detective Sam Street (Withers) saw him standing at the window, renowned private James Lee Wong (Karloff) joins forces with the homicide squad to interpret the only clues found at the scene--tiny fragments of delicate glass. When Dayton's business partners start dying under equally mysterious circumstances, and sinister agents of foreign powers start appearing in the shadows, Wong and Street have to race against time to prevent more murders, including, possibly, their own.

"Mr. Wong, Detective" is a fast-paced, well-scripted, complex mystery with lots of twists, turns, and misdirections. The array of suspects and the way suspicion moves on and off them, the way motives come into focus and blur again, the clever way the murder weapon is triggered, and the way Wong ultimately unmasks the very clever murderer, all add up to a mystery movie that deserves more attention than it gets.


Another element that adds to the film's quality is the acting. Boris Karloff is excellent as Wong, playing a more subdued and refined character than in just about any other role he played before or after, with the way Wong sarcastically offers stereotypical "Oriental humbleness" to the face of the bad guys adding flavor to the character and comedy to the film. Grant Withers as Street is likewise excellent in his part, shining particularly brightly in the scenes with Maxine Jennings, who brings effective comic relief to the picture as his feisty girlfriend, Myra. The supporting cast and co-stars also all turn in top-quality performances.

"Mr. Wong, Detective" is a film well worth the time a fan of 1930s mysteries should devote to watching it.



Lured (aka "Personal Column") (1947)
Starring: Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn, George Sanders, George Zucco, Cedrick Hardwicke, and Boris Karloff
Director: Douglas Sirk
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Scotland Yard's Inspector Temple (Coburn) hires sharp-eyed, sharp-witted, and sharp-tongued down-and-out American actress Sandra Carpenter (Ball) to serve as a lure for a serial killer who has been prowling through London's shadows, murdering young women he contacts through personal ads. With her Scotland Yard "guardian angel" Barrett (Zucco) watching over her, she undertakes the dangerous task of drawing out the insane killer.



"Lured" is a well-done, light-touch police procedural thriller (with touches of romance and melodrama along the way) that features an all-star cast of 1940s B-movie actors (and a respected stage actor thrown in for good measure), all of whom deliver great performances.

The dialogue is snappy, the tense moments genuinely tense, the funny moments genuinely funny, and the many red herrings tasty. Boris Karloff's character serves as the oddest and funniest fish of them all--and it's not a spoiler to say that he isn't the serial killer. Yes, it's the sort of part he often plays, but not here, and it will be obvious to viewers almost immediately. (Some might say he's WORSE than a serial killer here... he plays an eccentric fashion designer!)

I think this is a film that will be enjoyed by anyone who likes classic mystery movies. I also think that fans of Lucille Ball will enjoy seeing her in her pre-screwball comedy days. (Speaking of comedy, George Zucco's scenes with Ball are always amusing, as Sandra repeatedly inadvertently helps Barrett solve the crossword puzzles he's constantly working on with stray comments.)

'The Ghoul' is an obscure Karloff classic

The Ghoul (1933)
Starring: Boris Karloff, Dorothy Hyson, Anthony Bushell, Ernest Thesiger, Cedric Hardwicke, Kathleen Harrison, Harold Hugh and Ralph Richardson
Director: T. Hayes Hunter
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

An eccentric Egyptologist, Professor Morlent (Karloff), insists that he is buried with the ancient artifact he spent his fortune on acquiring, in an Egyptian-style tomb on his estate so that Anubis may come and bring him to eternity in the afterlife. He vows to return from the grave and kill anyone who doesn't follow his wishes or who steals from him tomb. Naturally, his manservant (Thesiger) keeps the priceless artifact. Naturally, Morlent emerges from his tomb to punish the thief, and anyone else he happens across, on the very night his young cousins (Bushell and Hyson) are meeting in the main house with a solicitor (Hardwicke) about their inheritance.


"The Ghoul" is a rarely seen early horror talkie that features a fast-moving, finely tuned script, an appealing and talented cast, a number of truly unnerving scenes, but also manages to deliver comic relief that will still be funny to modern audiences.

While Boris Karloff receives top billing--and gives an excellent performance as a fanatic neo-worshipper of the Egyptian pantheon returned from the grave and now rushing about strangling people in best mummy fashion--the real stars of the film are actually Dorothy Hyson and Anthony Bushell. They protray a pair of distant relatives who start the film disliking each other due to an old family feude but who eventually bury the hatchet. Hyson is very attractive and a good actress and Bushell manages to transform a character who is an unsympathetic jerk at the beginning of the film into a likable hero figure by the end.

Another remarkable performance is given by the film's comic relief, which are made up of a Lucy Arnez/Carol Burnett-type character played by Kathleen Harrison, and a mysterious Egyptian played by Harold Hugh. The Egyptian is actually the films main heavy (aside from the monstrous Dr. Morlent), but he becomes drawn into the comic relief when he becomes th object of fantasy of a woman whose read too many romance novels and seen too many silent movies about the dashing beduine princes of Arabia and their white stallions, abducted maidens, and vast harems.

Often in these old movies, the comic aspects have not stood the passage of time, but that is not the case here. The genre being lampooned may have fallen out of favor, but the basic situation remains funny and the bubble-headed woman who lives vicariously through trashy romance novels remains a constant through the ages. The action is funny, the characters are funny, and the jokes are hilarious.

The only midly annoying thing about the film is the Scooby-Doo like ending where everything with an apparent supernatural cause is explained away either by some weird circumstance or by someone wearing a cleaver disguise and using elaborate tricks. However, the ending is very dramatic--with the climax reaching its thrilling heights with our young heroic couple on the verge of being burned alive and the comic relief character about to shot by the villains--and so action-packed that you will hardly notice the "oh, there was never any spooky Egyptian gods and curses going on here" line when it's delivered.

"The Ghoul" is a great film from the formative days of the horror genre. It's both an example of the "dark old house" mystery movies that gave way to it, as well as a clear evolutionary step toward what we think of as horror movies today. It's definately worth seeing by anyone who enjoys films from that time. Even better, the DVD release was made from such a prestine print that you'll be watching the film looking almost like it did when audiences sat shivering in their seats in 1933.