I'm sure I saw The Invisible Man Returns (1940, directed by Joe May) when I was a kid, but I didn't remember much except some of the special effects gags, particularly the scene at the end when the Invisible Man is slowly returning to visibility and all you can see is a net of veins and arteries. I am not fond of the Universal horror movies of the 1940s so I am mildly surprised to be wrong about this film. While it may not be a masterpiece like its predecessor, it's a worthy successor. Its main innovation is a change of genre. This is not exactly a horror movie. Rather, it is a horror-adjacent crime story/whodunnit. It also has director Joe May, one of the titans of German cinema during the silent era who was reduced to helming B-movies for Universal after fleeing to Hollywood in 1933. His career was winding down at the time but he had a couple of fireworks displays left in him for 1940, including The Invisible Man Returns and The House of Seven Gables. Both star Vincent Price.
The plot of the film finds innocent man wrongly accused Geoffrey Radcliffe waiting for a pardon to get him off death row. When no pardon is forthcoming, his friend, the twitchy Dr. Frank Griffin, visits him in prison and gives him the drug for invisibility developed by his brother. This gives Geoffrey the opportunity to hunt for the man who actually committed the murder of his brother, but there's a clock on his investigation. Griffin's drug will eventually cause him to go insane, so he must find the murderer and hope Griffin can find an antidote before he loses his mind...
Vincent Price, for his part, is second-billed here after Sir Cedric Hardewicke, but anyone who sees the movie will recognize the injustice of that billing. This is Price's movie in the same way its predecessor belonged to Claude Rains. Neither actor shows their face until the very end, relying on their voices to give their characters life. Rains is a tough act to follow and I would be lying if I said that Price matches that performance, but he's good enough that they invited him back to play The Invisible Man at the end of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. Price was not yet a well-established actor at the time. This was his fourth film, and only his second horror movie after playing Clarence in Tower of London and getting drowned in a barrel of wine. Price would not become associated with the genre as one of its primary stars until the 1950s. His breakout roles in the 1940s were in film noir productions like Laura and Leave Her To Heaven. What you have here is a rare instance of Price as a heroic character, though one bent on revenge. I was on a podcast last year where the panel speculated about films in which Price gets the girl at the end; here's your example.
Price, as he was wont to do throughout his career, shamelessly steals the show.* His voice here is a much younger version of the Price we are used to in his later horror movies. It hasn't been seasoned by age and experience (and cigarettes) yet, and doesn't sound quite right. (Price sounds more himself eight years later at the end of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, for what it's worth). Price is aided by the fact that he is the biggest talent in the cast. His presence is thrown into stark relief by the other actors in the film, none of whom are at his level. And yet this film failed to launch Price into the horror pantheon, perhaps because he doesn't appear on screen for more than thirty seconds. The filmmakers might have used Price's actual screen time as a pretext to bill him second. Price would have to wait for the 1950s to become America's favorite boogeyman.
While I describe this as a horror-adjacent crime thriller, the mystery part of the film is its weakest element. There aren't enough characters to make figuring out whodunit a challenge and the actor playing the eventual villain might as well have a big neon arrow over him announcing "I did it" every time he's on film. But I'll be a sport. I'll not spoil this 85 year old movie. The film has other pleasures though. I'm taken with the scene where Radcliffe apologizes to a scarecrow as he steals its clothes. I am likewise taken with a shot of Radcliffe in a mirror in which you can see the back of his bandages inside his head even as it's obvious that the actor's face is really there (I know how this was done, but, goddamn, it's clever). John P. Fulton's special effects are, if anything, even more elaborate in this film. Where Claude Rains's version of the Invisible Man described some of the obstacles to invisibility--in particular appearing as a soap bubble if he goes out in the rain--are shown in this film. The means of combating an invisible man are elaborated upon, too, resulting in an agreeable chess match between Radcliffe and the forces of law and order who have armed themselves with fire extinguishers and smoke. One special effect that hasn't held up to the clarity of a contemporary blu-ray is the long sequence of Radcliffe holding a gun, in which the marionette strings controlling the prop are clearly visible. I doubt these were visible in the initial prints in 1940. Some of the effects in this film seem downright miraculous, given that this was made on a B-movie budget. Universal had already started to downgrade their horror productions after the very expensive Son of Frankenstein. They cut corners on their actors, or, perhaps, funneled them into The Wolf Man, which had great actors in almost every role.
The Invisible Woman (1940, directed by A. Edward Sutherland), the follow-up to The Invisible Man Returns, appeared later in 1940 with a story by Joe May and Curt Siodmak (who wrote Returns). It features Virginia Bruce as a model who answers an advertisement placed by mad scientist John Barrymore. This film switched genres again, and plays as a slightly risque screwball comedy. Many of the jokes revolve around the heroine being naked when she's invisible--you don't get the same kind of aggressively gendered jokes about the men being invisible in the other films of the series, but this is the least of this film's problems. Barrymore was in visible decline by this film and had to rely on notes disguised around the set to remember his lines. There's a noticeable effect on his performance. Virginia Bruce is appealing, but not much of an actress. She certainly didn't have the voice for the role--I'm imagining an actress with a voice like Joan Greenwood or Sally Kellerman in the part, which is perhaps unfair to this film. The Invisible Man in the 1933 film was the most lethal of the Universal monsters, with a body count that numbered in the hundreds. By the third film, the series had devolved into an inane sex comedy with the values of the production code behind it slotting its heroine into an ultimate role as a devoted wife and mother at the end. It's a sad comedown. The special effects are still good, but there's nothing to really wow the audience if they've seen its predecessors. Like many later Universal monster movies of the 1940s and beyond, this one is deservedly a footnote.
*Viewers interested in watching Price commit grand larceny on screen against his co-stars are directed to His Kind of Woman (1951, directed by John Farrow). Farrow allows Price--probably with the permission of his cast--to ride absolutely roughshod over the likes Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr, and Charles McGraw; none of them lightweights that could easily be bullied by a supporting actor. Price plays a ham actor, too, to rub salt into the wound.
Welcome once again to the October Horror Movie Challenge. I got started a little bit early this year, with The Invisible Woman representing the first film I watched in actual October. The Invisible Man Returns was a week prior. No harm, no foul. I'll take it into my accounting. This year's challenge is once again linked to my friend Dr. AC's annual Scare-a-thon. This year's beneficiary is International Rescue Committee, which helps mitigate humanitarian crises all over the world. The crisis in Gaza is currently foremost in their efforts. Donations at the link.
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