Horror Countdown 2015: The Invisble Woman (1940)

The Invisible Woman (1940), dir. A. Edward Sutherland, Universal Pictures

This may have been the first sign of Universal's slow descent into camp. While the Universal Monsters were enjoying a second wind, the Invisible Man series was brought back with the Invisible Man's Return and this in the same year.

We open with Kitty Carroll (Virgina Bruce). She's a type of model, in that she is hired by a department store to walk around at lunch time in one of their gowns. She's also late to work, yelled at by her penny pinching boss (Charles Lane) and is about as down in the dumps as a person can be before she notices an ad in the paper promising a large payoff with minimal work.

The ad is the last ditch effort by screwball scientist Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore). His patron, destitute playboy Richard Russell (John Howard) is no longer able to support his research. Gibbs has what he thinks is a breakthrough though but he needs a test subject. He's a bit put off when Kitty shows up...as his research will involve her being nude for a brief period.

Before anyone gets their hopes up, the experiment is invisibility. It works too, although Kitty decides she'd rather get some revenge in first (mostly by terrorizing her former workplace with some headless ghost cosplay and smacking her boss around).

While Gibbs is showing off Kitty to Russell, expatriate gangster Blackie (Oscar Homolka) learns of the machine and figures it's the best way to get back into the US of A. Sending his thugs, including one played by Shemp Howard, to get the machine but has no idea how to work it. Kidnapping Kitty and Gibbs, the showdown is mostly a slapstick affair.

I suppose this was considered shocking at the time, as the implication of Kitty walking around the big city starkers would be, but the humor can be rough to get through. There is more mugging here than in Central Park circa 1976. Barrymore works it like a trooper though, puffing his cheeks and flaying his hands about as if he just stepped on a live wire in every scene. The special effects are still the same, although it is noticeable that Kitty spends most of this film covered head to toe even when she's invisible.