Cast:
Jon Hall (Robert Griffin / The Invisible Man), Leon Errol (Herbert Higgins), John Carradine (Dr. Peter Drury), Alan Curtis (Mark Foster), Evelyn Ankers (Julie Herrick), Gale Sondergaard (Lady Irene Herrick), Lester Matthews (Sir Jasper Herrick), Halliwell Hobbes (Cleghorn), Leyland Hodgson (Sir Frederick Travers), and Doris Lloyd (Maud) Produced and Directed by Ford Beebe.
Review:
You may or may not remember that The Invisible Man wasn't exactly the Universal favorite. It took seven years from the release of The Invisible Man (1933) to merit a follow-up and, well, they never appeared in one of the Universal crossover movies, so you got The Invisible Man Returns (1940). Instead, you got stuff like The Invisible Woman (1940), a comedy feature (starring Virginia Bruce) and Invisible Agent (1942), a spy movie that happened to have Jon Hall play the title character. With this movie, Hall became the only actor to play an Invisible Man in multiple movies. The movie was directed and produced by Ford Beebe, a grab-bag man of directing various genres for cheap, whether as the Western with Overland Bound (1929), the serial such as Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) or the adventure with Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949-1955). The movie was written by Bertram Millhauser, who had written for several mysteries such as four Sherlock Holmes movies. Previously, Beebe had directed a horror movie for Universal with Night Monster (1942). Universal did one other Invisible Man, albeit as a spoof, with Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951). There were movies abroad that cribbed from the H. G. Wells novel such as The Invisible Man Appears (1949) and The Invisible Avenger (1954), which each had effects work by Eiji Tsuburaya and there was also the Japanese feature The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly (1957). And then of course there was some overrated Universal movie in 2020.
Now we are in the realm of pushing mad scientists to the sidelines for tired plots about revenge. To put it out of the way, this is the weakest of the three Invisible Man movies. You would think a movie that relies on draining blood from people to maybe become visible again would have an effect on you, but nope, the whole thing is just played for mild-mannered scare. The story (77 minutes long) isn't even that involving either, since the lead character is presented as just a weird guy trying to get revenge, so even if his motives were interesting beyond "maybe" being screwed over in safari, he does his stuff in the most complicated of ways, because it isn't enough to target two people, no, he wants to get their daughter married to him as well. He gets rescued by someone and decides, yes, I'm going to give them a bit of a boost and try to help them win a game of darts too. The ending is sheer audacity in ridiculous: the loyal dog of the guy the Invisible Man kills ends up being responsible for his demise, because he just happened to wander all the way through. Hall in general is too bland to really make this path of "revenge" that interesting. Carradine at least looks enthused to not be in a Universal movie with makeup (he played Count Dracula a few times) but he isn't even allowed to really go off for curiosity. Sure, his plan to help a guy gain visibility (dog gets drained of blood) sounds mad but he is quickly disposed of anyway. To say nothing of the bland triangle between Hall, Curtis, and Hendrick is the easiest thing, because really, getting money sounds more compelling than having to get visible just so you can "get" a girl. Everything is stacked in just doing things in the corniest of ways that don't even make for a great showcase of invisible effects this time, save for a scene or two. As a whole, for a studio that pumped out stuff such as House of Frankenstein the same year as this, you get basically the same amount of rushed ham-handedness for a pretty tired movie.
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
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