Invisible Stripes (1939)

Thanks for the memories!

One of my all time favorites.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Cliff Taylor (George Raft) and his pal Chuck Martin (Humphrey Bogart) are released together from Sing Sing. Cliff wants to regenerate and have a straight life while Chuck has no intention of changing his lifestyle. Cliff wants to support his mother Mrs. Taylor (Flora Robson) and his younger son Tim Taylor (William Holden) that can not afford to get married with his girlfriend Peggy (Jane Bryan). However he is discriminated by the society and has difficulties to get a job. When he sees Tim thinking to switch to a life if crime, Cliff seeks out Chuck and decides to join his gang to heist banks and make money to buy a garage for Tim. What will happen to the Taylor brothers? "Invisible Stripes" is an entertaining gangster film with the story of an ex-con that wants to go straight during his parole but is discriminated by the society, returning to the crime. The fate of Cliff Taylor is predictable. The greatest attractions are probably William Holden very young is his second credited role and Humphrey Bogart in a support role. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not Available on Blu-Ray or DVD.

A great cast is closeted in a movie that spends a great deal of its running time shooting down the then-current USA parole system. Fortunately, all the characters are well acted, though we see a little too much of impassive parolee, George Raft – here nearing the end of his number one star-billing career – and not enough of people like Paul Kelly, Lee Patrick, Marc Lawrence and Leo Gorcey. After a somewhat too long introduction in the prison showers, Bogart disappears from the movie for long stretches but fortunately figures as a central character in the all-action climax. A pity the movie-makers didn't wrap the film up at that point, but instead they tag on a somewhat overly sentimental all's-well-that-ends-well wrap-up with Bill Holden and Jane Bryan. Available on a superb Warner DVD.

Invisible Stripes (1939)Both a crime movie and a message movie, a Warner Bros. look at two convicts released at the same time each trying to go back to some life outside of jail. It's interesting, and well done of course (it's 1939 after all), and stars George Raft who holds his own in his stiff, sincere way. More curious for sure is the secondary role by the up and coming Humphrey Bogart, still a couple years from his breakthrough movies. And then maybe most astonishing to see is a very young William Holden (I didn't even recognize him) in his second credited role.It's Raft who plays the good guy, almost too good to believe for a guy who did years of jail time, but the idea is that he's learned his lesson and he's going straight. Even with his edgy little brother itching to be a criminal himself. They have for a mom the dependable Flora Robson who is filled with such worldly pathos you can't help but feel for her. The girlfriend here is the really convincing Jane Bryan, who had a short career with mostly stereotyped roles but she exudes true innocent sweetness on screen (she appeared in lots of great Warner films of the late thirties, including "Each Dawn I Die).And Bogart here plays the bad guy, the ex-con who is going to jump right into his old ways. We don't see much of him for most of the movie, except a couple scenes to show his girlfriend with hair of "gold" and his crooked gang of friends. But of course the two worlds—nice family with two troubled sons and loner man with his thugs—re- collide. Temptations of easy money, a seeming sense of poverty, and several kinds of loyalty (to a brother, to a friend, to a lover) all play together there and the last half of the movie is top notch stuff.The message part of the movie is simple but important, and as usual has Warner Bros pointing to some problems in society from a generally liberal point of view. That is, an ex-con deserves an honest shake because the system is stacked against him. It works. When the sign lights up at the end and it says "bros" up there (just like Warner Bros), you feel all the ramifications of that built up through the story.There are enough clichés here, and few little moments that seem a bit rushed or choppy (including the sudden change in attitude of the Holden character) you might not find this to be a classic. But it's really good. See it!

(There are Spoilers) Being sprung from the big house ex-cons and good friends Cliff Taylor and Chuck Martin, George Raft & Humphrey Bogart, go their separate ways. Cliff determined to go straight and become a law abiding citizen with Chuck going back to his gang of hoods that the left for a five year forced vacation in the clink.Cliff coming back home get's his first taste of reality, as being a man with a criminal record, with the girl that he left behind Sue, Margot Stevenson, dropping him like a hot potato. Sue seeing that there's no future for her in hitching up with the unwanted, by society, and unemployable ex-convict. Cliff is also a bit disturbed with his hot-headed younger brother Tim, William Holden, wanting to follow in his footsteps as a hoodlum. Feeling that it's the only way for him to get out of the hopeless poverty that he finds himself in working on and off as a grease monkey whenever he can find work at the local garages.We see the hardships that Cliff has to contend with as an ex-con no matter what job he get's through the help of his kindly and caring parole officer Masters,Henry O'Neill. From a grease monkey, like his brother Tim, to a loader of heavy equipment at a plant where he's forced to lay out a fellow worker who was breaking his chops.Finally getting a job as a stock-boy Cliff starts to become a productive citizen working his way up to a stock clerk. But is later fired when he's accused, but later found innocent, of knocking off a fur store for $40,000.00. Meanwhile Tim feeling that he can't make it big in the world of business and finance for himself as well as his girl Peggy ,Gane Bryan, goes out and with a few friends and beats up and mugs a drunk for $6.00. With Cliff finding out what Tim did he locked him up in his room and proceeds to knock some common sense into his hard and pig-headed skull.It's with him getting all fed up with all the obstacles thrown in his path that keeps Cliff from straightening himself out that he reluctantly goes to the local bookie joint when he get in touch with Chuck, now a big shot in the New York mob, for a job with his gang as a bank robber. Knocking of a number of banks and armored cars Cliff sends his share of the stolen loot to Tim telling him that he got himself a job as a door to door salesman selling trackers and farming equipment to farmers in upstate New York.Tim using the money that his big brother Cliff mailed him opens up a garage but as you would have expected it turns out that he get's unloved with Chuck's and Cliff's gang. That happens after they tried to rob an armored car ending up with a number of people being shot and killed. The Chuck Martin Gang making their getaway to Tim's garage and then having the scared and confused Tim bamboozled into helping them. Chuck tells him that his brother Cliff was also involved in the shootout which was a lie; Cliff had already broke with Chuck's gang and went back to being an honest and law abiding citizen.Cliff finding out about his brother Tim being now involved in a crime that can possibly land him in the Sing Sing electric chair, there were a number of innocent persons killed goes to the police and makes a deal with them. The deal is to have the now in custody Tim identify Chuck and his gang that in return the D.A would drop all charges against him. Cliff now finally realizes that he put Tim in this deadly position by him going back to his criminal ways. He now has no choice but to later confront Chuck & Co. and with taking the blame for Tim's fingering them on himself he'll thus let the chips fall where they may and take everything, good or bad, thats coming to him.