The Invisible Menace (1938)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Expected more

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The Invisible Menace has two things going for it. The dark and foggy production design is striking and very effective. And Boris Karloff gives a great sympathetic performance. Unfortunately, they are the only things about The Invisible Menace(anybody want to explain the significance of this title, because it was irrelevant as far I'm concerned. Of the cast, only Karloff is close to good. Talented character actors like Regis Toomey are wasted, while Marie Wilson is incredibly irritating-of any performance in any of the movies that Karloff starred in, you'd be hard pressed to find one as annoying as Wilson's- and Eddie Craven's mugging is just embarrassing. The fact that the comedy is dated and unfunny doesn't help, and it also seemed misplaced. The same goes with the whole thing about the voodoo, seen in a short flashback, which seemed to have been thrown in at last minute without any relevance to what was already there. The Invisible Menace does try to be a number of elements, I've mentioned already that the comedy didn't work, but we also see the film trying to be a mystery, a melodrama and a thriller. Including comedy too, all four of those elements fail. The mystery element is too obvious and coincidental, the melodrama is overwrought and brings the film to a screeching halt at times and there's nothing thrilling here, merely tedium. The script could have been much tighter, and could have given the actors much more to work from, that is including Karloff. At 55 minutes, you'd think The Invisible Menace would be too short and that it would feel rushed. Actually, the story has trouble sustaining the length, you know there's a problem when the IMDb summary alone sums up the entire plot of the film. To conclude, the production design and Karloff are good, but the rest is a disaster. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Boris Karloff stars in a strange stage based mystery set on a military base that has to do with the death of a weapons researcher. The film is set in motion when a bunch of soldiers on leave pile into a boat and head back to the island base. One of the men is smuggling his new wife over in the hope of a nice quiet wedding night. In the process of finding a quiet place to consummate the marriage they stumble upon a dead body. The base is locked down and a sleuth is flown in.Weird mix of wedding night comedy (which really doesn't work) and fast paced mystery this is a rather schizophrenic film that would have been so much better had the comedy been left behind. The mystery is a dark and troubling tale with a great deal of violence and suspicion. The mystery is played for all its worth and it makes me wonder what the play the film is based on is like.The cast is mostly excellent, only Marie Pratt, as the only woman in the cast, is less than good. The real treat here is Boris Karloff as one of the suspects. He gets a real work out as an actor going through a great deal of emotion. It was always clear that he could do more than horror parts to anyone who really watched his performances, and this is a film that proves the point.Very short, it runs around 55 minutes, this movie moves like the wind and it never gets boring or too comedic. Absolutely worth a look if you run across it.The mystery is 8 out of 10 The comedy is 3 out of 10 (thankfully its very brief) 6 out of 10 over all

This film starts out with Pvt. Eddie Pratt (Eddie Craven),"Down Missouri Way",'46 manages to bring his new bride, Sally(Marie Wilson),"My Friend Irma" TV Series,'52 on to Powder Island Arsenal, a government reservation. He tries to hide her in a vacant building, the military discover a murdered body of an officer. After intense investigations and mysterious attempts are made on the lives of the Army officers in charge, every member on the post falls under suspicion. Colonel Rogers (Cy Kendall),"Call Northside 777",'48 assists in the investigation and recognizes one of the civilians, Jevries(Boris Karloff),"Bedlam"'46, to be an embezzler who was arrested years ago. It is also revealed that the murdered man was his enemy. Found out this picture was based on a 1937 Broadway play,"Without Warning" and actor Eddie Craven repeated his original stage role in this picture. Warner Bros. remade this film five years later as "Murder on the Waterfront". I was amazed to see that Boris Karloff played an entirely different role as a Number One Bogie Man,(Frankenstein) and noticed that his role was a sympathetic one, meek, mild. I believe the audiences felt sorry for him in this picture. As always, Boris gave a great performance. This is a great Classic Film to view.

Murder mystery with a silly title. Better-than-average direction from John Farrow. Marie Wilson is quite funny as a horny newlywed, although the jokes are sticky and worth a few groans. But Karloff as usual is multi-dimensional, spooky and human, a warmer version of the guilty icon that Lon Chaney Sr. perfected.