Invisible Agent (1942)

This straight forward drama from Universal is considered a war-time propaganda piece. Another sequel following H.G. Welles' "THE INVISIBLE MAN". Jon Hall plays Frank Raymond, the grandson of the original invisible man, who volunteers his service to Axis and uses a strong formula that makes him invisible. Raymond's assignment is to invade German troops to obtain a list of German and Japanese spies doing business in America. Frank manages assistance in his task from the lovely Maria Sorenson (Iiona Massey), a German espionage agent, who is involved with two well-connected German officers.There are elements of humor as the American spy is invisible and antagonizing Nazi officers and troops. The Third Reich is stymied trying to protect their secrets.Other players include: Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Peter Lorre, J. Edward Bromberg, John Litel, Holmes Herbert, Mabel Colcord, Keye Luke, Albert Basserman and Milburn Stone.

I love this movie more every time I see it. Sure, there are little gaffes (they get original Invisible Man Jack Griffin's name wrong, and Jon Hall's teeth show up when only his skin is supposed to be visible with cold cream) and there's a regrettable, dated crack about how "Japs all look alike" (especially ironic since Hungarian Peter Lorre looks nothing like Keye Luke (who was Chinese) nor any Japanese you ever met) but in the main, it's one of Universal's best wartime efforts, with some terrific John P. Fulton invisibility tricks. Curtis (Curt) Siodmak's script is surprising, funny and even scary (Lorre and that guillotine paper cutter!) and it moves like lightning. Betrayal is a constant theme, with witty commentary on the treacherous relationship of the Axis "partners" and the mutual backstabbing by the two Nazis played by Cedric Hardwicke and J. Edward Bromberg. ("I pity the Devil when you boys start showing up in bunches," cracks the hero.)The invisibility drug still seems to lead to some kind of madness (its users often have to be "liquidated", per Hardwicke) but apparently the insanity is not as severe as that suffered by Claude Rains or Vincent Price in the previous entries. It makes hero Frank Raymond (née Griffin) both manic and reckless, as well as extremely suspicious of Ilona Massey, an irresistible Mata Hari-type in that negligee...!Siodmak pulls out all the stops for the remarkably violent climax, with a prison break, a nasty fish-hook trap, a Nazi-Japanese brawl, all the villains getting machine-gunned or stabbed or self-disemboweled, a car chase, an air field set ablaze and then bombed, and that parachute escape from the crashing plane...man, wartime audiences must have cheered this thing!

"Invisible Agent" was one of the few Universal "series" horror films I hadn't seen until now. It's basically a good concept for a film — turning the Invisible Man loose on the Axis and a formidable set of German and Japanese villains including Sir Cedric Hardwicke (just as despicable here as he was in "The Invisible Man Returns"), Peter Lorre (who just about steals the entire show) and Keye Luke. Lorre doesn't wear any "slant-eye" makeup to turn himself Asian, but he hadn't as Mr. Moto either and he's just as believable here. Still, there are a number of missed opportunities in this movie. Why is Jon Hall's character depicted as the grandson, not the son or nephew, of the original Invisible Man? (That would have made sense if the 1933 film had been set in the 1890's, when H. G. Wells wrote the source novel, but it wasn't.) More importantly, why did Curt Siodmak omit the key plot device that the invisibility formula turned its user into a raving megalomaniac as a side effect? One could readily imagine the Nazis trying to recruit the Invisible Agent to their side as the drug took hold of him and he started sounding like them! Still, it's a fun movie and Ilona Massey's character is appropriately morally ambiguous -- though she must have wondered about the direction of her career: she'd been brought over to the U.S. by MGM in 1939 to replace Jeanette MacDonald as Nelson Eddy's co-star in the elaborate operetta film "Balalaika," but just three years later here she was at Universal making movies like this and "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man."

This movie is of course fantasy. (Unless if the scientists are holding out on us.) But, it was well done. The special effects were fantastic considering when the movie was made. Even by today's special effects standards I was totally impressed with how they made Frank Raymond disappear. On the dramatic side the movie was a little slapstick at times with Frank spilling food on people without them knowing how it was happening. But, the movie was a great reminder of how evil the Nazi people were. It's hard to believe that people could be so wicked and yet that part of the movie was not fantasy. It did happen. Overall I enjoyed the movie and it all played well from beginning to end.