Invisible Stripes (1939)

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.

The years 1937-39 were extraordinarily productive ones for rising star Humphrey Bogart. He appeared in no less than 20 (!) films during those three years (seven in '37, six in '38 and seven in '39), playing "the heavy" in most of them. His last film of this period was "Invisible Stripes," a lesser Warner Bros. gangster film that still offers much. Bogey, fourth billed here, plays Chuck Martin, an inveterate hood who is released from Sing Sing after a five-year stretch and returns to his old ways back in the big city. Getting out of the slammer on the same day is Cliff Taylor, played by the film's nominal star, George Raft. Back at home, Cliff finds that being on parole isn't so easy. His old girlfriend summarily dumps him, no employer will hire him, and his kid brother (William Holden, here in one of his earliest roles) is being drawn into a life of crime to finance his dream of an automotive shop and to marry pretty Jane Bryan. Good thing that Bogey consents to bring Cliff along on a string of capers to pick up some folding money.... Anyway, while not in the same rarefied league of such Warners gangster flix as "Angels With Dirty Faces" and "The Roaring Twenties," this Bogey outing is still lots of fun. It features an exciting armored-car robbery and resultant high-speed car chase, loads of terrific character actors (Flora Robson, Leo Gorcey, Paul Kelly, Lee Patrick, Marc Lawrence, John "Perry White" Hamilton, et al.), reams of snappy patter and even some brightly amusing bits. (I love the scene in which Bogey and his blond moll are shown exiting a movie theatre that is playing "You Can't Get Away With Murder"...another Bogart picture from 1939!) Bogey easily walks away with this picture, stealing every scene that he is in, and his final words, "You can't live forever," are worth the price of admission alone. It would be another few years until 1941's "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" really made the world see him in a new light, but "Invisible Stripes" was still a highly entertaining vehicle for his ever-growing talent.

(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.

George Raft and Humphrey Bogart after a stretch in prison are getting out together. Raft is going to make a go of the straight life, but Bogart just wants to get back to being a criminal.Raft makes a try at it, but the fact he's an ex-con is continually being held against him. Eventually he rejoins the old gang, but keeps it a secret from mother Flora Robson and brother William Holden.Holden in the mean time is barely keeping his financial head above water at the gas station he works at. He's thinking real hard himself that brother Raft might have the right idea. All this is most distressing to Flora Robson and his fiancé, Jane Bryan.At Warner Brothers, it's all been done before, the players slip comfortably into roles that are very familiar to them. George Raft, a guy with limited skills was always believable in the urban criminal milieu because of who he hung out with. From Owney Madden to Meyer Lansky and most importantly Bugsy Siegel, Raft inhabited the wise guy world and basically was what you saw on the screen. Please recall Warren Beatty's film Bugsy which was spot on about Raft's relationship with him.It's interesting to speculate that if Raft had been at Warner Brothers from the beginning of his career instead of Paramount what path it might have taken. The best gangster flicks were done by the Brothers Warner, but by 1939 with their stable of gangster stars established, Raft is like a spare tire there.This was Bill Holden's second film and his joint contract holders of Paramount and Columbia lent him out here. He's playing the callow youth parts he specialized in before Sunset Boulevard. 'Smiling Jim' roles was what Holden disparagingly called these parts. It is rumored that Holden is also one of the extras in the prison yard in the James Cagney-George Raft film Each Dawn I Die. I've never been able to spot him though.Flora Robson's one great actress, her talents allowing her to play a slum mother and Queen Elizabeth the first. Some critics say she's wasted here and maybe she is, but one of her better later roles is as Mrs. Gonzo, the Maltese mother in Alec Guinness's The Malta Story. Very similar part.Jane Bryan's career was cut short all too soon, but not with tragedy, far from it. Shortly after this Bryan married Rexall Drug founder Justin Dart. She concentrated on the wife and mother thing and she was the wife of one of America's wealthiest citizens. Later on she had a hand in convincing her husband to back another of her former Warner Brothers contract players in a political career and lived to see Ronald Reagan become our 40th president.Both Bill Holden and Humphrey Bogart would feud legendarily on the set of Sabrina in the Fifties. No hint of their future troubles here in Invisible Stripes. Bogart's done it all before at Warner Brothers. George Raft helped Bogey in his career by shortly turning down High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon and later Casablanca. Fans of all the players mentioned here including myself will enjoy this film which admittedly won't rank in the top 10 of any of their credits.