The Invisible Man Returns

John Chard

Tasty sequel, far from lazy. Falsely imprisoned for fratricide, Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) takes a drug to make him invisible and thus escape. But as he sets about trying to clear his name, the side effect of the drug, gradual madness, threatens to usurp his plans. It was never going to be up on the same level as the first film, The Invisible Man (1933), a genuine classic Universal Studio production that does justice to the great H.G. Wells writing. But instead of going for a lazy cash in, this sequel puts its own stamp on the invisible man premise and rounds out as an intelligent story with dashes of humour and sadness placed within. John Fulton's effects work is still amazing for the era, the cast list is boosted by the likes of Cecil Kellaway, Cedric Hardwicke and Nan Grey, while the finale is rewarding and worth waiting for. Faults? A couple, such as the real murderer is revealed too quickly, thus we lose mystery momentum, and director Joe May often lets the pace sag. But these fail to stop the film from achieving its entertaining aims. It hardly constitutes horror as such, but there's good dramatic worth, berserker science and a cast making the material work. 7/10

CinemaSerf

This is quite a good, if a little preposterous sequel. Vincent Price - or, that is, his voice - owns a successful mining business who is framed for killing his brother. With but two hours to go before he goes to the gallows, he turns to his friend who has devised a secret drug that can render the user invisible - but at a cost: continued exposure leads to madness. Once he has used the drug to escape from prison, he attempts to track down the real culprits from his close confederates - including Sir Cedric Hardwicke, John Sutton and a glamorous Nan Grey. The ever vigilant "Inspector Sampson" (an on-form Cecil Kellaway) is also on the trail of the transparent fugitive and all in all, we have a decently paced mystery thriller with some quite fun dialogue and special effects that bely that fact that this was made at the very start of WWII with not much of a budget.