THE INVISIBLE GHOST [1941]

 FOR BELA'S BIRTHDAY, I DECIDED TO REVISIT ONE OF HIS MONOGRAM 9. 

But this time I did it in the company of Vincent van Dahl, Livingstone and Tangella on the new CREATURE FEATURES!  Bela plays poor Dr. Kessler whose wife took off with another man and each year on their anniversary he has dinner with an empty chair he addresses as his wife.  Evans the butlerand Kessler's daughter Virginia humour the poor old man.  Unbeknownest to Dr. Kessler, his wife is hidden in the basement by the gardener; Mrs. Kessler is brain-damaged from a car crash which killed her beau and the gardener keeps her there until her mind improves.  Sadly, he doesn't do much about keeping her there since she constantly wanders aimlessly around the grounds. 

Each time Dr. Kessler gets a glimpse of her, he goes into a catatonic murderous fugue state and he happens to murder Cecile the maid.  Said maid had a past fling with Virginia's boyfriend Ralph, who is on the point of proposing to Virginia only to have Cecile threaten to cause trouble.  Ralph storms out and goes for a long ride so he has no alibi for when the murder took place.  Ralph is quickly tried, found guilty and put to death.  Justice here is expedient if not accurate. The next day there's a knock at the door and Ralph is standing there; only it's not Ralph but his twin brother Paul.  Paul is reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally chipper for someone whose brother has just been put to death.  Kessler invites Paul to stay over.  That night, Mrs. Kessler does her wandering/staring up at the window thang and Dr. Kessler loses it again and now kills the gardner.  I wonder if we can wipe out Ralph's entire family by having them executed for Dr. Kessler's murder spree?!?!  Oh great and now there's no one taking care of dotty Mrs. Kessler!

As always with Bela Lugosi, he gives full value for a dollar.  No matter how threadbare the movie, Bela gives a full performance and turns a nothing picture into something to watch!  Bela is quite lovely as the kindly Dr. Kessler doting on his daughter Virginia and insisting on disinfecting his butler's wounded hand.  Clarence Muse as Evans the butler gives probably the best performance in the film with a naturalness and genuine warmth in his relationship to Kessler or even down to trying to ease the nervousness of a new replacement cook.  Polly Ann Young (who apparently can be seen somewhere in MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE) is also quite natural in her role as Virginia Kessler while John McGuire (star of the first film noir STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR) as Ralph/Paul is quite good as well.  Director Joseph H. Lewis (GUN CRAZY, THE BIG COMBO, MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS and several horror B's) dies a fine, workmanlike job helming the film.  In fact, THE INVISIBLE GHOST is lifted quite a bit by all the talent involved raising the film quite a bit above it's poverty row origins.