Army Private Eddie Pratt smuggles his new bride into camp in hopes of having a happy wedding night. Instead they discover a murder. Colonel Rogers of Army Intelligence arrives to take over the case. The prime suspect, Jevries, is well-known to Rogers, who sets out to get a confession from Jevries even though there are plenty of other suspects.
Similar titles
Reviews
Such a frustrating disappointment
One of my all time favorites.
It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
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
Imagine Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in her prime.She would have married a private,unbeknown to her new husband's superiors.As they did not have time enough for a well-deserved honeymoon,they decide to do it military style,that is to say inside the camp.Of course they have to hide away from the staff.To make the matters worse,very mysterious (and even criminal ) things happen and 'official-secrets" might not be secret anymore.In spite of Boris Karloff's presence,it is not really a horror movie,but rather a whodunit:it is not difficult to guess who the murderer is and anyway we have a lady detective.She came "without warning" and she will be very insightful.
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 is a very watchable programmer centering on a murder mystery that takes place at an island army arsenal. Director John Farrow (husband of Maureen O'Sullivan/father of Mia Farrow)wisely keeps this thriller short and breezy. The only part of the movie that sometimes falls flat today is the humor, which I'm sure was much better received by the audiences in 1938. Marie Wilson tries to be a Gracie Allen clone. This persona worked much better years later when she played My Friend Irma opposite Martin and Lewis. Eddie Craven does fine as Marie Wilson's comedy partner but again much of the humor is dated.It's good to see the great Boris Karloff strut his stuff. His bad guy/monster image kept him from receiving deserved recognition as one of Hollywood's most capable actors. This image is used in an interesting way in "The Invisible Menace" but I won't go into detail and spoil the movie for you. The flashback scene when Karloff is on the island of Haiti fits well into the story but also provides variety in what could have become a boring film since all the action takes place in a confined setting. A talent such as Hitchcock could overcome such a setting as he did in his classic "Lifeboat," but Farrow was not that adept although a skilled director.All in all a gem for fans of the genre.