Serial Saturday: The Invisible Monster (1950)

The Invisible Monster is Olive Films' first Republic serial release on Blu Ray and it looks absolutely spectacular. Unfortunately, it's still The Invisible Monster and that's not really a good thing.


I get why Olive chose to lead off with The Invisible Monster. It's goofy 50s sci-fi with an exploitation title. However, there are plenty of Repulbic serials with exploitation type titles, some of them quite good such as Haunted Harbor. And while it is true that there are worse serials than The Invisible Monster--it never reaches the depressing depths of Man with the Steel Whip or Panther Girl of the Kongo--it's not an especially good serial either.

The serial concerns the machinations of a mad scientist who refers to himself as The Phantom Ruler (not The Invisible Monster, it should be noted). He brings several illegal aliens into the country--a timely theme I suppose--and threatens them with arrest and deportation if they refuse to help him in his criminal enterprises. He's attempting to raise funds for an invisible army with which he plans to conquer the world.

"You clean the office while I raid the hideout, OK?"

Opposing him is Insurance Investigator Lane Carson (Richard Webb, TV's Captain Midnight) and his gal Friday Carol (Aline Towne). Well, Carol is sort of Lane's gal Friday. Despite proving her competency again and again, he tends to tell her in so may words not to come along because it's man's work. I do tend to place movies into the context of their time frame, but the casual sexism exhibited is a bit of a bother since it was just a few years earlier that Republic gave the heroines backbone and skill. Six years prior to The Invisible Monster, Linda Stirling was kicking ass as the titular lead of Zorro's Black Whip and Kay Alrdidge was saving Kane Richmond as often as he saved her in Haunted Harbor. However, by the 1950s, Republic's view of it's leading ladies was as bad as it was in 1936 and that's a shame.


Anyhow, back to the serial.


The Phantom Ruler wears special robes treated with a particular chemical which, when exposed to a particular spotlight, allow him to become invisible. Digest that bit of information for a moment. A spotlight is necessary for the invisibility and he wants to outfit an army to conquer the world like that. Yeah, that's not gonna work. Small wonder he eventually downgrades from conquering the world to conquering the community. God help us, not even the entire city--the community. One tends to get the feeling that had the serial gone much past 12 chapters, he would have downgraded to conquering a broom closet.

Some of you may have read the above paragraph and decided that this thing is too daffy to pass up. While it definitely has it's moments, such as the Phantom growling at one of his henchmen to move the spotlight slowly so he can stay in it or his delusional belieft that he only needs $200,000 (the only sucessful heist he has in all 12 chapters) to fund his worldwide army, it becomes too paint by numbers after a while. Republic serials followed a fairly strict formula and as such they lived and died by their cast. The Invisible Monster is no exception.

The whole community will be wearing them

Webb and Towne are okay as their heroes, but they're both pretty bland. Webb is certainly no Clayton Moore and Towne is no Linda Stirling. There's no particualr spark to their characters except for one amusing scene in chapter one where Webb is attempting to dismiss the idea of receiving help from a woman and Towne is nonchalantly pointing out all the detective work she already did that he didn't get to yet. By this point, Republic was picking their leads based more on their resemblance to stuntman than on acting ability, so we're lucky we got these two. At least Webb sort of tries, unlike later heroes like Myron Healey. The henchman, played by Lane Bradford and John Crawford, fair a little better, but even they aren't up to the standards of mean set by such forties henchmen as George J. Lewis and Anthony Warde. As for the Phantom Ruler himself, well, he's the serial's single biggest liability.


The Phantom Ruler is played by Stanley Price, today best remembered as the frizzy haired henchman to Phil Van Zandt in the 3 Stooges short Dopey Dicks. Stanley Price made for a pretty good henchman, not only in that short but in numerous serials. He was short, frizzy haired, and fairly creepy/bug-eyed. However, like Anthony Warde and George J. Lewis before him*, he mighta been a good henchman but he was a rotten head villain. He has no sense of menace except for when he's threatening the illegal aliens he's brought in. It doesn't help that he looks like a bug-eyed psycho like usual but is trying to play a suave villain. The part really called out for a Charles Middleton or Roy Barcroft, but by 1950 Middleton was dead and Barcroft wasn't doing many serials. Add to that the absurdity of the villain's entire scheme--which in the later chapters even he seems to recognize might not have been as well thought out as he would have liked--and yeah, this comes off as a let down.

 Clayton Moore could drive and shoot at the same time

The action is directed by Fred C. Brannon in his typical fashion. The fights are almost all done from long shot and lack the inventiveness of one of the fights William Witney or Spencer Gordon Bennett directed. It's mostly people punching each other and occasionally breaking a chair or table. I suppose Brannon was efficient enough for the Republic bosses to keep him directing the serials and most of his are at least a little better than the few that followed in the wake of his death but that's like saying Plan Nine From Outer Space is better than The Sinister Urge. Yes, that's true, but what does it really say?


All that said, if you're a serial fan you absolutely should get this Blu Ray, even if only because it's a serial on Blu Ray and that's something in pretty short supply. It looks fantastic and hopefully Olive Films decides to continue to release serials on Blu Ray. And yes, if you like goofy sci-fi from the 50s, you could find worse ways to spend a couple of hours than this. There is a workmanlike professionalism to the enterprise and still some semblance of energy. The chapters are short enough (13 minutes) to be digestable in small doses and get from point A to point B with economy. There's only a couple of times that the stock footage (which is most of the chapter endings) sticks out and that's what happens when you're using stock footage from the 1930s in the 1950s. At the end of the day, The Invisible Monster is a passable if unmemorable serial.


*Anthony Warde took his turn as the head villain of Buck Rogers, Killer Kane. It is universally agreed that he is the biggest knock against that serial. George J. Lewis did it all--hero (The Wolf Dog, Zorro's Black Whip), sidekick (Radar Patrol Vs. Spy King), henchman in too many serials to name, but his two turns as the head bad guy--Federal Operator 99 and Cody of the Pony Express--leave a lot to be desired.