The Invisible Woman (1940)

     I'm wondering why or how this movie got made?   It has no connections to the other films, other than it was produced under the mighty Universal Studios banner.  What makes the release of this movie even stranger, is that it was released the same year as the first sequel, The Invisible Man Returns.   So why two "invisible" films in one year by the same studio?   It's clear to anyone that's seen these movies, that the Vincent Price starring Invisible Man Returns is the official sequel.  What isn't clear is how The Invisible Woman got thrown into the mix.  The Invisible Woman doesn't even credit author H.G. Wells like the rest of these movies do, which leads me to believe that this movie was always seen as a stand alone film, separate from any of the others.  Maybe Universal were attempting to get a series of invisible female movies into motion, along side their current invisible male counterparts?  Seems possible.  Thankfully it didn't work out that way, so we never had to suffer through any cross over movie like The Invisible Couple or The Invisible Family that might have resulted when/if the two movie series merged.
  
    But how is the movie though?   Is it really that bad?  Well..... no, not really.  But I think I'm pretty glad that it stopped at one.  The Invisible Woman seems to try and play more to comedy than terror, and in some instances it works.  You're even going to be treated to a Stooge sighting in the form of Shemp Howard.   Though he really doesn't shine in this, he is present.  I wouldn't recommend watching The Invisible Woman purely to see Shemp.  You'll be disappointed.  To the best of my knowledge, this is also the only movie other than The Wizard Of Oz that I've seen Margaret Hamilton.  She played the Wicked Witch of the West.  Here, she plays a housekeeper of sorts.  It's not a big role, but it was a nice little surprise.  Other than the supporting cast, and a couple laughs, there isn't a lot to get excited about.  I would have been ok never seeing this.  Again, it's not a terrible movie either.  It just wasn't the movie I was wanting.  Expectations were fairly low and they were met.  The Invisible Woman is basically the chick flick version of The Invisible Man.
                                                       GRADE: D+