USA, NR, 64 m, 1941
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Stars Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young, John McGuire, et al.

The very title of Monogram’s 1941 low-budget quickie Invisible Ghost prompts as much head-scratching puzzlement as its uproariously potholed storyline. Director Joseph H. Lewis knows a thing or two about spooky atmospherics, awarding fright fans with a sufficient measure of spills and chills, but, alas, never a ghost—invisible or otherwise. Then again, most ghosts are imperceptible to the living, so for all we know there might have actually been a ghoul loitering about Monogram’s rickety old sets when this gothic tomfoolery was slapped together. I had thought the slack camera work and disproportionate lighting was the fault of Lewis’s cut-rate crew, but perhaps I should consider the possibility that the specter of a discontented thespian was causing disturbances in the studio during the picture’s smash-and-grab shoot. Most likely, though, the confounding title is referring to whom the moneyed and enigmatic Dr. Charles Kessler (Bela Lugosi) mistakes for a ghost: his wife (Betty Compson), thought cold and stiff after a horrible car wreck years before, is now lurking about the grounds of their crumbling manor. Somehow, the genteel, though slightly off-kilter widower—he hallucinates every year on the night of their wedding anniversary that Mrs. Kessler is sitting on the opposite end of the dinner table—can sense when she’s watching the house, pulling him mysteriously to whichever window she happens to be pressing her nose against. (Though if he can see her, she’s not exactly invisible, is she?) One might expect the doc to fetch his missus from the cold and find out how she managed to rejoin the living, but instead he slips into a trance and begins to pick off a good number of his servants and other assorted houseguests by suffocating them with his robe. (It’s mentioned that this sort of nastiness has been going on in the house for several years, but, amazingly, no one ever appears to suspect the manor’s chief resident.) It turns out that Mrs. Kessler wasn’t killed in the accident; the trauma struck her with amnesia, and she’s been living in the gardener’s tool shed all along. (Didn’t her hubby ever wonder why she didn’t leave behind a corpse?) The bespectacled gardener, Jules (Ernie Adams), continues to keep Mrs. Kessler’s whereabouts a secret out of fear that his boss might grow impatient with his better-half’s chronic forgetfulness if she’s returned home. Or something like that. Hey, did I mention that Invisible Ghost fails to make a lick of sense? That shouldn’t dissuade you from seeing it, though, because it’s actually one damned fine piece of B-grade entertainment.  

For a thriller with such a lean running time, Invisible Ghost sure delivers a lot of twists and turns—illogical as they may be. Kessler’s daughter, Virginia (Polly Ann Young), is being courted by a callow playboy named Ralph Dickson (blandly handsome John McGuire), who gets a good chuckle out of watching the doc wine and dine his phantom wife. (It’s suggestive of Dr. Kessler’s questionable mental state that he actually approves of his daughter’s suitor.) We soon learn that Ralph once played hide-the-salami with the Kesslers’ new maid, Cecile (Terry Walker), which seems quite a coincidence, but, alas, is never addressed. One night, Evans the butler (Clarence Muse), overhears Ralph arguing with Cecile, informing her in no uncertain terms that he won’t abide her lingering feelings for him to stand in the way of his happiness. (Which is latching onto a more affluent dame and inheriting the mother lode.) Of course, when the maid shows up dead, Evans must share what he heard with the law (Keystone Kops all), establishing Ralph as their prime suspect. But the film makes a serious faux pas by showing us beforehand that it was actually Dr. Kessler that offed the poor girl during one of his late-night stupors, robbing us of the enjoyment in playing a game of whodunit. After Police Lieutenant Williams (George Pembroke delivering each line with a huge cigar hanging from his mouth) completes his half-assed investigation, Ralph is indicted for murder, and winds up getting the juice. Then, out of the blue, Ralph’s twin-brother, Paul (also played by McGuire), shows up to help posthumously clear his sibling’s name. He’s not much help, though. As the corpses continue to pile up, you might grow annoyed with how completely unmindful the nincompoops that stream in and out of Kessler’s manor appear to even the most obvious of clues. 

Everything about this picture flies in the face of reason, which I’m sure schlock aficionados will argue is part of its allure. Some of the more baffling plot points include one of Kessler’s victims coming back to life in the morgue only to expire again from the shock of seeing his killer. Another howler comes after Mrs. Kessler is discovered trying to steal some grub from the manor’s kitchen: she informs her husband, “I’m dead,” and then falls to the floor, well, dead. Did she will herself to die? And are we supposed to think that she was telepathically directing her husband to commit all those murders? That’s probably the only real bit of mystery in Invisible Ghost, but don’t expect any kind of resolution; it never comes. Mind, these ambiguities are far from deliberate; they’re the inevitable byproduct of a slapdash script and an anorexic shooting schedule. But there’s plenty here to make up for the cavernous plot holes, particularly the able cast, which includes a standout performance by Muse as the black butler Evans. Rest assured, his character isn’t the ever-terrified servile stereotype that Mantan Moreland played time and time again. He’s dignified, articulate, and gets the picture’s biggest laugh: fearing that he’s in the presence of the undead after greeting Ralph’s twin, he turns to his fellow staff and asks, “Do I look pale?” (Moreland would’ve played the scene by bugging his eyes out and racing for the nearest exit.) Bela Lugosi is also in top form, but the way claws the air when he’s tranced-out is the stuff of unintentional hilarity. 

If you have a yen for cheap thrills, you can do a lot worse than Invisible Ghost. Just don’t try to make sense out the storyline (penned most likely under the influence by Al and Helen Martin) or you might go mad and kill everyone in your house. My advice is that you put your brain on hold and enjoy the ride. 

November 7, 2004

Ó Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.