BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

mark.waltz When a daffy newlywed married couple (Eddie Craven and Marie Wilson) find a corpse in a military base warehouse, fingers point automatically to the brooding Boris Karloff who must think quickly to defend himself. This lame programmer, either filmdom's longest short, or shortest feature, seems rushed into production, not giving time to really develop the characters and a plot that is extremely cliched. Combining a supposed sci fi element, this film totally disappoints, and the comedy is ridiculously unfunny. Wilson overdoes the dumb blonde act, and Craven has no screen presence. Karloff does all he can to rise above the mediocrity, and the direction by John Farrow (his second with Karloff in just a year) has no real flow. The painless short running time makes this easier to get through, but I classify this as one of the worst Warner Brothers second feature, one that should have ended up in the public domain with a few others whose copyright they chose not to renew, which like this, are among their worst films.

TheLittleSongbird 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

dbdumonteil 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.

whpratt1 This film starts out with Pvt. Eddie Pratt (Eddie Craven),"Down Missouri Way",'46 manages to bring his new bride, Sally(Marie Wilson),"My Friend Irma" TV Series,'52 on to Powder Island Arsenal, a government reservation. He tries to hide her in a vacant building, the military discover a murdered body of an officer. After intense investigations and mysterious attempts are made on the lives of the Army officers in charge, every member on the post falls under suspicion. Colonel Rogers (Cy Kendall),"Call Northside 777",'48 assists in the investigation and recognizes one of the civilians, Jevries(Boris Karloff),"Bedlam"'46, to be an embezzler who was arrested years ago. It is also revealed that the murdered man was his enemy. Found out this picture was based on a 1937 Broadway play,"Without Warning" and actor Eddie Craven repeated his original stage role in this picture. Warner Bros. remade this film five years later as "Murder on the Waterfront". I was amazed to see that Boris Karloff played an entirely different role as a Number One Bogie Man,(Frankenstein) and noticed that his role was a sympathetic one, meek, mild. I believe the audiences felt sorry for him in this picture. As always, Boris gave a great performance. This is a great Classic Film to view.