Woodyanders Brassy model Kitty Carroll (a delightfully vivacious performance by Virginia Bruce) volunteers to be a guinea pig for an invisibility experiment conducted by dotty old duffer Professor Gibbs (an endearingly eccentric portrayal by John Barrymore). Complications ensue when three bumbling gangsters steal Gibbs's invisibility machine so they can make their nefarious boss Black Cole (Oskar Homolka in fine oily form) invisible.Director A. Edward Sutherland relates the enjoyably silly story at a brisk pace and maintains an amiable lighthearted tone throughout. Moreover, it's acted with zest by an enthusiastic cast: John Howard as smooth playboy Richard Russell, Charles Ruggles as blundering butler George, Margaret Hamilton as shrewish housekeeper Mrs. Jackson, Charles Lane as the sadistic Mr. Growley, Shemp Howard as the klutzy Frankie, and Donald McBride as the doltish Foghorn. The clever script by Robert Lees, Gertrude Purcell, and Frederic I. Rinaldo offers a wealth of witty dialogue. The practical old school special effects possess a certain quaint charm. Kudos are also in order for Frank Skinner's bouncy score and Elwood Breden's crisp black and white cinematography. A frothy'n'funny romp.

utgard14 An adventurous model (Virginia Bruce) volunteers to be the guinea pig for a nutty professor (John Barrymore) who has created a machine to make people invisible. The experiment is a success but when gangsters steal the machine, it's up to the Invisible Woman to get it back! One of the most underrated of all the Universal horror movies. OK, yes, it's not a horror movie so much as a slapstick comedy but it's lumped in with the rest of the series. The fact that it's a comedy is probably why it isn't liked more by hardcore monster fans. Beautiful Virginia Bruce gives possibly the best performance of her career here. She's very funny and more than holds her own against a cast of veteran comic actors. I'm surprised she never really broke through to A-list success. John Barrymore has lots of fun in his part as the silly professor. You would never know about Barrymore's personal problems by watching this performance. He seems at the top of his game. Leading man John Howard shows he has a talent for comedy here as well. Fantastic supporting cast includes Charlie Ruggles and Margaret Hamilton as comical servants. Edward Brophy, Oskar Homolka, Shemp Howard, and Donald MacBride are great fun as the dimwitted gangsters. Maria Montez appears in a bit part.It's a wonderful charming movie that puts a smile on my face every time I watch it. Whether you are fan of the Universal horror films like I am or not, hopefully you can accept this movie on its own terms and enjoy it for the great comedy that it is. It has an exceptional cast and a pleasant, lighthearted atmosphere throughout. I heartily recommend it to everybody who likes great comedies, as well as Universal completists.

Scarecrow-88 Played strictly for laughs, I'm hard-pressed to label "The Invisible Woman" a horror film, but the movie does feature within the "The Invisible Man" Universal Studios franchise even if it stands alone from the first two films. A professor and friend to a rich family who have been providing funding to his experiments for years, Gibbs (John Barrymore), has finally hit pay dirt, having developed an "invisible machine". Miss Kitty Caroll (Virginia Bruce; receiving top billing, although she's barely visible during most of the running time, her voice depended on to earn giggles) answers an ad to be the human guinea pig to be turned invisible, her reason to frighten a grumpy, horrible boss for a modeling company (she is a model and one of his many victims; we see in the sequence where she uses her invisibility to scare him that he fires a girl because she has a cold!). Gibbs promises millions to broke playboy Richard Russell (John Howard) when the results of lots of money poured into his experiments proves successful. Sufficed to say, complications ensue. George (Charlie Ruggles), the butler, is the main source of comedy, his slapstick, physical comedy, and dialogue always on the silly side... He often faints, and gets nervous very easily, stuttering and quivering like a ninny. With goofy mobsters (including Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame) after the invisibility (boss Oscar Homolka(William Castle's "Mr. Sardonicas") wants to become invisible so he can return to America, remaining a fugitive in Mexico), "The Invisible Woman" never remotely approaches horrifying, so you might as well place this as an invisibility comedy alongside "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" or "Memoirs of the Invisible Man". There are plenty of special effects featuring shenanigans involving Kitty (she gets drunk on Russell's well stocked booze when Gibbs and her go to Richard's hideaway hunting lodge, and we see the bottle pouring scotch into a glass while Kitty is invisible), such as a missing head while she is in dresses, a club bopping mobsters on the head (knocking them unconscious), and often foiling Homolka and his goons. Definitely inferior to the previous films which had a level of intensity in the storyline due to the progressing madness caused by remaining invisible (with an antidote hard to come by), "The Invisible Woman", nevertheless, has its fun moments thanks to a game cast playfully giving over to the kooky screenplay and dialogue.

slayrrr666 "The Invisible Woman" is an underrated, but still problematic entry in the series.**SPOILERS**Answering a newspaper ad, model Kitty Carroll, (Virginia Bruce) travels to Prof. Gibbs, (John Barrymore) to become invisible. After the successful experiment, she runs out to exact revenge on her old employers, forcing Prof. Gibbs' patron, Richard Russell, (John Howard) to think his experiment his nonsense. Upon hearing of the invention, a squadron of gangsters ventures to his estate to acquire the invisibility device, but are driven away. When the success of the machine is proved to the others, they all agree it's the greatest invention of all time, but Kitty, tiring of being invisible, wishes to return to visibility. When the gangsters instead steal the invention, they all fight back to get the machine before the gangsters use it for their own means.The Good News: This one wasn't that bad. One of it's best features is that it's also the only one to cash in on the overtly obvious titillation factor. The fact that, in order for an invisible person to be unseen, they must be naked. In this one, because the invisible nude person is female, a model nonetheless, there's a much feistier atmosphere here, as in one scene in which the invisible woman decides to prove to the hero that she has "good-looking legs" by putting on just her stockings or by having her repeatedly reiterate how cold she is. One of the best scenes to illustrate this is the sequence in the cabin, where her indentations on a bear-skin rug are made all the more subtle when they are told of her nude appearance. In combination of these are the exceptionally good invisibility effects. From the usual floating unanimated objects in front of others to the denting of cushions, chairs and other apparel around, including several splendid transformation scenes from visible to invisible and back, this one's effects are just as good as the others and still manage to hold up quite well. The abundance of comedy, though, is the film's greatest strength. With the flirtatious atmosphere, there's plenty of innuendo, and aside from that, there's also some really great physical comedy, mainly pratfalls and such, that's guaranteed to bring out a couple chuckles. It's easily the most underrated entry in the series.The Bad News: While there aren't many problems in here, some do pop up. Most of this stems from the fact that the film completely disregards it's horror starting place and the near-constant comedy that was hinted at originally is brought to the forefront. This doesn't really seem to be a horror film at all, as the premise is meant to be a parody of the ones before it, the protagonist doesn't partake in anything that would consider the film to be scary, and it's far to light and fluffy to try it's hand at a horrific sequence. For being involved in the series, it's a little hard to shake that from the film. The subplot about the abusive boss is a confusing one, as it's something that could've easily been conveyed through dialog and only seems to be there to get in some more invisibility gags. They really seem to elongate the film more than anything, and as it's dropped from the film after about twenty minutes and never heard from again, it's inclusion seems a little odd to say the least. These, however, are it's only real strikes against the film.The Final Verdict: It's an underrated entry in the series that really won't strike fear in anyone the way the others were, but it's light tone and impressive invisibility effects still make this one a watchable one. It's more at home for those who enjoy the screwball comedies of the time that hardcore horror fans, but they should at least give it a shot before dismissing it.Today's Rating-PG: Mild Violence