Duocaine
(originally posted on IMDb 3 October 2018)

This is one of the more underrated entries in Universal's classic horror cannon. Although this sequel, "The Invisible Man Returns," lacks the first film's, "The Invisible Man" (1933), joy of NOT seeing a man gleefully going on a killing spree, it does feature a more elaborate narrative and sometimes improved visual effects, while inverting the philosophical question of its predecessor: instead of exploring whether invisibility leads to crime, this sequel sees whether it can solve crime. It's monster movie meets "The Fugitive" (1993 and prior TV series) murder mystery and suspense.

While the Invisible Man of the first film and the novel by H.G. Wells, Jack Griffith, doesn't return, an invisible man does appear (or rather doesn't appear), and Jack's brother, Frank, does pick up where his sibling left off in trying to discover the antidote for invisibility. Instead of being the transparent guinea pig like Jack, however, Frank experiments on actual guinea pigs, as well as making Geoffrey Radcliffe invisible, so as to aid his escape from death row for a murder he didn't commit--that of Geoffrey's brother. This is a sequel, so stuff comes in twos, including brothers. Speaking of which, fellow IMDb reviewer Idiot-Deluxe wondered why the name of the invisibility drug "monocaine" in the 1933 film was changed here to "duocaine," and they're not alone--the authors of "Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946" claim that the name change is "inexplicable." Yet, it's because "mono" means one, and "duo" means two, and "The Invisible Man Returns" is a sequel, thus doubling the film cannon, as well as the name of the drug--as well as the brothers. One may as well wonder why there are two mad doctors and two monsters in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), too. It's a little thing, but, personally, I love the self-reference of it. "Monocaine," indeed, does sound more dangerous, though, as Idiot-Deluxe also says. That's because in addition to the "caine" alluding to the Biblical Cain, the "mono" part suggests the monomania of the Invisible Man. In both films, this drug replaces much of the science-y talk from the original novel, which wouldn't have translated to screen well, and I don't think it's especially interesting in the book, either.

This sequel also expands upon the procedural aspects of the novel and 1933 adaptation. There's Frank searching for the antidote, Geoffrey for the real murderer, and Scotland Yard for the transparent fugitive. The police business is especially intriguing. See-through as he is, the Invisible Man still leaves traces. The Inspector, including by his cigar habit, mostly relies upon smoke to capture the trace of Geoffrey's bodily outline. Natural rain has the same effect. The Inspector also confirms Geoffrey's identity via his fingerprint. And there's the barking dog, who presumably senses the man through smell. There's something self-reflexive in this business of an invisible man's trace if one understands a bit about C.S. Pierce's semiotics and film theory. Suffice to say, that cinema, as with the trace of the Invisible Man, is an index. That is, we see a symptom of what is actually not seen or there, like the projection of a film located behind us, like the images of actors long since dead, smoke from fire, fingerprints and outlines of an unseen body, a voice. There's also the wonderful scarecrow scene, which alludes to another semiotic function of cinema: as an icon, like a scarecrow, like a picture or outline of someone but not an actual bodily soul. It's no wonder that Geoffrey gets along with the Scarecrow so well.

Another German director, like this film's Joe May, Fritz Lang was even more adept at exploiting indication in police procedurals for self-referential cinematic effect, as seen in the use of traces in "M" (1931) and "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" (1933). May's filmmaking style here, otherwise, is rather workmanlike, lacking the dynamism and camp of a director like James Whale, of the first "Invisible Man" and "Bride of Frankenstein." Vincent Price's wrapped figure receives no such grand introduction as the cuts towards the face of Claude Rains as his Jack Griffin enters a tavern. There is a nice through-the-mirror shot in this one, though, which includes a humorous twist on the fainting woman trope, as she demures from seeing nothing rather than something from a man undressing. There's also some darting perspective shots to visually depict a character's confusion as to the whereabouts of the Invisible Man. And the visual effects, while one can certainly nitpick about the obviousness of some of the traveling mattes and a visible wire here or there, remain remarkable for their time and charming today. Another German, writer Curt Siodmak also wrote the screenplay for "The Wolf Man" (1941), and in both films he included elements from Bram Stoker's "Dracula"--in this case, the blood stuff, including a joke about the Invisible Man being a bloodsucker.

The voice of Price in his first horror film role, is comparable to that of Rains, the 1933 film also being his first such part. Afterwards, Price gave voice to Edgar Allen Poe and his influence extended to Tim Burton employing him as the narrator for his short cartoon "Vincent" (1982). From the start, it seems that Price had mastered a voice that was both soft, even melodic, and, yet, also eerie, which plays perfectly for a bodiless character who's descending into madness. Like the Invisible Man's trace, Price has left his mark.

(Included in my ranking of Invisible Man movies.)