SHORT TAKES.....

With work and personal issues taking up so much time, I haven't done a lot of movie viewing, but I did do a double feature of two Universal classics from the 1930's.

INVISIBLE MAN 1933 (UNIVERSAL)...Watching an old Universal film is like seeing an old friend that hasn't been around for a while. Claude Rains stars in this classic as a professor, Jack Griffin, who discovers a serum to render him invisible. The side effect is insanity.

Rains gives a great performance as the man who slowly looses his mind and starts killing people while invisible. The special effects by John P. Fulton are magnificent an still quite impressive today, 82 years later. This is the sign of a true classic when a statement like that can be made.

Based of the novel by H.G. Wells, this Universal classic should be seen by all horror fans. It is simply a work of art that filmmakers today just cannot do. The rest of the cast includes Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, and Una O'Conner. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

INVISIBLE WOMAN 1940 (UNIVERSAL)...This is a mild comedy about a young woman who volunteers for an experiment by a scientist to become invisible.

Virginia Bruce stars as the title character, who, once she become invisible, torments her boss into giving the women working for her some respect and slowly falls in love with a broken former millionaire played by John Howard.

John Barrymore is the goofy scientist that created the machine the makes things invisible, and he soon finds that gangsters want to steal the device for their own use.

Put your brain on hold an enjoy this little romp for what it is, good clean fun. The rest of the cast includes Charles Riggles, Oscar Homolka,Anne Nagel, maria Montez and Shemp Howard.