The Body Disappears

This is one of those thin little comedies that played the second half of a double bill back in the '40s. EDWARD EVERETT HORTON has a tailor-made role as an eccentric scientist who has inadvertently developed a serum that can make people invisible. On this one-note thread, the whole plot ambles on for little more than an hour in what seems like an endless comedy of errors.

While Horton at least does his best to keep things lively, poor JEFFREY LYNN has little more to do than pop up once in awhile in the flesh--remaining invisible for a good portion of the film. JANE WYMAN has the hapless task of making all the silly shenanigans look less foolish than they are--but she rarely succeeds. And WILLIE BEST does his best to look frantic and frightened by all the invisibility going on around him, as Horton's wide-eyed assistant in his usual stereotyped role as a black man.

It passes the time quickly but there's little substance to any of the plot with some nice cast members striving to make it agreeable enough--CRAIG STEVENS, MARGUERITE CHAPMAN and David BRUCE among them.

E.E. Horton, the pro, was already 55 when he made this one... he's still in pretty good shape, and this caper movie required a lot of energy! if you haven't seen him in my favorites "Lost Horizons" or "Top Hat", you gotta rent those! The first 1/2 hour is fast paced, and things move right along. You don't have time to get bored. Pretty good special effects too, as the Professor and Willie turn Peter DeHaven (Jeff Jynn) invisible.... of course, his daughter Joan (the lovely and talented Jane Wyman) catches them, and now they have to explain what they are up to.... and these crazy goings on threaten to interrupt the wedding of DeHaven and Christine Lunceford (Marguerite Chapman). AND, it's got invisible monkeys, too! Fun, if you can keep up with it. A little silly, but what the hey. We don't hear much about this one, probably because it was released ONE day before Pearl Harbor Day, December 1941.... Directed by Ross Lederman, who was married to "Doris Warner"... I wonder if that's the same Doris, daughter of Harry Warner... This WAS a Warner Brothers film....

Due to a prank at his bachelor party, Jeffrey Lynn, who is a rich guy known in the society circle and who passed out drunk, gets put in the college science lab/morgue by his friends! When scientist, teacher, and eccentric Edward Everett Horton needs a body for experiments, he and assistant Willie Best takes Jeffrey Lynn's body. Jane Wyman is Horton's daughter who knows of Lynn and meets him, kind of. The side effect of the serum to bring Jeffrey back to life is that he disappears. And, the plot and the laughs take it from there. Miss Wyman and Jeffrey Lynn are fun in their roles and are very easy on the eyes, but this film really belongs to Mr. Horton and Willie Best who are great in their over-the-top portrayals. Despite the fact blacks were at times reduced to being afraid of ghosts, etc. and made fun of during this era in films, Willie Best is just great and you don't really feel at all that he is the butt of any meanness towards him. If anything, he is laughing along with everyone else. And, Mr. Horton seems to be enjoying himself very much in this madcap story which of course defies believability. It's a nice change to see him shine without the presence of Fred and Ginger. And another thing, Jeffrey's clothes don't disappear, so that means in order that no one sees clothes walking around by themselves that Jeffrey Lynn is, well,.... With a crazy ending and last scene, this is one invisible man you just have to see for yourself.

The casting of Edward Everett Horton as a nutty professor is reason enough to watch The Body Disappears. Horton has been experimenting at the small college he teaches with both invisibility and resurrection.

He and his trusted assistant Willie Best steal Jeffrey Lynn's body from the morgue and bring it back to Horton's laboratory at home. Lynn isn't dead, just completely ossified from his batchelor party and his buds thought it would be fun to have him wake up at the morgue.

Horton gives the invisibility potion to Lynn instead of his experimental resurrection concoction and Lynn goes invisible like Claude Rains. Also like a monkey that he had tried it on earlier who escapes.

Meanwhile when he leaves his bride Marguerite Chapman at the altar a manhunt starts for him with the suspicion of foul play in the air.

The Body Disappears is a nice item from the B picture unit at Warner Brothers with none of their big box office stars. Jane Wyman who plays Horton's daughter falls for Lynn invisible though he may be. Lynn has a good line of patter that gets her.

This one really is Horton's film and it is nice to see him carry a film for once as brilliant as he in support.

Body Disappears, The (1941)

** (out of 4)

Weak Warner comedy was released the same year as the much better THE INVISIBLE WOMAN from Universal. In this film a professor (Edward Everett Horton) makes a serum that will bring the dead back to life. He accidentally puts it in a man (Jeffrey Lynn) who he thought was dead but since he wasn't it turns him invisible instead. I had heard a few good things about this one over the years but having actually seen it now I must admit that I found it to be quite boring from start to finish. I seems that the cast knew they were working with a bad script and went into overdrive in terms of trying to keep the energy up but it really doesn't work here. The biggest fault is the actual screenplay that has one lame invisible joke after another. I don't think THE INVISIBLE WOMAN is a masterpiece or anything close but it at least knew had to write for some good and funny jokes. The screenplay here seems to have been written in the matter of hours as there's never really any clear focus on what it wants to do or what type of humor it really wants to try for. Horton is full of energy and isn't too bad in his role but he doesn't get much to work with. Lynn is wasted and pretty much only lends his voice. Jane Wyman plays the daughter of the scientist but isn't given much and even Willie Best doesn't get any good lines. The special effects aren't any better, although they're not as bad as I was expecting. Whenever anything invisible is on the screen you can see the outline of their body but the center portions of them are pretty clear and hard to see. The film runs a brief 72-minutes but it feels at least a half-hour longer. Fans of sci-fi who must see everything in the genre might want to check this out but others should stay clear.