The Body Disappears

Jeffrey Lynn was one of the most attractive and interesting actors of the 1940s and early fifties. What a shame that he is invisible for most of this silly endeavor.

Be assured that this is no "Invisible Man." Claude Rains was a great actor and he was superb in the excellent movie. This one is lightweight and silly.

Movies like this and "Topper," as well as "Blithe Spirit" suffer today from something fro which they cannot be blamed: We are very much accustomed to people disappearing and reappearing and voices coming from nowhere while household objects are moved: We grew up on "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie." Edward Everett Horton gets billing under Lynn and Jane Wyman, quite good playing Horton's daughter. But he is the central figure. And he is surprisingly unappealing. He dithers as usual but he is a scientist who seems to have no regard for life so long as he gets his experiments completed.

Willie Best, so often cast and directed to play the most embarrassing stereotype of a black man, here comes through better than many, certainly better than Horton: Before the tile (human) body disappears, Horton is experimenting on a monkey named Charlie.

His character shows no concern for the animal's well being or comfort. Best does.

The movie is entertaining enough but it is a one-note joke. As it moves on, its 72 minutes begin to feel as if they need a roadshow-style intermission -- during which much of the audience would flee..

...For I have never seen such a physically nondescript and dramatically bland actor as Mr. Lynn. And yet Warner Brothers gave him a pretty good build up in the late 30s and early 40s, including unbelievably having him play a character that Priscilla Lane prefers over the enigmatic brooding John Garfield in "Four Daughters". But I digress.

Here Lynn plays wealthy sportsman Peter DeHaven who is to be married the next day, and this is his bachelor party. He likes to play all kinds of corny jokes on his friends and fellow party goers, like exploding cigars and hand buzzers. And then he passes out from drinking too much. Three of his friends and fellow medical students decide to carry him over to the Medical College dissecting room, lay him out on a slab, and place a lily in his hand. They figure he will freak out when he wakes up the next morning, thus repaying him for all of the jokes he played on them.

Meanwhile, eccentric chemistry professor Shotesbury is testing a potion that is supposed to bring dead animals and people back to life. He has just been successful at bringing a monkey back to life, and decides to move abruptly to human testing. So he goes to fetch a body from the dissecting room which turns out to be Peter. He gives what he thinks is a dead person the injection, and Peter comes to. Shotesbury thinks he has succeeded when a previously unknown side effect of the drug appears - invisibility of both the monkey and Peter. Complications ensue, not the least of which is that the police figure that something criminal has befallen Peter when he turns up missing the day of his wedding.

Edward Everett Horton is really the lead here as the confused professor of chemistry. Interesting note here - this film was released the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. I originally thought the film was released in 1943, the middle of the war, mainly because it is an object lesson in how to make a movie when there are no leading men to be found. All of the younger men have very small supporting roles with just a few lines. The lead is actually a 55 year old man, Horton, and Jane Wyman as his daughter. Lynn's voice is present during the entire film, but most of the time Lynn is not physically present at all - he is invisible. Actually anybody could have been playing Lynn's part when you can't see him.

This one is actually pretty funny for what is obviously a Warner Bros. B effort of the time. Horton is comically befuddled as always, workhorse Willie Best is funny and gets to flex his comic muscles here more than in most of the films he was in, and the plot has some interesting twists and turns. Also this film has something I thought I'd never see in the production code era - Actor Willie Best driving around New York City with Jane Wyman's bra on his head. Watch this one for the fun of it all and in spite of one rather obvious plot hole towards the end. See if you can find it.

I'd recommend this one. It was unexpectedly entertaining.

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....

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.

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.