Infinity 8: Volume Four: Symbolic Guerilla (2018)

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Symbolic Guerilla is my favorite Infinity 8 so far. I’ve read this one before, but not while going through the series, so I couldn’t really compare. Now, I can. It’s for two obvious reasons: protagonist Patty Stardust is the best agent so far, and Martin Trystram’s art is fascinating.

Unlike the previous stories, there are significant flashback sequences, contrasting Trystram’s Infinity 8 setting and his general sci-fi vibes. But also with very delicate line work. Trystram’s imaginative and enthusiastic but very precise with the lines. His style clashes with the content to encourage the reader to spend more time on the panels, which means experiencing the excellent art more.

And then there’s Patty. She’s living as a Black woman in the far-flung future after the destruction of planet Earth. However, everyone still wants to touch her hair, including the Muppet-like alien influencer she’s babysitting at the beginning of the volume. What also makes Patty unique is it’s not her first appearance in the book; she showed up in the Hitler book. She’s a stage manager for some hippy-dippy performance artist cultists, and they went to join up with Hitler because no one in the future remembers what Hitler did, but then he kills Patty for being Black, revealing the reality of the situation. So Patty’s singular in the series.

Though there is another agent cameo at the end of this volume, so more she’s been singular to this point. And she’s got a whole, real arc because she’s got a supporting cast and a relevant backstory. She’s undercover trying to bust the cult’s business connect; in addition to the state manager gig, she’s dating the cult leader’s son, Peter. It’s not romantic for Patty, just a way to dodge leader Ron’s sexual advances.

When the ship captain and the first officer (who again is flirting, meaning he did sit out the fundamentalist lady) call on her to investigate the space graveyard, she’s busy with the Muppet-y influencer who wants to vlog all about the cult’s next art event. The boyfriend’s tripping and needy, so it’s a terrible time for her to have to go off ship.

Especially when it turns out the cult leader has chipped his entourage so he can track them at all times. Patty’s worried about getting busted for being an undercover agent—going to the space graveyard is the first time she’s broken cover in five years—but it turns out to be much, much worse because Ron realizes they’re stopped and in a bitching space graveyard. It’s the perfect location for their next show.

Writers Lewis Trondheim and Kris do a great job with Patty, the first agent with this kind of stakes and agency. Of the three previous, two have been keeping secrets and unreliable, and one was just living an action-adventure. Since the cult’s all very sixties retro, it’s a suspense comedy sci-fi action story. It’s wild. And the writing’s not just good on Patty; Ron goes from being a petty annoyance to profoundly dangerous.

Patty’s also got the flashbacks thing going on. She’s haunted by her past as an agent, the aforementioned trip away from the ship, and that character development gets wrapped into this time-bending mission to explore a space graveyard. While Trondheim and Kris don’t offer any more tidbits about Earth’s destruction, they get into the bigger ground situation. Building off the last arc’s history lesson, Patty makes an otherwise unknowable historical discovery while exploring; the script weaves it into her character arc. It’s so cool.

Symbolic Guerilla ends the first half of Infinity 8 on its highest point. I imagine there will be better stories, but I’m not sure I’ll ever dig anyone’s art as much as Trystram’s. Looking at it is just so much fun.

But it also occurs to me, having now read the first half in sequence, Trondheim and Kris haven’t revealed anything about where Infinity 8 is going, not in terms of plot details or narrative. There are going to be four more volumes, four more agents, and four more timelines, but the possibilities are….

Infinity 8: Volume Three: The Gospel According to Emma (2017)

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In theory, Infinity 8 is going to get exponentially more complicated as it progresses. With the conclusion of this volume, The Gospel According to Emma, the reader and the Infinity 8’s captain know almost nothing more about the solar system-sized space mausoleum the ship’s investigating. It’s not the captain’s fault, of course; like always, he and his sidekick call an agent up to the bridge to go over the mission, explaining how time will reset in eight hours. It’s not the captain’s fault the agent they picked—Emma O’Mara—is a zealot hell-bent on dooming everyone onboard the vessel for her religion.

Emma’s not just an agent either; she’s a Marshal and a celebrity. She’s not even supposed to be working—or so the ship’s officers think—she’s just another passenger headed across the galaxy. But she’s actually conspired with her religious sect to sabotage the vessel in order to discover a secret about her religion. There are various sects, all believing something different about their prophet’s final message—because it’s missing. Well, if the prophet had the message on him when he died, the prophet’s somewhere in that space graveyard.

Everything dead is somehow somewhere in that space graveyard. There’s some talk from the first officer about an intention at the center of the mausoleum, but Emma’s not really listening because she’s got almost a dozen coconspirators to check in with. In addition to everyone knowing Emma’s a badass Marshal, they also know she’s a pious one; three Infinities in, and Emma’s the only one the first officer doesn’t perv on.

I mean, he doesn’t have much time before she zaps him, but still, turns out there’s a limit to his inappropriateness.

Emma’s coconspirators are bankrolling the endeavor, as her sect apparently doesn’t have the available cash to do so. They each want something different from the space graveyard, which a psychic divined. So divination’s real in Infinity 8 or at least possible. Since we don’t know if time travel exists yet, there could also be an easy explanation for the fortune-telling.

Writers Lewis Trondheim and Fabien Vehlmann craft an action-packed suspense thriller, with Emma moving from ally to ally, enemy to enemy, making significant discoveries about the nature of her religion, reality itself, and herself. The volume’s got the most character development in an Infinity 8 so far; Emma’s religious journey, not to mention the trials of her subterfuge and insurrection, make for one heck of an arc. Plus, there are numerous villains in this arc. There are coincidental villains—like the robot trying to determine whether or not an interrupted message means to kill Emma or not—and there are deliberate ones.

And then there are the wanted criminals who Emma comes across in her daily life. Assembling her own “Dirty Nine” gang of tomb raiders seems like it’s going to bite her from the start (she starts getting suspicious almost immediately), but it takes a while for the actual villains to reveal themselves. Their motives even longer.

As usual, it’s eventually up to Emma to save the galaxy; she just happens to be in a pickle because she’s already betrayed her space cop badge to be a fundamentalist terrorist. Not to mention the story’s time limit’s built-in.

Lots of tension, absolutely no time to relax. Unlike the previous volumes, thanks to Emma’s zealotry, she doesn’t ever get to have a personable moment. Instead, she becomes personable through her volume-long character development. It’s excellent work from Trondheim and Vehlmann on the script.

Olivier Balez does the art this volume; it’s very different, warmer, cartoonier, with great enthusiasm for the various alien species. Balez maintains that enthusiasm, whether the aliens are being funny, evil, or getting lasered in two. Balez gets a lot of tones to move between, from macabre space archeology, robotic battles, standoffs, heists, double-crosses, triple-crosses, and religious melancholy. Gospel runs the gambit. About the only thing wrong with the art is it ends too soon; Balez could’ve gotten at least another page out of Emma’s finale.

So, while there are promises for future Infinity 8 volumes—we find out another piece in how Earth came to be destroyed this volume, the most information yet—Trondheim still hasn’t revealed enough to tip any scales.

Emma’s not even halfway through Infinity; Trondheim and his collaborators have more time ahead than behind; anything could happen, so long as it involves space graveyards and capable agents. The possibilities are almost… infinite.

Can’t wait.

Infinity 8: Volume Two: Back to the Führer (2017)

Back to the Führer is an intense read. It starts genially, introducing this iteration’s agent, Stella Moonkicker, who has just been reprimanded by her partner, robot Bobbie. Bobbie’s a buzzkill, a narc, and committed to preserving all human life, particularly Stella’s.

She doesn’t appreciate it.

Unlike the agent last time, Stella’s got daily assignments while aboard the Infinity 8. The volume starts with her headed to the library to provide security for some kind of convention. It’s going to be a very dull day. But then it turns out the convention is the Future Nazis.

Later in the volume, there’s a throwaway line about robots destroying planet Earth (we have it coming), and presumably, a bunch of history gets lost. Including some specifics of what the Nazis actually did. The Future Nazis think it’s a wellness and interior design movement.

This volume’s got a lot of humor starting it off. The harmless dimwit Future Nazis, Stella wanting to be an Instagram influencer and taking selfies all the time, the robot. It’s disarming.

Intentionally.

Writer Lewis Trondheim is messing with the reader, putting them off-guard, so the second act packs a bigger, more frequent wallop.

In addition to the Future Nazis, there’s a Hasidic Jewish space muppet who knows what the Nazis did and is confronting the conventioneers. The character’s a Jewish caricature, just a space muppet too. He’s a combination punching bag and comic relief. But he’s also not wrong.

If the volume has a moral, it’s don’t bring back Adolf Hitler’s head, fill it full of future knowledge and wisdom, and not expect him to create a mechanical army.

See, even though Stella’s busy with the Future Nazis, it’s still Infinity 8 and the bridge has to call her and send her out to check on the space graveyard. The problem is the Future Nazis also scan the debris for collectibles, and they find the motherlode. A V-2 rocket with Hitler’s frozen head in it.

Some initially comedic plot perturbations later and Hitler’s back and slaughtering the spaceship’s passengers. Thanks to his future knowledge, he’s discovered the alien race who is controlling the media and whatnot. On his way to take them out, other groups try joining up with him because they think it’s a wellness and interior design movement, not genocidal fascism.

And it appears Stella is going along for the ride. For most of the second act, she’s hook-line-and-sinker, even as the Future Nazis start realizing their new leader is shitty. Stella will end up with the volume’s deftest character arc; Trondheim demands a lot of the reader’s attention. It’s worth it, of course. It’s a masterful arc, with Trondheim able to bake the action into it from the start and then get it out of the oven at just the right moment.

Thanks to his robotic upgrades, Robot Hitler also knows about the Infinity 8’s ability to time-shift, and it figures into his plans for conquest.

Trondheim certainly starts the volume suggesting it’s going to be light-hearted, which then makes the Hitler bit increasingly inappropriate, only for Trondheim to almost directly question how and why anyone would think it’d be light-hearted. He can get away with some sarcasm, thanks to Bobbie the robot, who gets a snark upgrade at one point. It’s such good action comics too. There’s no time for Stella or the volume to slow down.

Artist Olivier Vatine designed the overall series look, which means this volume’s Infinity 8 looks “correct.” It’s excellent art, whether the future detail, the aliens, Stella’s very important expressions, and then the action. Vatine’s action pacing is divine.

The volume’s a hell of a ride—I mean, it’s about Hitler coming back and being able to take over the future because no one learned anything from the last time (oh, wait)—and it certainly opens Infinity 8 up. The next six volumes can (and will be) anything and everything.

It’s such a great comic.

Infinity 8: Volume One: Love and Mummies (2016-17)

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Infinity 8 is very high concept. It’s a series of eight stories, originally published in European volumes, published in the United States as eight, three-part limited series. It’s a combination of hard and soft sci-fi: a passenger ship has encountered a space graveyard and needs to investigate. They send a single agent. Agents are intergalactic super-cops, but good guys.

That agent will investigate, relaying findings back to the ship, whose captain can reset time in eight eight-hour-loops (so it should be Infinity 888). The next time out, the agent or crew will have that extra experience.

All that high concept comes through in roughly three pages. Writers Lewis Trondheim and Zep don’t spend much time on the concept. It’s a very interesting way to do a first chapter: intentionally delay establishing the ground situation. But then again, maybe the possible timelines only matter once you have comparable ones.

The agent this issue is named Yoko Keren. She’s just a passenger on the ship, enlisted to help out because she’s never off-duty exactly; she’s been trying to find a suitable mate from the 880,000 (88, get it?) other passengers. She scans all of them, checking their medical records.

She also breaks up bar fights as necessary. Otherwise, we don’t really get to know the character. She has one intense experience after another; Love and Mummies is mostly an action comic. Sci-fi action, lots of imaginative design, lots of humor, but it’s all action. Point A to B to C to D and back to A via C but not B. Once it’s done being an action story, it becomes a romantic comedy, which retroactively contextualizes the whole thing as a romantic comedy and makes it even more successful. Trondheim and Zep are dealing with alien species, an undefined future, and the mysterious space graveyard, and they weave a lovely, amusing romantic comedy through it. It’s like they finish weaving the story, and then you see what it’s been.

It’s an utterly charming approach, which is particularly effective since the story itself gets gross.

First, Yoko’s got to deal with an annoyingly horny second officer, who doesn’t just proposition her (without even knowing she’s on a mate hunt); he also pesters her via comlink while she’s out exploring. Then she’s got to navigate around the space graveyard, where most things are covered in maggots.

Unfortunately, the Infinity 8 is carrying many Kornaliens, a species who loves to eat dead things. The longer dead, the better. They crave it uncontrollably and riot until they can get off the ship and find corpses to munch on.

Initially, the Kornalien subplot is separate from Yoko’s exploration plot. She discovers artifacts from a wide range of sources, including the now destroyed planet Earth, but when she happens into a Buddha’s temple, her story collides with the Kornalien subplot. There she meets Sagoss, who’s just eaten a monk who died for love, and now Sagoss has those same emotions towards Yoko.

Unfortunately, his fellow Kornaliens have just decided the best way to get corpses to eat is to make them out of the Infinity 8’s passengers. They start attacking the ship, turning Yoko’s exploration mission into a combat one, against incredible odds.

Making things more difficult are the Kornaliens who maybe aren’t attacking the passenger ship, but have still eaten something to give them unhelpful emotions.

Plus, Sagoss is an electrician and Yoko needs an action sidekick.

There’s lots of suspense—including an exquisite chase sequence—there’s a lot of humor, there’s a lot of great art. Dominique Bertail does the art (with Olivier Vatine doing the design for the whole series). Bertail’s got a lovely sense of pacing in space; Yoko’s either on jet thrusters or a cosmic sled and the art conveys her velocity alongside the enormity of the space graveyard. It’s wonderfully well-paced.

The end’s a little too cute, a little too rushed, but it’s not actually Yoko’s story, after all; she’s just one chapter of Infinity 8.

The Intruder (1962, Roger Corman)

The Intruder has third act problems of the deus ex machina nature, and they’re actually welcome. If the film figured out how to finish better, it’d be more challenging to talk about. It’s already an exceptionally unpleasant experience.

William Shatner gets top-billing as the title character. He’s a slick, charming, clean-cut Northern (well, Western—he’s originally from California) white supremacist who heads to a Southern town to stir up trouble thanks to a recent integration ruling.

Director Corman and writer Charles Beaumont (adapting his novel and co-starring as the pro-integration school principal) never humanize Shatner’s character. They initially make a joke about it—he helps a little girl off the bus—but then they immediately establish he’s an evil person in search of stupid evil people who need a leader.

He’s in luck; the town’s full of stupid evil people. So Shatner works out a deal to organize the white trash for Southern blue blood Robert Emhardt, who’d never, and do something about the impending integration.

Unfortunately for everyone, Shatner doesn’t realize how dangerous stupid makes evil people, even the respectable ones like Emhardt.

The film juxtaposes Shatner’s story with local newspaperman Frank Maxwell. Maxwell starts the film believing you follow the law even if it says to integrate. Seeing how Shatner affects his fellow townsfolk, Maxwell becomes an integrationist himself. Even though it might lose him wife Katherine Smith. They have a particularly painful scene together where Smith says she’ll stop being so racist because she has to do what her husband says. Intruder’s solution for racism is always patriarchy and some toxic masculinity for effect. But only for those who need it. Otherwise, just patriarchy.

When the film’s heading towards some kind of showdown between Shatner and Maxwell, it’s on solid ground. The juxtaposition works. But Shatner can’t leave well enough alone—he’s already done some heavy petting with Maxwell’s teenage daughter, Beverly Lunsford, if not more, but he also decides he needs to rape Jeanne Cooper. She’s married to traveling salesman Leo Gordon, and since Gordon’s machismo threatens Shatner, he needs to assault Cooper when Gordon’s a way to prove he’s a man.

It’s an exceptionally unpleasant scene in a film with nothing but unpleasant scenes.

But it puts Shatner and Gordon on a collision course, which changes the dynamics. It’s not about Shatner being a racist piece of shit and Maxwell realizing racist pieces of shit are bad; it’s about Gordon and Shatner’s sales styles. And, of course, Shatner assaulting Cooper. But more the sales styles.

There’s also the story of Black high school student Charles Barnes, who gets caught up in the hostilities. The film avoids putting a face on the white students or their parents (outside Lunsford). It’s too busy implying the racist white people aren’t the white school parents. They’re the barely employed white trash who have time to drop everything and make racist picket signs to threaten children.

The third act problems save the film from an unsuccessful scene where Maxwell appeals to the good whites because Corman and Beaumont know it’d play hollow. The resolution they do find, however, plays contrived. Even if there’s a lot of good acting in it.

Obviously, completing the performances is tricky because they’re primarily mundane villains. Terrifying ordinary white guy racists. Maybe they’ve got bad teeth, but nobody in the movie, save Shatner probably, has good teeth.

Gordon’s good, Cooper’s good, Maxwell and Lunsford are good. Lunsford gets a weak part, however. Though she does at least get to have a showdown with her mom’s racist dad, Walter Kurtz, who berates son-in-law Maxwell for not being racist enough.

It’s all distressingly realistic.

Shatner’s performance is exceptional. He’s got maybe one iffy scene—a rally—but only because you can’t believe anyone would fall for such loud stupidity. Or at least you didn’t used to be able to believe it. Reality hasn’t let The Intruder age. It just kept making it more and more true to life.

Corman’s direction’s good. He and cinematographer Taylor Byars do a lot with focus and contrast. There are some weird things—lack of high school establishing shots, for example—but they always seem like they’re probably budget-related.

Good music from Herman Stein.

The Intruder’s pretty good—with that incredible Shatner performance—but it’s got a lot of problems, so it’s almost better it’s not indispensable overall.

This post is part of the Corman-Verse Blogathon hosted by Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry of Cinematic Catharsis.

In the Heights (2021, Jon M. Chu)

In the Heights is anemic. Tedious and anemic. There are some good performances—Jimmy Smits is great, Gregory Diaz IV seems to be good (he doesn’t get a lot of acting to do), and Daphne Rubin-Vega similarly would be good if it weren’t for Chu’s terrible direction. But since Heights is all about Anthony Ramos and his charmless proto-romance with Melissa Barrera and both Ramos and Barrera give the most middling performances amid numerous middling performances… the acting is a wash.

Supporting romantic players Leslie Grace and Corey Hawkins are much better than Ramos and Barrera (they seem to enjoy each other’s company and both—particularly Hawkins—try with the acting) but they disappear in the tacked-on third act so there’s no way they can save it or even help it. Same goes for Diaz, Smits, and Rubin-Vega… they’re all absent for the big finale. Instead, it’s all about Ramos and Ramos is pictured in The Antonym Finder next to transfixing.

The film tries multiple narrative structures to force a dramatic arc. There are book ends with Ramos telling the story to a bunch of kids, who we’ll learn a little bit more about throughout the protracted two and a half hour runtime whenever the movie needs to get its pulse up with a reveal. But then there’s also an impending citywide blackout (or so the title cards keep saying) along with it being very hot, though the heat doesn’t really factor meaningfully into the action. It’s not like there’s less singing and dancing based on temperature. It’s not like when it’s hotter Chu all of a sudden can compose a better shot.

In the Heights is like a badly done Pepsi commercial (very specifically Pepsi, Coca-Cola would’ve done a better job, especially with the CGI). Chu’s use of the Panavision frame is… well, not disappointing; it’s a predictable, constant fail. It’s clear from the start Chu’s not going to direct the film well (somehow his over-the-shoulder shots manage to be worse than the boring dance numbers) so it doesn’t disappoint but it never gets any better. There’s no show stopping number. There are a few where maybe it should be a show stopper, but Chu’s never any more or less interested in the content, which really hurts Rubin-Vega and then Grace and Hawkins (who get the showiest number, a CGI-fueled dancing on a building sequence where Chu and company can’t make it as convincing as the old “Batman” wall-climbing from the sixties; I guess it’s good to know Warner Bros., as a film studio, really just doesn’t care about special effects, be it wizards, space wizards, or musicals).

Olga Merediz is another of the “ought to get a show stopper” but her big number is an abject whiff. Though Merediz’s performance is wanting. About a quarter of In the Heights’s cast can work without acting direction from the director. Merediz is not in that quarter. But she still ends up sympathetic thanks to her big number flopping.

Bad editing from Myron Kerstein, bad use of incidental music, bland photography from Alice Brooks.

For the first fifteen minutes, it’s possible to keep the synapses firing wondering what a good director could do with the musical adaptation. Then the next two hours and five minutes wondering what an even barely capable director could do with the rest.

I started the film wondering if Chu’s ever seen a good musical, I left wondering if he’s ever seen a good movie.

There’s a great cameo from Marc Anthony, who—like a handful of the cast—belong in a better film. Unfortunately, Anthony’s opposite Ramos in the scene so it sadly ends up in this one.

The Informer (1935, John Ford)

Smack-dab in the middle of The Informer is a romance between IRA commander Preston Foster and his gal, Heather Angel, sister to an IRA man (Wallace Ford). Foster and Angel steal moments together on one fateful night, tragic circumstances giving them unexpected time with one another, but those same circumstances sort of foreshadowing their very sad future together.

The Informer is Victor McLaglen’s movie. The whole thing is about his performance. Everything is about supporting his performance, even this subplot because it’s going to get into the ground situation of the supporting cast—see, McLaglen is the titular Informer and Ford is his victim.

The film opens with a title card setting the time and place—a particular night in Dublin in 1922. The entire film takes place over twelve to fourteen hours, at night, with fog covering the city. The fog’s so dense, it encourages Ford out of hiding in the hills so he can visit with sister Angel and mom Una O'Connor. The fog’s so cold, it sends McLaglen’s girl (Margot Grahame) out onto the street looking to make some money for food and rent. When McLaglen interrupts Grahame’s potential customer’s approach, they get into a fight about money. The film’s already established Ford’s wanted by the Black and Tans (the cops, working for the British against the IRA) and there’s a reward too. Just enough to cover passage to America for McLaglen and Grahame.

Once he gets to town, the first person Ford looks up is McLaglen—they’re besties, Ford the brains of the operation, McLaglen the brawn; all McLaglen’s recent troubles started after Ford had to lamb it. After a brief expository catch-up to lay out McLaglen’s ground situation, Ford’s off to visit his family. It’s okay, McLaglen tells him, the cops aren’t surveilling anymore.

We then get to watch McLaglen crack with desperation—not greed—and inform on Ford.

Until this point in the film—now, hopefully the Fords won’t get confusing—director Ford has been keeping a tight focus on McLaglen’s performance in close-up. High contrast black and white photography from Joseph H. August, every line and thought visible on McLaglen’s face. The first act of The Informer is mostly dialogue-free, relying on McLaglen and the exceptional diegetic sound use.

Until McLaglen informs, the cast is him, Ford, and Grahame. There are background players but as they’re the only three who matter, which separates it a little from the second and third acts; after McLaglen goes to the cops—and after the cops raid Ford and family’s home—the cast gets very big, very fast.

Foster has head sidekick Joe Sawyer bring McLaglen in for a meeting—McLaglen’s been booted from the IRA, which is why he’s broke and starving—because Foster assumes McLaglen will know who informed on his best pal. McLaglen’s already had about half a bottle of whiskey and he finishes another while bullshitting Foster and Sawyer. Foster buys it, Sawyer doesn’t; they’re meeting at 1:30 a.m. to figure it out.

McLaglen’s going to spend that time getting drunker and drunker, picking up a repulsive little sidekick in J.M. Kerrigan, who thinks McLaglen’s got money but doesn’t realize he’s got money. During their drinking and carousing, much of McLaglen’s early sympathy gets burned off. He’s not too bright—hence needing Ford’s brains and Kerrigan’s ability to sway him—plus he’s exceptionally drunk. Sawyer’s trailing him, counting the money he spends, but it’s more impressive how much whiskey McLaglen consumes.

He’s 6’3”, towering over everyone else in the film, and the drunker he gets, the more uncontrollable he gets. He’s a floundering bull, lashing out all around.

The film culminates in a trial, where McLaglen confronts the man he’s accused in his place—Donald Meek in an incredible performance; his accent is Irish-y McIrish-y but still deep and earnest—as everyone starts to realize maybe McLaglen’s got more going on than just being dim and drunk. The conclusion is very, very good and very, very Catholic. Director Ford goes all out.

In addition to McLaglen, fantastic performances from Ford, O’Connor, Sawyer, Meek, and Kerrigan. Kerrigan’s so loathsome you don’t want to give him any credit but he’s also really good at it. Angel and Grahame are fine plus; when they have their big scene together, they’re both better than when playing off the boys (sort of amusingly—it’s 1935 after all—every syllable seems to fail Bechdel, yet the whole film hinges on it). Foster’s… maybe the only part to recast. He’s fine too, he’s just a little too stoic. While Foster gets to show his humanity in the romance with Angel, Sawyer gets to show it in his bloodthirstiness, which is far more striking.

The film’s impeccably directed by Ford. Wonderful use of sound, composition, music—Max Steiner—August’s photography, George Hively’s editing, the sets—it’s all outstanding. And all of it is to showcase McLaglen’s exceptional turn as a tragic, dumb lug. In the end, the only one who can almost compare is O’Connor, but she only has to be exceptional for three minutes, McLaglen’s onscreen most of the ninety minute runtime.

The Informer’s great.

The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944, Ford Beebe)

When Leon Errol saves lead Jon Hall from drowning, even though they’ve previously established The Invisible Man’s Revenge takes place in England, I was sure they’d teleported to Australia. Errol is very Australian. Openly Australian. He’s also the closest thing to amusing as Revenge gets.

Despite being the fourth in the series, starring the same lead as the last entry with the same family name, The Invisible Man’s Revenge is unconnected to the previous entries. It opens with Hall getting to England. He’s escaped a South African mental hospital, murdering his way through interns to freedom. We don’t see any of the murdering, it’s just in a newspaper clipping after we get some of Hall behaving peculiarly while buying a new suit. The suit buying sequence, much like the one where Errol tries to shake down English lord Lester Matthews, is just filler; Revenge runs under eighty minutes and it needs lots of filler.

It’s hard to pick on the script too much given the context—Hall’s a terrible lead, no better script is going to help him out. Beebe’s direction is middling. The special effects aren’t great. They have a few better moments and a few worse moments, but the only memorable Invisible Man set piece is Errol playing darts and naked and invisible Hall running them over to the dart board for the bullseye. The other big set piece involves Hall attacking romantic nemesis Alan Curtis in a dark wine cellar; the lights are out so they don’t have to do any Invisible Man effects. It’s a rather lackluster finish.

Curtis isn’t very good either. So Curtis is bad. Hall’s bad. Matthews isn’t good. See, years ago Matthews and wife Gale Sondergaard (who apparently quit the movie halfway through when she decided it got too stupid; she just vanishes, never mentioned again) were on a diamond expedition with Hall. He bumped his head, fell unconscious, they abandoned him, heard he was dead, took his stake in the diamond mine, but now he’s back and they don’t want to pay up. Not only does he want his money, he wants their daughter, Evelyn Ankers, who’s barely in the movie—like she too knew better—but there’s the definite implication Matthews and Sondergaard promised her to him. Even though they’d never met. There’s also the not zero chance Matthews and Sondergaard did try to have him killed. They certainly did the second time around. Or maybe Sondergaard just thought she was in a different movie.

John Carradine is fine as the scientist who makes his pets invisible then convinces Hall to try the serum. The film’s only got the one screenwriter—Bertram Millhauser—credited but between Sondergaard’s disappearance and Carradine’s change of behavior, it really seems like someone else fixed up the second half. Or at least changed it. It’s hard to say if it’s a fix. Because Carradine goes from encouraging Hall to get invisible so he can murder the rich people who pissed him off, but then when Hall wants help in that mission, Carradine has forgotten how he convinced Hall to do the serum in the first place.

Again, not a competent script, but also again… what help would a competent script have been.

Actually impressive photography from Milton R. Krasner—the one scene with day-for-night is excellent—is the only technical standout. The dog’s good? Carradine’s got a dog and it figures big into the plot. Sort of absurdly but whatever. So long as it brings the movie to the end.

Revenge is a bad movie. Worse, it’s a slow bad movie; realistically, Sondergaard’s fate is in a cut scene—Hall doesn’t actually kill anyone for quite a while in the film and the body count is very low—so maybe she was a plot sacrifice, but the idea of there being cut scenes and subplots to Revenge is more a threat than anything else. Less might be incomprehensible but a coherent narrative isn’t worth more minutes on the runtime.

The Invisible Man’s Revenge plays like the movie’s punishing you for watching it.

Invisible Agent (1942, Edwin L. Marin)

Just about an hour into Invisible Agent, Axis allies Cedric Hardwicke and Peter Lorre have a falling out. See, Lorre’s smart, actually, while Hardwicke’s just devious. The film had been establishing those traits from the first scene—when they try to strong-arm the Invisible Man formula out of Jon Hall—but what I didn’t realize was Lorre was supposed to be Japanese. Hardwicke says something about how it works in Germany and Lorre starts talking about his country and I’m like… surely he’s not supposed to be Italian.

Nope. He’s supposed to be Japanese. After the falling out scene, the Japanese embassy in Berlin and its staff become a plot point (of course, Lorre’s the only non-Asian person playing a Japanese person so it’s still uncanny and gross and then also problematic just on the propaganda level). But until then… I was giving Invisible Agent a lot more—okay, maybe not more credit, but I certainly wasn’t cognizant of all its defects. If I ever suffer through again, I’m sure I’ll be all the more punished.

Invisible Agent is one of those bad then worse pictures. Sometimes it’s not terrible, but rarely. The first act, before the film introduces femme fatale Ilona Massey (also bad, but gets worse) shows up, is slightly better than what follows. Maybe because there’s still the potential for something in the first act. The concept—the grandson of the original Invisible Man (Claude Rains in the original, who the second film in the series established murdered hundreds) Hall becomes a spy for the Allies, going to Berlin to find some secrets—does at least have possibilities for good set pieces. But the execution of the concept is quite bad. And gets worse as things go along. When buffoon Nazi J. Edward Bromberg is going his screwball comedy thing, it’s actually surprising how bad Curt Siodmak’s script has gotten over the runtime.

There aren’t any good special effects set pieces. The special effects themselves aren’t bad and are at times even effective—the invisible man stuff is more reliable than the military-related stuff, which occasionally has something like a matte painting at an entirely wrong angle and director Marin and editor Edward Curtiss rely on speeding up the film way too much. But if you don’t see the remnants of Hall’s eyes under the cold cream (he’s caked in it so Massey can see him and they can flirt, or whatever it’s called when actors acting badly perform a poorly written script), it’s pretty impressive. Or impressive enough.

Because Invisible Agent is never enough. Hardwicke being really effective as a pervy old Nazi or Lorre being able to be good in an impossible, bad part are not surprising revelations. If Hall weren’t terrible it’d be enough. If Massey weren’t a combination of bad and lost, it… no, it wouldn’t be enough. Hall’s too bad. Siodmak’s script is too bad.

I hope Invisible Agent proves forgettable. I fear it will not. But I hope it does.

The Invisible Woman (1940, A. Edward Sutherland)

It’s entirely possible The Invisible Woman’s concept is a good one—instead of a horror movie, doing a screwball comedy where the female lead is invisible most of the time. Woman is—at best—indifferently acted, poorly directed, atrociously written, without even reasonable special effects. But the idea itself isn’t necessarily bad.

The film opens with suffering butler Charles Ruggles—he gets lots of jokes, they’re always terrible, he’s always bad. His bits are so universally bad, it seems like it has to be director Sutherland. Even Shemp Howard is occasionally amusing. He’s mostly godawful, but every once in a while, some gag won’t completely fail. Everything with Ruggles is a fail. Every single joke. And there are probably four Ruggles jokes every twelve minutes, if not more. The movie runs seventy-two minutes total. So thirty-some lousy Ruggles gags.

Ruggles works for John Howard. Howard is the romance lead, a playboy who funds lovable mad scientist John Barrymore’s projects. Only Howard never asks to see results—not until the movie starts, when Barrymore needs to turn someone invisible. It needs to be a person; Howard apparently won’t believe it if Barrymore turns the cat invisible. The human subject is going to be Virginia Bruce. She initially wants to get invisible to seemingly erase herself from reality. Bruce isn’t good in the scenes where she’s getting philosophical about woman’s place in the universe and so on but at least it’s character.

When she does get invisible and gets to do whatever she wants, it’s just messing with crappy boss Charles Lane. When Lane’s bad, it’s a sign Invisible Woman is never going to be good or even okay. Even with Ruggles, even with Howard, even with Barrymore basically letting his elaborate make-up do all the acting, if the movie were at least funny with its big supporting cast of comedy regulars… it’d have a chance.

But no.

Because Sutherland’s direction is terrible.

And the script—from Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, and Gertrude Purcell (from a story by horror guys Curt Siodmak and Joe May)—is terrible. So the movie doesn’t have a chance. Ever.

The best part of the movie is Margaret Hamilton, who plays Barrymore’s assistant and her dismissive, impatient attitude is perfect for the part and movie. She doesn’t camp it up, but she seems to be acknowledging the quality constraints and so on and excels—reasonably—within them. The movie sort of trades her screen time for Oscar Homolka, which is appropriate for Invisible Woman. Hamilton’s the best, Homolka’s the worst. Now, obviously, dramatically speaking, Howard’s the worst. But for the comedy—and Woman’s a comedy–Homolka’s an endless pit of bad comedy.

Invisible Woman gets so painfully bad in the last third—it’s also a slog of seventy-two minutes, probably because there’s not a good “Invisible Woman” set piece. Sutherland is clearly inept at the special effects sequences but the movie needs them. There’s not even a big screwball number, just more plot, as Homolka’s gang goes after Barrymore and friends.

Howard—Shemp—is in the gang. Donald MacBride is in the gang. Edward Brophy is in the gang. Invisible Woman wastes Edward Brophy. Wastes him in a way you think they’d never seen an Edward Brophy performance before. Including the one he’s giving here.

Terrible editing from Frank Gross doesn’t help things either. Occasionally the cuts make it seem like they’re doing a lot of work—revised audio looped in to dialogue-free visuals, jokes muted and faded out on—and maybe Gross was doing the best he could with Sutherland’s footage. It’s sadly immaterial, other than to correctly portion the blame.

The Invisible Woman’s laugh-less and charmless, only impressive because they can never find a good joke, not even on accident.