Invisible Agent Review (Film, 1942) The Archives
content warning: Invisible Agent features white performers playing Japanese roles.
You know that amazing storyline in Inglourious Basterds where Diane Kruger plays a German film star secretly spying for the British troops? All the twists and turns as she comes up with whatever lies to save her life after Plan A fails miserably? The Invisible Agent is basically that storyline as its own comedy/horror film and actually made during World War II.
Invisible Agent is the fourth film in the Invisible Man series, but you can watch them in any order as the only real continuity is “science makes someone invisible resulting in slapstick comedy.” This one tries for a deeper connection but only pays it lip service. The scientist brought into WWII action is related to the original scientist in the first film. First the Germans, then the Americans, corner him and demand he release the formula. The Americans convince him to fly to Germany and use the formula to spy on all of a glamorous double-agent’s high level contacts in Hitler’s regime. Espionage, horror, and hilarity ensue with still-impressive special effects.
The draw for most of the films in this series is the beautiful special effects work. Invisible Agent is no exception. Created long before the invention of CG and green screen, the method for floating objects in the middle of live action scenes is simple and ingenious. Essentially, all action requiring the invisible person was filmed in front of black velvet, with the stunt performer or actor (depending on the scene) also wearing black velvet. The nap of the fabric under the right lighting made everything not covered in black fabric disappear. The rest is layering footage in the editing room and Vaudeville gags to make a man (or woman) disappear.
Invisible Agent has something else going for it: a great storyline. Frankly, you could watch the original Invisible Man and this one and get the best of the surprisingly long-running Universal monster series. The WWII espionage background allowed for bigger set pieces than ever before. The inclusion of German and Japanese troops as villains plotting to bomb NYC and steal the invisibility serum works well. There’s even nuance in the motivations and actions of the Axis leaders. This leads to a surprisingly deep commentary on war and survival in hostile environments.
There is an exception to this. The film made the terrible, distracting, and racist decision to have a white actor play a Japanese character. This is inexcusable under any circumstances, but especially inexcusable with how many Japanese and Japanese American actors were cast in the film. While blackface was becoming less and less common in US films at this point, casting white actors to play other people of color was common for many more decades. It’s a long, dark history of cinematic racism in casting and financing films split between the false claim that they cannot find actual BIPOC actors to play the roles and the other false claim that BIPOC actors are not a box office draw.
Sure, the rah rah Go USA stuff takes over by the end, but it feels earned with how well everything else is handled. There is genuine suspense in the execution of the spying plan and some of the only real scares in the entire Invisible Man series with a tense invisible interrogation of a Nazi general in a jail cell. The massive war set pieces with guns, firefighters, explosives, and airplanes take a simple effects trick and turns it into something spectacular.
Invisible Agent is just weird enough to hold up compared to so many other Hollywood propaganda entertainment films from the period. It’s an underseen horror gem from the later years of the Universal Monster era.
Invisible Agent is only available to purchase in box set collections of Invisible Man series of Universal Monster Movies.
