Horrorfest 2023: Invisible Ghost

Invisible Ghost

Written by Al Martin and Helen Martin

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis

Starring Bela Lugosi, Polly Ann Young and John McGuire

USA, 1941

One of the reasons I couldn't bring myself to stick to only brand new movies this year was because that would mean I'd have to go an entire October without Bela Lugosi, and that's like no kind of October at all! So I decided to check out his first movie in a long string for Monogram, INVISIBLE GHOST.

Lugosi stars as a prominent doctor, mourning his wife's (Betty Compson) tragic death, even though she died in the act of abandoning and cheating on him. Every year on their anniversary he pretends to have dinner with her, talking to an empty chair across the table from him.

Unbeknownst to him, but knownst quickly to us thanks to some efficient storytelling, Lugosi's wife is not dead, and is instead being nursed back to health in a hidden chamber by Lugosi's gardener (Ernie Adams). For reasons left mysterious to us throughout the movie, whenever Lugosi sees his still-living wife roaming the grounds, he falls into a trance-like state in which he commits murders -- only to wake up and not realize what he has done.

This leads to the death of Lugosi's maid (Terry Walker), and the inadvertent (or maybe advertent?) framing of Lugosi's daughter's (Polly Ann Young) fiancé (John McGuire). Of course as the bodies keep piling up, suspicion shifts from the fiancé (too late -- he's been executed) and it becomes a race against time to figure out who's doing the killing before the next one happens.

For a movie that's just over an hour long, there's a lot going on here. Aside from the horror elements, there's enough twists and turns within the relationships of the people in and around the doctor's house to satisfy several soap operas. You've got the maid somehow involved with the doctor's soon-to-be son-in-law, you've got the gardener hiding the doctor's wife, you've got the executed fiancé's twin brother showing up out of nowhere, and so on.

The only character in the cast smart enough to try to stay out of everything is the butler (Clarence Muse), who also happens to get most of the best lines. And, by some miracle, he's played mostly with dignity and fairness, and not exploited as the stereotypical Black comic relief.

So, INVISIBLE GHOST isn't revolutionary or even all that memorable, but if you've seen every other spooky black and white Lugosi flick and you need something perfect for an October night, give it a shot.