Monday, Feb. 05, 1940

Also Showing

Brother Rat and a Baby (Warner Bros.) should prove embarrassing to Virginia Military Institute as the graduates from Brother Rat, Bing Edwards (Eddie Albert), Billy Randolph (Wayne Morris), Dan Crawford (Ronald Reagan), project their prankish adolescence into extramural life. In the absence of one Mr. Harper they move into his apartment, smash a priceless ship model, pilfer and pawn an invaluable Stradivarius, appropriate $200 Harper has left in Bing's care, finally burn up the apartment, for which Bing has forgotten to mail the insurance policy. "Anyway," says one prankster, "Mr. Harper still has his life." It is distinctly not funny. The only one who manages to smile at it all is incomparable 17-month-old fugitive from Naziland, Baby Peter B. Good.

The Invisible Man Returns (Universal). People who enjoy seeing newspapers unfold themselves in midair, windows open without human assistance, unfilled suits of clothing perambulate through the landscape and an invisible hand unwind a thick swathing of head bandages and leave a headless jacket will experience a deep satisfaction at this pseudo-scientific thriller. In The Invisible Man (1933) invisibility caused the patient's death. No such silly boner is made this time. An antidote for invisibility is found, thus insuring Universal studio of the possibility of sequels as long as public interest in invisibility lasts.

The picture is distinguished by one of Sir Cedric Hardwicke's somewhat sepulchral interpretations of genteel skulduggery, and by the fact that a first cousin once removed of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Alan Napier, plays a drunken coal miner. That invisibility has its decencies too is suggested when the invisible man turns his back to the audience to remove his visible pants.

Neatest trick shot: visibility returning as the blood fills the capillaries, veins, arteries.

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