Opening with Charles Ruggles comically falling down a staircase, this third entry in the 'Invisible Man' franchise distinguishes itself as something very different from the get-go. While the first two films had their lighter, comical moments, this one is a full blown comedy and with an invisibility machine (as opposed to a serum) this time, 'The Invisible Woman' is so far removed from the other films that it really deserves to be considered on its own terms. It is often said that comedy is the most subjective genre, but it is hard to imagine many watching this film without cracking a smile. Virginia Bruce is perfectly spunky as a model who signs up to an invisibility experiment simply for the adventure of it. The ever-versatile John Barrymore also delivers a fine turn as the kooky inventor of the invisibility machine, successfully playing a character at least twenty years his senior, and Ruggles (of 'Bringing Up Baby' fame) is very funny too as the often baffled servant of Barrymore's financer. John Howard is less interesting as the financer in question with the film at its weakest as he starts romancing the invisible Bruce; the gangster supporting characters are also a little one-note. Clocking in at just over an hour though, the film never outstays its welcome, remaining entertaining to the end with solid special effects as glasses float in the air - and cats too! Bruce's ulterior motive - revenge for being treated unfairly at work - also provides the film with a surprising openly pro-feminist angle, which in turn makes the film partially a tale of female empowerment.

The Invisible Woman (1940) is in the family or series of The Invisible Man films. The other films in the series are horror-dramas that are sprinkled with comedy whereas The Invisible Woman is designed to be a light-hearted comedy, it works good in the genre of comedy-horror.Here we have a comical "mad scientist", Professor Gibbs, who creates an invisibility machine, runs an ad to find someone to help him test it on humans and a woman, Kitty Carroll, answers his ad. Prof. Gibbs will soon find out why Kitty wants to become invisible: to get revenge on her mean boss. Trouble brews when the invisibility machine is stolen by crooks. Can they get the machine back? Invisible Woman is a cute film. It's worth watching if you enjoy comedies in general, comedy-horror and/or The Invisible Man films. 7.5/10

An adventurous model (Virginia Bruce) volunteers to be the guinea pig for a nutty professor (John Barrymore) who has created a machine to make people invisible. The experiment is a success but when gangsters steal the machine, it's up to the Invisible Woman to get it back! One of the most underrated of all the Universal horror movies. OK, yes, it's not a horror movie so much as a slapstick comedy but it's lumped in with the rest of the series. The fact that it's a comedy is probably why it isn't liked more by hardcore monster fans. Beautiful Virginia Bruce gives possibly the best performance of her career here. She's very funny and more than holds her own against a cast of veteran comic actors. I'm surprised she never really broke through to A-list success. John Barrymore has lots of fun in his part as the silly professor. You would never know about Barrymore's personal problems by watching this performance. He seems at the top of his game. Leading man John Howard shows he has a talent for comedy here as well. Fantastic supporting cast includes Charlie Ruggles and Margaret Hamilton as comical servants. Edward Brophy, Oskar Homolka, Shemp Howard, and Donald MacBride are great fun as the dimwitted gangsters. Maria Montez appears in a bit part.It's a wonderful charming movie that puts a smile on my face every time I watch it. Whether you are fan of the Universal horror films like I am or not, hopefully you can accept this movie on its own terms and enjoy it for the great comedy that it is. It has an exceptional cast and a pleasant, lighthearted atmosphere throughout. I heartily recommend it to everybody who likes great comedies, as well as Universal completists.

No, "The Invisible Woman" isn't a movie for the ages (as the 1933 "Invisible Man" certainly is!), but it's a cheery little screwball comedy with a science-fiction premise grafted onto it. Mad (in the dotty rather than the floridly insane sense) scientist John Barrymore needs a volunteer to try out the invisibility process he's been working on for 10 years (a chemical injection followed by an electrical transformation, rather than the chemicals alone that turned Claude Rains and Vincent Price, respectively, invisible in Universal's two previous films on this premise) and finds her in Virginia Bruce, a store model who uses her new-found powers to get revenge on a martinet boss (Charles Lane). Directed by Mack Sennett veteran A. Edward Sutherland (who actually did make a serious horror film, "Murder in the Zoo," though for the most part he stuck to comedies like W. C. Fields' 1936 "Poppy"), "The Invisible Woman" is quite amusing (though it sags a bit in the second half) and a light-hearted romp. Barrymore manages to retain his dignity in his hapless role, though given what happened to him in real life it's almost unbearably ironic to hear him warning Virginia Bruce NOT to drink alcohol! As for Bruce, she was one of the most unjustly neglected and underused actresses of her era; she was superb in the 1934 "Jane Eyre" for Monogram (far better than Joan Fontaine in the 1943 remake for Fox!) but otherwise got to play only second-leads in prestige films (like the 1936 Cole Porter musical "Born to Dance," in which she introduced the song "I've Got You Under My Skin") and leads in movies like this; still, she's good here throughout, especially in the scene in which she attempts to rally her fellow models to resist their viciously repressive boss: "The Invisible Man" meets "Norma Rae"!