THE INVISIBLE WOMAN - "The YEAR'S FUNNIEST FUN" (1940)

Tonight I've got a Super Spectacular Saturday Night Special for you! As it goes, in the movie she's kicking her boss, not The Professor as seen in the poster!
Welcome back to The Dungeon!

From 1940, it's "The Invisible Woman!"

"The Invisible Woman" features a great cast that includes John (Bulldog Drummond) Howard as the playboy philanthropist Dick Russell!

Joltin' John (Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde) Barrymore is the mad scientist professor working on a way to make a person invisible from a series of injections and weird machinations! On his right is the lovely Margaret (The Wicked Witch Of The West) Hamilton!

Dick Russell's bank account has gotten too thin for him the give the professor the $3000.00 he asked for, so he has to change his ad to 'who's willing to work for free?'

The mailbox fills up fast, but it's full of crank letters like this!

This is the invisible machine! As you can tell it's not invisible, but it makes people invisible! So far, it has only been tested on a cat!

In steps Minnesota born Virginia Bruce! Virginia is every bit prefect in this role whether you can see her or not!  She's a model named Kitty Carroll with a mean and cruel boss, and her sole reason to become invisible is so she can literally go kick him in the butt!

 One of the more interesting movies that Virginia was in was the Abbott And Costello romp,

"Pardon My Sarong" in 1942! Here's an awesome promo still from that film! Virginia is not in this shot but two of the other dolls in the movie are! Here's Marie McDonald and Janet Warren!

Maybe it's my imagination, but for being completely and totally obscure, this shot of a nude Kitty Carroll in the invisible machine is pretty darn racy!

The first thing Kitty does is go straight to the office of her now ex-boss!

After also seeing the ad in the paper, a trio of gangsters try and get to The Professor's secrets but are foiled by an invisible Kitty! 

Purely running around naked whether you're visible or not seems like it was pretty bawdy for 1940! The title "The Invisible Woman" has been used many, many more times in the last 77 years, with most of them having nothing at all to do with this movie! One "Invisible Woman" movie is about a guy who has an imaginary lover, and one was about the mistress of the author Charles Dickens! It seems that invisible women come in all kinds of forms!

The trio of mobsters steal the machine and take it to Mexico, so they can make their boss invisible to sneak him out of the country! The leader of the three is a guy named Foghorn, named thusly for his deep voice! Donald (The Killers, The Brute Man) MacBride is Foghorn! They try the machine out on him but because he didn't get the injection, it doesn't work, but instead comes out embarrassingly talking like Mike Tyson! (Pretty funny that as a boy singer back in 1909, he was a soprano) Why Foghorn didn't have to get naked is something I'll leave up to your own imagination!

So The Boss, a guy name Blackie Cole and played by Oscar (Sabotage, Mr. Sardonicus) Homolka, has his boys kidnap the professor and bring him to Mexico to show them how to work the machine! Great standoff between The Boss and The Prof, don't you think?

Did I forget to tell you this was a comedy? Last but not least is a lot of people's favourite Stooge, Shemp Howard as the bumbling gangster Frankie!

Cha, Cha, Cha!!!

Let's go over this one more time in four words!

 Bulldog, Jekyll, Minnesota, Stooge!
"The Invisible Woman" has it all, and more!!

LIGHTS OUT: The Devil In Glencairn / NBC - 1951

Here's an episode of LIGHTS OUT from 1951 starring... Richard (THE MAGNETIC MONSTER) Carlson, Halliwell (THE UNDYING MONSTER) Hobbes, Tom (THE OLD DARK HOUSE) Poston, Jonathan (LOST IN SPACE) Harris and J. Pat (THE ADVENTURES OF SPIN AND MARTY) O'Malley.

The story's about Steenie, the best bagpiper in all of Scotland, and, he's about to be evicted if he doesn't pay his rent. After selling his pipes to raise the money, a mysterious stranger (the Devil) appears with a deal for Steenie, it involves money, bagpipes and his immortal soul!

WHOA THERE!!.. Back off, Jack!

Oh yeah, this is our creepy narrator, Frank Gallop. He will go on to host the TV series, GREAT GHOST STORIES, in 1961...

Steenie (Richard Carlson) goes to the pub to tell his story to his gal pal, Tibbie. He tells her that it all started a year ago...

In a flashback, he explains how he was forced to sell his bagpipe in order to pay his rent.

Ahhhh, the sweet smell of a bagpipe early in the morning... Mmmmm!

HEY, SOMEONE THROW THAT FREAKIN' WEIRDO OFF THE SET, WE'RE TAPING HERE!!

In the meantime, Steenie meets with Sir John (Tom Posten), to whom he owes the rent. He doesn't give a crap about the difficulty Steenie's having coming up with the rent... What, me worry? I'm as rich as a bitch!!

Then, the Stranger (Jonathan Harris) enters the scene. He has a deal for Stennie that he cannot resist, an easy way out of his mess...

He must go to the land of the dead and get a bag of silver and a receipt signed by Sir Robert (Sir John's deceased dad) as proof of his payment.

Sir John is baffled, he gives the bag of silver back to Steenie in exchange for the reciept, which he burns in a fire. He tells Steenie to never mention this incident ever again!

Then, back to the future at the pub, the clock strikes midnight and the Stranger appears.

He tells Steenie that's is time to go, he signed a contract and it's time to make a payment!

Steenie tells him to go to Hell, he did everything he was asked and will not go with him. So, the Stranger brings in Death to take care of business with his long blade, but, Tibbie tells Steenie to play The Lord's Hymm on the bagpipe, which he does! Guess what?! Yeah, the Stranger and Death can't take it and go... KA-POOF!!

Steenie keeps the goodness coming, a great way to celebrate a happy ending!! Eegah!! will pop in tomorrow with something we'll love, no doubt!

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS - Season 01, Episode 09 - "The Long Shot" (1955)

 

It's time for more merry mayhem from the master of suspense,

Mr. Alfred Hitchcock! When things get bad, you've always got Alfred to turn to, and I seem to do it a lot!

Isn't everything in life pretty much a gamble? That's what makes it interesting, taking chances!

But as Alfred will tell you, one solid bet that you cannot go wrong on is using the products that sponsor his show!

It's his last quarter, and he wins big! The slot machine kicks out real fruit! (It was common on olde slot machines for the symbols to be fruit!)

I was going to try and cut back on my drinking, but out of the blue for some reason, I just got this overwhelming urge to pop open a cold brew! No willpower at all!

Original Ratpacker Peter Lawford is big-time loser Charlie Raymond! Can you believe Peter only lived to be 61? It would have been his birthday tomorrow! 

Charlie was so far in debt, he made one large bet on a horse race, so now, he's in super deep shit, because of course his horse didn't win! 40 grand was a lot of money back in 1955.

Underneath that beer mug, Charlie has at least discovered a way to get out of town!

John Williams is Walker Hendricks/English Jim! Besides being in 10 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," John Williams also was the chief Inspector in Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder." He also had the role of Shakespeare in "The Twilight Zone" episode titled "The Bard!"

If he lives long enough, Walker Hendricks is about to become a very wealthy man!
Unfortunately, Charlie has now found that out too!

Gertrude Hoffman started her career in Germany in 1917! She was in "The Ape," and had a small part in "War Of Worlds!" She worked all through the 30's and the 40's in mostly uncredited roles before scoring a gig as Mrs. Odetts for 36 episodes of "My Little Margie" from 1952 to 1955!

Gertrude moved on in 1968 at the age of 96!

"Long Shots are for Chumps!"