40's Vincent Price

THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS
(1940)
Dir - Joe May
Overall: GOOD

Universal had a rather consistent knack for at least solid initial sequels to their most beloved "classic monster" films and The Invisible Man Returns is no exception.  Though it cannot fairly be expected to compare to James Whale's eccentric and paramount, initial The Invisible Man, B-movie director Joe May manages to keep a consistent tone with a dash of appropriate humor here or there, a strong emphasis on the special effects which hold up better than most from the Golden Age of Hollywood, clever set pieces throughout, and the good sense to let Vincent Price in his first lead stretch out his acting muscles in an understandably challenging role.  Price's Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe loses the audience's sympathy just as Claude Rains' Dr. Jack Griffin had in the 1933 original, but as opposed to Rains who was bananas from the second we meet him, Price stays on the side of sanity here and the film even ends on a pleasantry that Whale's version could never allow.  The series would take a detour into straight, screwball comedy with the follow-up The Invisible Woman, (also released in 1940), and then spy territory with 1942's The Invisible Agent, but the juice was still flowing stronger here.

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
(1940)
Dir - Joe May
Overall: GOOD

As an immediate follow up to The Invisible Man Returns, (which utilized the services of both Vincent Price and Austrian-born contract director Joe May), Universal's The House of the Seven Gables was the second film adaptation of the Nathanial Hawthorne novel of the same name.  Budgeted as a B-movie to cash in on Universal's current horror resurgence after a triple bill of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Son of Kong successfully played at a New York theater, (thus convincing the studio to once again return to genre filmmaking), the movie is in fact not a horror film at all.  In this infantile stage in his film career, Price was only dabbling in the genre that would eventually make him legendary, but this can still be seen as an interesting staring vehicle for the actor with enough horror tie-ins to entice enthusiasts.  Jack Pierce did the aging makeup on both Price and co-star Margaret Lindsey and the story would be remade yet again with Price as one of the segments in the straight horror offering Twice-Told Tales.  As a melodrama, the performances are strong though and the re-worked story that differs significantly from the source material weaves intentional anti-materialism and left-wing ideas into it.

SHOCK
(1946)
Dir - Alfred L. Werker
Overall: MEH

This somewhat D-rent thriller from B-movie director Alfred L. Werker has a spry, thirty-five year old Vincent Price as a distinguished doctor who resorts to fiendish activity out of selfish desperation and the results are pretty ham-fisted overall.  This has more to do with Shock's script that treats unrealistic psychological jargon and, well, shock treatment more seriously than it deserves, making the more melodramatic outbursts seem that much more silly.  Anabel Shaw as the stock, "delusional" woman revs up the camp, but otherwise the cast keeps their wits about them, including Price who was not prone to his more memorable, heightened performances at this early stage in his career yet.  Werker stages a few suspenseful moments such as an early nightmare sequence and a set-piece involving a random, ultimately unimportant and deranged patient escaping from his room.  Still, the film does not really gain any momentum and mostly revolves around characters exchanging the same information over and over again between each other.  While it is not as clever as it lets on, it is not entirely forgettable either and there is enough present for Price fans alone to find alluring.