The Invisible Woman (1940 film)

The Invisible Woman is a 1940 American science fiction comedy from Universal Pictures in which fashion model Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce) volunteers as the test subject for eccentric Professor Gibbs's invisibility machine, then uses her new condition to take revenge on the boss who mistreated her.¹ Directed by A. Edward Sutherland and starring John Barrymore as Gibbs, it was the third entry in Universal's Invisible Man series but, unlike its predecessors, it is a screwball comedy with no connection to H.G. Wells's novel or to the Griffin storyline.^{2 • 3}

Production

Universal signed Curt Siodmak to develop the story idea, which he wrote in collaboration with Joe May, the director of The Invisible Man Returns, released earlier the same year.^{2 • 10} Production began in early October 1940, and the copyright was registered by Universal Pictures Co. on 31 December 1940 (LP10146). The film was shot in black and white with Western Electric sound, on eight reels.¹

According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, Margaret Sullavan was originally to play the lead but refused the role, which went to Virginia Bruce.¹ For Barrymore, the celebrated stage and screen actor, the part of Gibbs was described by a contemporary fan magazine as his first comparatively straight role in seven years, though he insisted on ad-libbing even from a prepared script; it was one of his final films, and he completed only two more features before his death in 1942.^{11 • 2} The special effects were the work of John P. Fulton, and the supporting cast included character actors Charles Ruggles as Russell's exasperated butler, Margaret Hamilton as Mrs. Jackson, and Shemp Howard, before his Three Stooges fame, as the hoodlum Hammerhead Frankie.^{4 • 9} Bruce is invisible for more than half of her screen time, which TCM's Jeff Stafford notes is an irony for an actress in one of her rare leading roles.²

The AFI Catalog notes a continuity error that survives in the print: Kitty's boss is spelled "Grawley" in the opening credits but "Growley" on his office door.¹

Place in the Invisible Man series

Universal had built a franchise on its 1933 hit The Invisible Man, and 1940 alone saw The Invisible Man Returns and The Invisible Woman bookend the calendar year, followed by Invisible Agent (1942) and The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944).^{12 • 13} The Invisible Woman is the odd entry: it is utterly divorced from the continuity of the other films, never mentions Dr. Griffin's formula, and does not even credit H.G. Wells in the opening titles, using an entirely separate invisibility method instead.³

Where the Wells-derived films treat invisibility as a tragedy of scientific ambition, this film plays the premise for laughs in the comic style of Topper (1937) on a B-movie budget, and it actively celebrates its heroine's use of the power.^{2 • 3} Commentators have read the revenge-on-the-boss storyline as a working-class empowerment fantasy: Marc Longenecker, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Film Studies at Wesleyan University, describes Kitty's disembodied voice lecturing her frightened employer as a variation on the recurring invisible-character scenario in which the unseen hero assumes the role of conscience or judge, giving voice to what audiences might fantasize about saying to a belittling authority figure.⁸ One retrospective has compared its workplace-revenge premise to the later Nine to Five (1980).¹⁴

Reception

The film pleased audiences but drew harsher notices from critics. The New York Times reviewer Theodore Strauss called it "silly, banal and repetitious," a "two-reel comedy with elephantiasis," while conceding that Barrymore "takes to this trash as if he were to the manner born."² Variety praised Barrymore for playing the eccentric inventor more or less straight, with only a slight touch of farcical treatment.⁶ Trade papers were more generous: Film Daily called it "laugh-packed" and "brightly dialogued," while Harrison's Reports judged it "a pretty good comedy for the masses" but noted it offered nothing new to viewers of the earlier invisibility pictures.¹⁵ On aggregate review sites the film holds a 67% Tomatometer from 9 critics and a 29% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a Metascore of 56 (mixed or average) on Metacritic.^{6 • 7}

The film's one lasting award recognition was an Academy Award nomination for Best Special Effects in the 1941 race, which it lost to I Wanted Wings.² Retrospective assessments have been kinder on the technical side: one review calls it the Universal Invisible film whose invisibility effects hold up the best, with a "delightfully abstract, proto-psychedelic" transformation scene.¹⁶ The film has remained available on digital, DVD, and Blu-ray, the latter two as part of The Invisible Man: Complete Legacy Collection.¹⁷

References

1. The Invisible Woman (1940), AFI Catalog of Feature Films
2. Jeff Stafford, "The Invisible Woman," Turner Classic Movies
3. "Ranking the Six Films in Universal's Classic 'Invisible Man' Franchise," Bloody Disgusting
4. The Invisible Woman, filmportal.de
5. The Invisible Woman (1940), Hammer Horror Wiki
6. The Invisible Woman, Rotten Tomatoes
7. The Invisible Woman (1940) critic reviews, Metacritic
8. Marc Longenecker, "Beyond The Invisible Man: A Brief History of Invisibility on Screen," Time
9. THE INVISIBLE WOMAN (1940), ThreeStooges.net filmography
10. "The Invisible Man Saga – A Retrospective on a Lost Legend," Horror News Network
11. Movie Radio Guide, 28 December 1940
12. "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," Turner Classic Movies
13. "Retrospective: The Invisible Woman (1940)," Surgeons of Horror
14. "The Invisible Woman (1940)," The EOFFTV Review
15. "The Invisible Woman (1940)," classicfilmnoir.com
16. Tim Brayton, review of The Invisible Woman, Letterboxd
17. The Invisible Woman, Universal Pictures At Home
18. catalog.afi.com

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

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