Wedding Program Memorial Wording Samples

THE INVISIBLE GHOST (USA, 1941)

Original title: Invisible Ghost. Address: Joseph H. Lewis. Cast: Bela Lugosi (Dr. Charles Kessler), Polly Ann Young (Virginia Kessler), John McGuire (Ralph Dickson / Paul Dickson), Clarence Muse (Evans, the butler), Terry Walker (Cecile Mannix) , Betty Compson (Mrs. Kessler), Ernie Adams (Jules Mason), George Pembroke (Lieutenant Williams), Ottola Nesmith (Mrs. Mason), Fred Kelsey (Detective Ryan), Jack Mullhall (Detective Tim). Duration: 64 minutes.

Symptoms: Professor Kessler lost his wife in a traffic accident, but still acts as if alive. Kessler lives with Virginia, his only daughter in a sinister mansion where he also is producing a series of murders that baffled police maintained. For its part, Virginia's fiance, Ralph, has a secret: he was raised loving home today. When found murdered and a letter from Ralph on hand inmediantamente it becomes the scapegoat for the crimes.

Diagnosis: The fact that this little film is relatively easy to find in cheap editions that populate these currently the big malls can do thinking about the fan who is faced with a routine series B without another reason beyond the role of Bela Lugosi ineffable. Well, flat is flat wrong. The Invisible Ghost is one of the most (unintentionally) surreal titles that charming producing Monogram made in his very extensive career as a tiller of series B during the late 40's.

Freud has always had an undeniable fascination in the art world. In fact the study of the hidden, inner self through psychoanalysis, gave rise to most of the twentieth century avant-garde and this influence was noted in an implicit also in Hollywood. The greatest directors flirted with giving Freudian theories known titles in general, and paradoxically, are often among the cream of their filmographies. Double Life of George Cukor , Remember of Alfred Hitchcock or Secret Beyond the Door of Fritz Lang are just a few examples of this fad. If these titles, with a responsible and budgets first and tried a wholly superficial Freudian theories in a series B pure and simple, as is now at hand, the result could indeed be insane. And the title certainly does not disappoint those expectations.

I must admit that this is one of the synopsis that has cost me more writing. The simple exercise to review its argument helps us to verify the many inconsistencies in a script full of holes that can only be excused on the basis of the condescension with which we approach the titles of this nature. It is assumed that the main character's wife has died in an accident car but soon discover that you are actually living in a state of dementia (do not know the reason) and the gardener has hidden in the garden tool shed. Neither do we know what is hidden. The woman repeated statements that can not go home because someone wants to hurt. But he never explains why or who you mean. Ms. dedicated the evening to swarm around the outside of the house and hypnotize telepathically with her husband so that he is devoted to kill every living creature in the bathrobe (especially bizarre detail) but also will never know the reasons which move it. The police immediately assumed (with enough arguments pilgrims) that the murderer is engaged to the daughter of Lugosi, is condemned to death and executed him, but there appears to worry because once the twin brother to investigate. So we have two characters for the price of one. And if all this is not enough psychotronic, we should see the session that submits a police psychiatrist the poor steward of the house (black, of course) to find out, as the revolutionary techniques of psychoanalysis, if this is insane or not.

However, oddly enough, the film rises above all these circumstances due to personality of his then still young director, Joseph H. Lewis . For if there is a clueless who do not yet know the immense talent of Lewis will remember that he gave splendid history of film titles such as Special Agent , The Gunfighter or that jewel that is Demon arms, soon revalued by a stream of young directors who were between the Nouvelle Vague. Always used to extract gold from low budgets, Lewis managed to win in part the drawbacks of this modest production thanks to a staging that exceeds the theatricality of its proposal (Almost a couple of spaces and a few actors) and planning the use of the camera that knows how to make a tremendous advantage on the other hand, conventional staging (probably recycled) with rapid tracking shots that even penetrate the walls of the rooms and use of depth of field practically unheard of at the time. Lewis ends the same way the temptation to ascribe to German expressionism imported by Universal, yet retaining some tenebrism lighting and making plastic moments to remember.

The division's tasks in an office offering interpretive detail uncommon in such productions. Lugosi was not a good actor, okay, but the camera loved him, and being aware of it, Lewis portrays him with care especially in moments of temporary insanity. Rest of cast highlights the beautiful Polly Ann Young , younger sister of Loretta Young and oddly with this film gave up his career as an actress despite dying at age 88. For his part, Clarence Muse , who plays Evans, the faithful butler of the house, can be considered the first major black star in Hollywood and alternated his work as composer, actor and writer until his last film (The black stallion) in 1979 when he was and 90 years old. For its part, a great silent film diva, Betty Compton done a commendable job as Lugosi's mad wife, proving this characterization that those having retained.

Ultimately this title may cause mixed feelings. As contradictory as it is watching a good cast and crew battling a preposterous script and a budget less than modest. The side to which the balance will finally tilt values \u200b\u200beveryone else. The proposal is there, like a curious title in the filmography of Lugosi and, of course, its skilled author. Ah! The Phantom of the title, so which is invisible, it is not seen it anywhere in the whole film, a final irony of a script that will need the complicity of the viewer from the first minute.