Invisible Agent

Invisible Agent is a 1942 American science fiction film from Universal. The film was a wartime propaganda production that was part of a Hollywood effort to boost morale at the home front. It loosely echoed a series of formula war-horror films produced during this period that typically featured a mad scientist working in secret to aid the Third Reich. This film, which is the fourth film in the Universal Studios Invisible Man series, was directed by Edwin L. Marin, and the screenplay was written by Curt Siodmak, who had co-written the earlier The Invisible Man Returns in 1940. Siodmak was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and he gave the film a strong anti-Nazi tone that treated the Nazis as incompetent buffoons. (A scene reportedly edited from the film had the hero placing a boot into Hitler's backside, following an official ban on all such images.) The concept for the story was inspired by The Invisible Man, a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells. Wells had signed a deal with Universal to allow movies based on his work, which began with the successful 1933 film by the same name. For the cast, the invisible agent is played by Jon Hall, with Peter Lorre and Sir Cedric Hardwicke (who played another villain in The Invisible Man Returns) performing as members of the axis, and Ilona Massey and Albert Basserman as allied spies. The special effects were produced by John P. Fulton, who had created the effects for Universal's previous Invisible Man films. The movie was filmed in black and white with mono sound and ran for 81 minutes.