Silly Scares From Warners' "B" Side

Invisibility Done For Laughs in The Body Disappears (1941)

Warners scored a B-comic bulls-eye with this sci-fi plus chase frolic revolved around invisibility tests gone haywire. Dotty scientist Edward Everett Horton is cause of that: this is really his and Willie Best's vehicle, and what pleasure seeing these two knockabouts in firm control of happenings. I looked for evidence of The Body Disappears achieving sleeper class, but drew blanks, and to that add a loss of $32K, despite negative costs at modest $245,000. Could it be fact of release on literal eve of Pearl Harbor? (as in 12/6/41) Variety reported at least one engagement "dented by war and Christmas." If that was the wider case, then folks missed some joy, The Body Disappears being cheerier than most WB attempts at yok-making (by grim comparison, there's Affectionately Yours of the same year). The invisibility gag always suited comedy better in any case --- James Whale's initial go at a see-through man was maybe more memorable for laffs than thrills, and certainly by 1941, the topic was ripe for ridicule. I'm sorry, though, for Shock Theatre-era youth encountering this foolery rather than straight chills sleep was bartered for. Certainly The Body Disappears sounds like serious business: I went years thinking it was frightful after The Corpse Vanishes fashion (and consider similarity to The Vanishing Body, Realart's reissue title for 1934's The Black Cat). Well, sometimes it pays to be wrong, but you'll not go that way for unexpected fun this is.