Invisible Stripes
Encyclopedia
Invisible Stripes is a 1939 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 crime film
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...

 about a gangster (George Raft
George Raft
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...

) unable to go straight after returning home from prison. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon
Lloyd Bacon
Lloyd Francis Bacon was a screen, stage, and vaudeville actor and film director.-Life:Bacon was born in San Jose California, the son of actor Frank Bacon, later the co-author and star of the long running Broadway show 'Lightnin' , and Jennie Bacon. He was not related to actor Irving Bacon whom he...

 and also features William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...

 and Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

. The screenplay by Warren Duff was based on the novel of the same name by Warden Lewis E. Lawes, a fervent crusader for prison reform, as adapted by Jonathan Finn.

Plot

Cliff Taylor (George Raft
George Raft
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...

) is an ex-con who wants to go straight, but since being released from prison on parole, he finds it hard to find and hold a job due to his criminal past. Cliff's younger brother Tim (William Holden
William Holden
William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...

) follows in his footsteps, and joins up with Charles Martin (Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

)'s gang in an attempt to support himself and his girlfriend Peggy (Jane Bryan
Jane Bryan
Jane Bryan was an American actress who was being prepared by the Warner Bros. studio to become one of their leading ladies until she married a drugstore magnate in 1940 and retired....

).

Cast

  • George Raft
    George Raft
    George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...

     as Cliff Taylor
  • Jane Bryan
    Jane Bryan
    Jane Bryan was an American actress who was being prepared by the Warner Bros. studio to become one of their leading ladies until she married a drugstore magnate in 1940 and retired....

     as Peggy
  • William Holden
    William Holden
    William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...

     as Tim Taylor
  • Humphrey Bogart
    Humphrey Bogart
    Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

     as Charles Martin
  • Flora Robson
    Flora Robson
    Dame Flora McKenzie Robson DBE was an English actress, renowned as a character actress, who played roles ranging from queens to villainesses.-Early life:...

     as Mrs. Taylor
  • Henry O'Neill
    Henry O'Neill
    Henry O'Neill was a film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly dignified roles during the 1930s and 1940s.-Life and career:...

     as Parole Officer Masters
  • Paul Kelly
    Paul Kelly (actor)
    Paul Michael Kelly was an American child actor who later as an adult became a stage, film, and television actor.-Child actor:...

     as Ed Kruger
  • Lee Patrick
    Lee Patrick (actress)
    Lee Patrick was an American theater and film actress.-Early life and education:Born in New York City, Patrick began acting on Broadway in 1924. For more than a decade, she was constantly employed and established herself as a popular actress. She appeared in the original 1929 production of June...

     as Molly Daniels
  • Marc Lawrence
    Marc Lawrence
    Marc Lawrence was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. He has also been credited as F. A. Foss, Marc Laurence and Marc C...

     as Lefty Sloan
  • Joe Downing as Johnny Hudson
  • Tully Marshall
    Tully Marshall
    William Phillips was an American character actor known as Tully Marshall, with nearly a quarter century of theatrical experience behind before he made his first film appearance in 1914.-Career:...

     as Old Peter
  • Margot Stevenson
    Margot Stevenson
    Margot Stevenson was an American stage and radio actress, known for her role as Margo Lane in the radio adaptation of "The Shadow", opposite Orson Welles in 1938.Stevenson was born in Manhattan on February 8, 1912...

     as Sue
  • Joseph Crehan
    Joseph Crehan
    Joseph Crehan was an American film actor. He appeared in over 300 films between 1916 and 1965.He was born in Baltimore, Maryland and died in Hollywood, California from a stroke.-Selected filmography:...

     as Mr. Chasen
  • Chester Clute
    Chester Clute
    Chester Clute , was an American actor familiar in scores of Hollywood films from his debut in 1930. Diminutive, bald-pated with a bristling moustache, he appeared in mostly unbilled roles, consisting usually of one or two lines, in nearly 250 films. He died of a heart attack aged 65...

     as Mr. Butler
  • John Hamilton
    John Hamilton (actor)
    John Hamilton was an American actor, who appeared in many movies and television programs. He is probably best remembered for his role as the blustery newspaper editor Perry White on the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.-Biography:Burly, stentorian-voiced John Hamilton was born John...

     as Police Capt. Johnson
  • Frankie Thomas
    Frankie Thomas
    Frank Marion Thomas, Jr. was an American actor, author and bridge-strategy expert who played both lead and supporting roles on Broadway, in films, in post-World War II radio, and in early television. He was best known for his starring role in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.-Early years:Thomas was born...

     as Tommy McNeill
  • William Haade
    William Haade
    William Haade was an American film actor. He appeared in over 250 films between 1937 and 1957.He was born in New York, and died in Los Angeles, California.-Selected filmography:* The Invisible Menace...

     as Shrank


Cast notes:
  • Leo Gorcey
    Leo Gorcey
    Leo Bernard Gorcey was an American stage and movie actor who became famous for portraying on film the leader of the group of young hooligans known variously as the Dead End Kids, The East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys. Always the most pugnacious member of the gangs he participated in, young Leo...

    , who would later become known for playing "Slip Mahoney" in the Bowery Boys
    The Bowery Boys
    The Bowery Boys were fictional New York City characters who were the subject of feature films released by Monogram Pictures from 1946 through 1958....

     series of films, has a small part as the head stockroom boy.

Critical reaction

Time Out Film Guide calls Invisible Stripes "A thoroughly predictable tale of the tribulations of an ex-con." A New York Times review from 1940 commented about the unusual lack of prison scenes in the movie. "Let us hasten in all gratitude to add that "Invisible Stripes" is a prison picture in which the stripes are much less visible than usual, most of the action being paroled to the outside in the capable custody of George Raft, Jane Bryan, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. There are no jute mill scenes, no bullying guards, no big prison break sequence; in fact, we don't understand why they've suddenly commuted our sentence from the customary duration of the picture to a brief prison prelude, a mere graduating exercise at the beginning: good behavior, maybe."
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