Invisible Stripes (1939)

Strong and Moving!

Simply A Masterpiece

Let's be realistic.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's high time this movie is released on DVD, it was never released before on VHS. This is one of my favorite Warner Bros. gangster films that stars both George Raft & Humphrey Bogart. I'm a fan of both actors & the gangster genre. But this isn't just another typical "knock down, drag out, car chasing, gun blasting gangster film, it's also a social commentary on just how tough it really was to live in depression era 1930's America. In the early 1930's public enemies like Al Capone, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly etc. were celebrated folk hero's & the public had no respect for law & order until G-men like Melvin Purviss, Elliot Ness & Thomas E. Dewey cracked down & stopped these colorful characters dead in their tracks. Only then the tide turned & the people had a new found respect & admiration for law & order.Invisible Stripes opens in Sing Sing prison with Cliff Taylor (Raft) & Chuck Martin (Bogart) on their way out of prison. Raft chooses the straight & narrow path while Bogart chooses to take up where he left off as a criminal. Both men have justifiable reasons for their paths. Bogie reasons that the odds are stacked up too high against them to go straight because of the economic hardship & the way the system is set up. A paroled convict only has a short time to get a job or end up back in jail. Raft soon finds out just how tough getting a job is & how cold & unfair the outside world is to an ex-con. He is greeted with suspicion, distrust & joblessness, his girlfriend quickly rejects him as soon as he gets out. Because Raft is an ex-con now he's not good enough for her anymore.Raft has a kid brother named Tim played by a young & "very different" William Holden, Tim is a grease monkey & dreams of a better life & wants a garage of his own. When the going gets tough he starts to become rebellious but Raft discourages him from following in his convict footsteps & beats some sense into him. Raft needs to get from "Rags to Riches" quickly & looks up Bogart & decides to join Chucks gang in a series of bank robberies just to get enough jack saved up to buy an auto shop for him & his kid brother (Holden) to keep him straight. After Cliff quits the gang in a subsequent botched up heist Chuck uses Tim's garage as a hideout until the heat cools off. Chuck lies to Tim by making him think that Cliff was in on the armoured car heist to assure his silence. After helping Chuck & his gang escape Tim is later arrested by the police & thrown in jail, placing Raft in the middle between a loyalty to Chuck & his kid brother Tim. But Cliff will not let his kid brother take the rap for Chuck & his gang & convinces him to rat on Chuck & the other gangsters by identifying them at the police station. Chuck helps Cliff anyway against the other gangsters out to shoot Raft for betraying them & Bogart even takes a bullet for Raft as both are shot & killed. Bogart is a likable bad guy in this movie unlike his other gangsters during this period like "Angels With Dirty Faces" & "The Roaring Twenties" We all sympathize with Raft's character as he suffers much hardship, injustice & humiliation from the outside world because he's wearing invisible stripes. Bogart's role as Chuck Martin is also sympathetic in a way because of the bond & close friendship that grew between the 2 men while they were in prison. It was tragic to see both actors getting killed in the end. If you're a fan of Raft & Bogart & the gangster genre this is a good watch. Recommended !

The years 1937-39 were extraordinarily productive ones for rising star Humphrey Bogart. He appeared in no less than 20 (!) films during those three years (seven in '37, six in '38 and seven in '39), playing "the heavy" in most of them. His last film of this period was "Invisible Stripes," a lesser Warner Bros. gangster film that still offers much. Bogey, fourth billed here, plays Chuck Martin, an inveterate hood who is released from Sing Sing after a five-year stretch and returns to his old ways back in the big city. Getting out of the slammer on the same day is Cliff Taylor, played by the film's nominal star, George Raft. Back at home, Cliff finds that being on parole isn't so easy. His old girlfriend summarily dumps him, no employer will hire him, and his kid brother (William Holden, here in one of his earliest roles) is being drawn into a life of crime to finance his dream of an automotive shop and to marry pretty Jane Bryan. Good thing that Bogey consents to bring Cliff along on a string of capers to pick up some folding money.... Anyway, while not in the same rarefied league of such Warners gangster flix as "Angels With Dirty Faces" and "The Roaring Twenties," this Bogey outing is still lots of fun. It features an exciting armored-car robbery and resultant high-speed car chase, loads of terrific character actors (Flora Robson, Leo Gorcey, Paul Kelly, Lee Patrick, Marc Lawrence, John "Perry White" Hamilton, et al.), reams of snappy patter and even some brightly amusing bits. (I love the scene in which Bogey and his blond moll are shown exiting a movie theatre that is playing "You Can't Get Away With Murder"...another Bogart picture from 1939!) Bogey easily walks away with this picture, stealing every scene that he is in, and his final words, "You can't live forever," are worth the price of admission alone. It would be another few years until 1941's "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" really made the world see him in a new light, but "Invisible Stripes" was still a highly entertaining vehicle for his ever-growing talent.

Invisible Stripes (1938) *** (out of 4) Another Warner gangster film this time a gangster (George Raft) gets paroled and plans on going straight until he overhears his younger brother (William Holden) thinking about entering the racket so that his new wife can have a better life. To prevent that from happening Raft goes back into the racket with the help of #1 guy (Humphrey Bogart). Great performances and chemistry between Raft and Holden with good support from Bogart really pushes this one over the edge. The nice story and backslap at the parole board are interesting and the various shoot outs and bank robberies are filmed perfectly. A couple of The Dead End Kids (including Leo) have a funny cameo.

This film should have been more interesting with the potential of such a cast. The script tries to be important. Indeed, we again get a "Les Miserables"-themed story of a parolee trying to go straight but finding all of the rules and society's prejudice forcing him back to crime. But Lloyd Bacon's sluggish direction holds everything back and it is never interesting storytelling.How can a film with George Raft, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden not be compelling? Thank you, Mr. Bacon, for demonstrating. Raft tries hard to be the nice guy but the script gives the character no depth. He could be any ex-con coming home after a stint in Sing Sing. He seems handcuffed throughout. He does believably make a (much) older brother for Holden - the voice, the nose - but he surely can't pass for 27. Holden is so young and enthusiastic and all his acting mechanics are hanging out there for everyone to see. As few as his scenes are, Bogart is a steady if smarmy hand to get the action started.Flora Robson, as the mother of Raft and Holden, is the most sympathetic character. The actress had a tremendous soul to give weight to what could be a thankless part. Only through her does any real feeling come into this melodrama. And though nearly seven years younger than Raft, just a little age makeup makes her look as if she could at least be his aunt.It is interesting that the film never shows the cons in actual prison stripes. The only two scenes of Raft and Bogart in prison are in the shower (thank you) and in the warden's office before leaving.I do like to show this film to friends after they've seen John Ford's "Mary of Scotland" just so they can be amazed at Moroni Olsen's range.