INVISIBLE STRIPES

Warner Bros., 1939.  Directed by Lloyd Bacon.  Camera:  Ernest Haller.  With George Raft, Jane Bryan, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, Flora Robson, Paul Kelly, Lee Patrick, Henry O'Neill, Frankie Thomas, Moroni Olsen, Margot Stevenson, Marc Lawrence, Joseph Downing, Leo Gorcey, William Haade, Tully Marshall.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Cliff Taylor and Chuck Martin are released from prison, Cliff intending to go straight, Chuck prepared to return to his old ways.  As an ex-convict on parole, Cliff finds jobs hard to get; he is wearing invisible stripes.  Finally, when he is making good, he is picked up on suspicion when the store where he works is robbed.

Cliff's brother Tim, struggling to make enough money to marry his sweetheart, Peggy, becomes discontented to the point of embarking on a criminal career.  Risking his own freedom, Cliff joins Chuck and his gang in a series of bank robberies in order to buy a garage for his brother's security.  When the money is sufficient, Cliff quits the gang, alienating all but Chuck, with whom he parts friends.

Following a subsequent robbery, the gang implicates Tim by using his garage as a getaway station.  Chuck has been wounded during the holdup, and when Tim identifies the gangsters, Cliff goes to help Chuck get away before the police arrive.  Cliff is followed by the other mobsters, who suspect him of informing, and as he and Chuck attempt to escape, both are shot down.

Bogey:  The Films of Humphrey Bogart,
by Clifford McCarty
Bonanza Books, New York 1965

Additional photos courtesy of Gary