The Invisible Man (film)

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The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man movie poster
Directed by James Whale
Produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.
Written by H.G. Wells (novel}
R. C. Sherriff (screenplay)
Starring Claude Rains
Gloria Stuart
William Harrigan
Henry Travers
Una O'Connor
Dudley Digges
Forrester Harvey
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) November 13, 1933 U.S. release
Running time 71 min
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Followed by The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Invisible Man is a film produced by Universal Pictures in 1933 and directed by James Whale. The movie was based on H. G. Wells' science fiction novel The Invisible Man.

It is considered one of the great Universal Horror films of the 1930s, and spawned a number of sequels, plus many spinoffs using the idea of an "invisible man" that were largely unrelated to Wells' original story. In his first American screen appearance, Claude Rains portrayed the Invisible Man (Dr. Jack Griffin) mostly only as a disembodied voice. Rains is only shown clearly for a brief time at the end of the film, spending most of his on-screen time covered by bandages. The film also starred Gloria Stuart.

Taglines:

  • Catch me if you can!
  • H.G. Wells' Fantastic Sensation


Contents

[edit] Characters

The main characters include:

  • The Invisible Man (Claude Rains) - a scientist named Jack Griffin, who creates a formula to turn his body invisible.
  • Flora Cranley (Gloria Stuart) - the daughter of Dr. Cranley, Jack Griffin's mentor, and Griffin's fiancee before he became the Invisible Man.
  • Dr. Arthur Kemp (William Harrigan) - the one-time partner of Jack Griffin before he became invisible.
  • Several notable character actors appear in minor roles, including Dwight Frye as a reporter, Walter Brennan as a man whose bicycle is stolen, and John Carradine, acting at that time under the name Peter Richmond.

[edit] Plot

The film opens with a mysterious stranger, his face swathed in bandages and his eyes obscured by dark spectacles, taking a room at an inn at the English village of Iping (in Sussex). Never leaving his quarters, the stranger demands that the staff leave him completely alone. However, his dark secret is slowly revealed to his suspicious landlady and the villagers: he is an invisible man. When the innkeeper (Forrester Harvey) and his semi-hysterical wife (Una O'Connor) tell him to leave after he makes a huge mess in the parlor and drives away the other patrons, he tears off the bandages, laughing maniacally, and throws the innkeeper down the stairs. He takes off the rest of his clothes, rendering himself completely invisible, and tries to strangle a police officer.

The invisible stranger is revealed as Dr. Jack Griffin, a scientist, who has discovered the secret of invisibility while conducting a series of tests with a strange new drug called monocane. He returns to the laboratory of his mentor, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers), where he reveals his secret to one-time partner Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan) and fiancee Flora Cranley (Gloria Stuart). A drug called monocane has rendered Griffin's entire body undetectable to the human eye; alas, it also has the side-effect of driving Griffin insane. Cranley has investigated and discovered a single note about monocane (Griffin has burnt all his other papers to cover his tracks) in a now empty cupboard in Griffin's empty laboratory, so he realizes that Griffin has recently used it. On the evening of his escape from the inn, Griffin turns up in Kemp's living room and imprisons him in his own house. He forces Kemp to be his partner, and together they go back to the inn where Griffin stayed and retrieve his notebooks on the invisibility process. While there, he picks up a wooden stool and cracks the police officer over the head, killing him.

Kemp calls Cranley, asking for help, and then secretly calls the police. Flora comes to him and they talk for only a minute, until the police show up. Their conversation reveals that the two are completely devoted to each other, and she is as infatuated with him as he her. In Flora's presence, Griffin becomes more placid, and calls her "darling". He rants about power, but when he realises Kemp betrayed him to the police through the window, his first reaction is getting Flora to flee, and out of danger. She begs to let her stay, but he says softly, "The only thing you can do is get out of here. Then they can't hurt you. Go, my darling." After promising Kemp that at 10:00 PM the next night he will murder him, Griffin escapes again and a reign of terror ensues, the Invisible Man running down the streets killing, robbing, and reciting nursery rhymes in a malicious voice. The police offer a monetary award for anyone who can think of a way to catch the Invisible Man.

They disguise Kemp as a police officer and lead him away from his house to protect him, but Griffin has been following them all along. He forces Kemp into the front seat of his car with his hands tied and releases the emergency brake. The car rolls down a steep hill, over a cliff, and explodes.

Finally, after derailing a train and throwing off a cliff two men who are searching for him with the police as volunteers, Griffin rests in a barn. Alerted by the farmer, the police set fire to the barn. When Griffin comes out, the police sight his footprints in the snow and open fire, mortally wounding him. Griffin is taken to hospital where, on his deathbed, he admits to Flora that he has tampered with a type of science that was meant to be left alone. The effects of the monocane wear off the moment he dies, and he becomes visible once again.

[edit] Cast

* Opening credits bill Claude Rains as 'Claude Rains (The Invisible One.)', while closing credits bill him as 'Claude Rains (The Invisible Man.)'
† Not credited on-screen.

[edit] Differences between novel and film

Although the film is sometimes hailed for its fidelity to H.G. Wells' novel, it changes many aspects. The story is updated to 1933, rather than taking place in the 1890s. Griffin does not have a fiancee in the novel, there is no Dr. Cranley, and Griffin does not kill Kemp. (In fact, in the book, it is Kemp who pronounces Griffin dead at the end.) Kemp is neither an old friend nor an old partner of Griffin's in the novel, just an acquaintance. Most important, Griffin does not use monocane to make himself invisible in the book, but instead another unnamed formula, and it is strongly hinted in the novel that Griffin was already mad long before he ever made himself invisible. The film portrays Griffin much more sympathetically than the novel, in which Kemp describes Griffin as "inhuman" to the police. In the film, he is shown regretting what he has done to Flora; Griffin shows no such regrets in the novel.

[edit] Special Effects

The film is known for its groundbreaking and clever use of visual effects. When the Invisible Man had no clothes on, the effect was achieved through wires and the like, but when he had some of his clothes on or was taking his clothes off, the effect was achieved by shooting Claude Rains in a completely black velvet suit against a black velvet background and then combining this shot with another shot of the location the scene took place in using a matte process. Claude Rains was claustrophobic and it was hard to breathe through the suit. Consequently, the role was especially difficult for him.[1]

[edit] Monocane, the drug

Monocane the fictional drug in the 1933 film The Invisible Man. In that film's sequel, The Invisible Man Returns, its name is changed to Duocane.

Described by Dr. Cranley as "terrible", monocane was an obscure Indian drug with powerful bleaching properties. German scientists experimenting with it tried it on a dog, turning the animal dead white and driving it mad. Monocane was used by Dr. Jack Griffin as a key ingredient in his invisibility formula (something he did without knowing about monocane's side-effects). Years later, Griffin's brother Frank used the drug in his experiments as well.

In homage to the signifcance of the film The Invisible Man, monocane has a continuing use as a nearly undetectable poison in made-for-TV dramas.

  • Monocane is identified as the drug that was used to kill the victim, Peter St. John, in season one of "Matlock" {episode sixteen: 03/February 1987}, "The Nurse" (show #1.16/1987). [1]
  • Monocane was also identified as the poison used to murder the victim during the Matlock episode "The Hucksters" (1988).
  • Monocane was also identified as the poison used to murder the victim during the Perry Mason made-for-TV movie "A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Lethal Lifestyle" (1994).
  • Monocane was also identified as the poison used to murder the victim during the combined Diagnosis: Murder / Matlock episode "Murder Two" (1997).
  • Monocane was also identified as the poison used to murder the victim in the McBride made-for-TV episode, "The Doctor is Out… Really Out" (2005).

[edit] The Universal Legacy Collection

In 2004, Universal released six legacy collections that included some of their best horror films. Here is a list of the films included in The Invisible Man Legacy Collection.

The Legacy Collection also included bonus features.

  • Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed: A detailed look at the making of the classic horror film and its sequels by film historian Rudy Behlmer.
  • Film Historian Rudy Behlmer provides insightful commentary to the film on an alternate audio track
  • Invisible Agent Original Theatrical Trailer
  • Production Photographs

[edit] References

  1. ^ Now You See Him: The Invisible Man Revealed! Dir. David J. Skal. With Rudy Behlmer, Bill Condon, Curtis Harrington, and Paul M. Jensen. Universal Home Entertainment, 2000.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Universal Horror film series
Dracula
Frankenstein's Monster
The Wolf Man
alone and with other monsters
London werewolves
Mummies
The Invisible Man
The Phantom of the Opera
Edgar Allan Poe
Inner Sanctum Mysteries
Calling Dr. Death (1943) · Weird Woman (1944) · Dead Man's Eyes (1944) · Strange Confession (1945) · The Frozen Ghost (1945) · Pillow of Death (1945)
The Ape Woman
Captive Wild Woman (1943) · Jungle Woman (1944) · The Jungle Captive (1945)
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
Others
Note: § denotes a silent film.