Sunday, September 30, 2018

Day 1: The Invisible Man (1933)


"Power, I said! Power to walk into the gold vaults of the nations, into the secrets of kings, into the Holy of Holies; power to make multitudes run squealing in terror at the touch of my little invisible finger. Even the moon's frightened of me, frightened to death! The whole world's frightened to death!"
- Dr. Jack Griffin

Starring: Clause Rains, Gloria Stuart, William Harrigan, Henry Travers, Una O'Connor, Forrester Harvey, Dudley Digges, E. E. Clive
Directed By: James Whale
Trailer: "You're CRAZY to know who I am!!"

Premise: A mysterious, bandage-covered stranger arrives at the Lion's Head inn.  After being rude and violent to the owners, the law is called upon him. It's soon revealed that the stranger is completely invisible, and has mad ambitions of world conquest.

My familiarity with this movie:
LOVED the book as a teenager. Read it multiple times in middle and high school. Caught the movie on Netflix several years back, and ended up loving it as well.


Notes, opinions, general thoughts (beware of spoilers):


  • I think at this point, I'll watch a movie just because Claude Rains is in it. I loved him in Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and especially in this one. It's incredible how well his performance comes through, despite his face being either obscured or invisible for the whole movie. He does a fantastic job with his voice and body language.
  • Due to my experience with the source material, most of these notes will be comparing the movie to the novel.
  • Una O'Connor may have been playing pretty much the same character in both this movie and Frankenstein, but I'll be damned if she doesn't do it well. If I remember correctly, H. G. Wells was particularly entertained by her performance.
  • Speaking of H. G. Wells, he seemed to enjoy the movie overall, but he didn't like the implication that the invisibility process drove Griffin mad, since, in Wells' novel, Griffin was a terrible person BEFORE turning himself invisible, having not only robbed his father, but driving him to suicide as well.
  • On that note, while Dr. Kemp is murdered by Griffin in the movie, he survives in the book. In the novel, Griffin forces a homeless man, Thomas Marvel, to serve as his accomplice and help him recover his notes. In the film, Marvel is omitted completely, with parts of his role given to Kemp.
  • I think my favorite moment in the film is (as evidenced by the quote at the top) Griffin talking to Flora in Kemp's house. He's ranting, raving, and even declares the moon to be terrified of him. It's such a great performance by Rains that turns what might be an otherwise silly moment into something spooky, cool, and even a bit tragic.
  • While the film has Griffin shot by police in the snow, the novel goes for something more brutal: Griffin tries to attack Kemp, but some nearby workmen see the struggle, and attack the invisible Griffin, beating him to death.
  • Dr. Cranley has some magnificent eyebrows.
  • The character of Flora isn't present in the book, and thus the film version has an emotional anchor that his literary counterpart lacks.
  • This wouldn't be Rains' last appearance in the Universal Monsters canon. He later appears as Sir John Talbot in 1941's "The Wolf Man" and as Erique Claudin, the titular "Phantom of the Opera" in Universal's 1943 remake of their 1925 film.
What are the parts that make up the sum of this movie? With apologies to Joe Bob Briggs for ripping off his "Drive-In Totals", let's head to a feature I call...

The Tally of Terror:

  • 1 invisible man
  • 123(!) dead bodies (in terms of horror movie bodycounts, Griffin is second only to Jason Voorhees. And Griffin did it all in ONE FILM)
  • 3 scientists
  • 1 train crash
  • 2 magnificent eyebrows
  • CUTIE ALERT: Flora
  • 1 pair of disembodied pants
  • 1 unorthodox method of vehicular homicide
  • several feet of snow
  • 2 significant mustaches
  • 1 bicycle theft
  • 1 bank robbery
  • 2 policemen assaulted
  • the 1 and only Claude Rains
Best scare: Griffin's murder of Kemp.

The Good:
  • As stated before, Claude Rains' performance.
  • The special effects have aged very well. It's very convincing that there really is an invisible man on the screen.
  • Despite being a horror film, it manages to balance the bleak tone well with little bits of comedy here and there, such as the interaction between Mr. and Mrs. Hall, or Griffin's pranks as he's leaving Iping. It's just as funny as it is spooky at times.
  • The story was trimmed down from the novel, and honestly works because of it. Likewise, most of the film's changes from the source material work very well in the adaptation.
  • Griffin himself is a very effective, fun villain. He's very ambitious, thinking of himself as being an agent of chaos destined to rule the world. And with his power of invisibility...he probably could!
The Bad:
  • Griffin being driven mad by the invisibility process isn't as interesting as him already being a callous lunatic BEFORE the process.
  • Flora doesn't add much to the movie, and is a fairly underdeveloped character.

Conclusion: I still love this story, be it as literature or film. The book may be darker and have more to the plot, but the film is a streamlined version of the tale that's still a hell of a good time. In fact, I think I might prefer the film, because it's just so dang fun. And hey, it's one of the classic Universal Monsters! Can't go wrong with them! Definitely recommended.

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