THE
INVISIBLE MAN

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
THE INVISIBLE MAN - 1933 USA Release: Nov. 13, 1933 Universal Pictures, Realart (1947 re-release) Rating: USA: N/A

"Review a movie nearly 100 years old? What's the point?" someone may ask.

The point is this movie is nearly 100 years old and, with so many movies released every week, old ones like this are easy to miss.

Have you ever seen it?

No? This is why you may want to,

We start with a bundled up man, walking through the snow at night as he heads for the village of Iping and an Inn.

All is joy and good will in the Inn, until the bandaged man, wearing hospital gauze around his face, sunglasses at night, and an obviously fake nose, enters.

The Inn goes silent. There are no buses at this hour of the night and this person is a stranger. Where on earth did he come from, on foot, on such a freezing wintry night as this?

He gruffly asks the Innkeeper (Forrester Harvey: MYSTERY RANCH, KONGO, THE MYSTERY OF MR. X, MENACE, MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, BULLDOG DRUMMOND [all], MYSTERIOUS MR. MOTO, THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS, REBECCA, DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE [1941], THE WOLF MAN, THE MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR) for a room with a fireplace. The Innkeeper calls to his wife to help the man and here is where we meet Jenny (Una O'Connor: MURDER!, THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, CANTERVILLE GHOST) and Millie (Merle Tottenham: NIGHT MUST FALL).

The stranger has rules he insists must be obeyed: knock before entering, a lock on the door, and absolute peace. But it is a noisy inn, the entertainment community center of the village so to speak, and having absolute peace at such a place isn't something the villagers can oblige. By force of habit (and she's dim and forgetful), Jenny enters twice without knocking. The second time she surprises him and sees that he was removing the bandages from his face, and most startling, he has no jaw.

The strange man quickly covers up with a dinner napkin, shouting at her to leave. At first Jenny is all sympathy, "Did you have a car accident?" but the man doesn't wish to converse.

Once she is downstairs, she spreads gossip about the stranger as he's bandaged to the top of his head. All the patrons start forming theories as to who he is and what his condition is about. It's a small boring town and here's a bit of fresh interest!

Meanwhile at a faraway palatial estate, Dr. Cranley (Henry Travers: SHADOW OF A DOUBT) is working in his home laboratory and likewise doesn't wish to be disturbed, in this case, by his adult daughter, Flora (Gloria Stuart: THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR, SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM). She grieves for the man she loves, Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains: MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, THE WOLF MAN, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA [1943], STRANGE HOLIDAY, THE LOST WORLD [1960], BATTLE OF THE WORLDS, ALFRED HITCHOCK PRESENTS [TV]), one of her Father's assistants who disappeared a month ago and no one has heard from since.

Dr. Arthur Kemp (William Harrigan), Dr. Cranley's assistant comes into the room just as Flora runs off, sobbing. Kemp follows after her, seeming to want to console her, only to put the moves on her as she cries.

Flora is brokenhearted but no fool and brusquely drives the fawning douchebag away.

Meanwhile back at the Inn, the stranger, who still hasn't given anyone his name, is wearing out his welcome with his mercurial temperment and being late with the rent. When he slams the room door in Jenny's face, knocking the dinner tray from her hands, she goes off into the most annoying howl, demanding that her husband throw the violent bum out.

We now know that this bandaged stranger is the missing Dr. Griffin, and he's losing his mind. In an altercation with the innkeeper, the man falls downstairs and Jack slams his door shut. This sends Jenny into a fresh wave of caterwauling hysterics until even her injured husband tells her to "Shut up!".

A few of the inn's patrons go outside to flag down a local cop to give the tenant the heave-ho. Jack, cornered in his room and coming unglued with frustration and anger, removes his bandages, revealing that he is invisible to the dumbstruck crowd at his door. Jack then throws his clothes at the crowd as he insults and taunts them. Then apparently naked, pushes through them and makes his escape, attacking people on the street as he invisibly rushes past them.

Back at the home lab, as Dr. Cranley pieces together the notes and evidence Jack left behind, he realizes that one of the chemicals Dr. Griffin is experimenting with is a rare extract known in obscure circles to cause insanity. Most scientists like Kemp have never heard of the extract. Cranley himself only knows about it because of his long years of curiosity and research.

For Jack, this insanity manifests itself as megalomania. Jack thinks that, with nothing more than being invisible, he can rule the world with an iron hand.

"Why, even the moon is afraid of me!"

Yeah, he's nuts all right.

Unlike H.G. Wells original novel, there is nothing of the tragic hero about Dr. Jack Griffin. From beginning to end he is a fascist creep who desires only to prey upon humanity for his own pleasure. The fact that he's unaware of the mind-altering effects of the drug he invented doesn't change the fact that he may have spent all of these years experimenting with invisibility in the first place, to achieve his dream of ruling the world, however nonsensical that seems to be.

The revelation mainly serves to give a sympathetic view to Flora for loving him, since she never knew him as an insidious, homicidal maniac.

1934 audiences made this movie about a murderously unlikable monster a hit anyway, as they were long fed on a diet of Draculas, Opera Phantoms, Mad Scientists, Mr. Hydes, and more. Dr. Jack Griffin was all of that plus, he was invisible! Which was a whole new amazing special effect in its day.

Director James Whale (THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR, REMEMBER LAST NIGHT?) coming off the mad success of FRANKENSTEIN (a bigger hit than Universal's humongus hit, DRACULA), was given ever more control over his projects, thanks to a Universal head who adored the money FRANKENSTEIN brought in and wanted more of it.

In THE INVISIBLE MAN, however, the tight reign of campiness that was only hinted at in FRANKENSTEIN, bloomed in THE INVISIBLE MAN, to the point of embarrassing silliness. Audiences lapped it up at first because, after all, Griffin's invisibility potion is driving him insane and a funny Horror movie is still good.

This was thanks in no small part to the screenplay comedy stylings of the prolific Preston Sturges and his oft-times writing partner (who was just as prolific but often uncredited), R. C. Sherriff.

Many Horror fans prefer the sequel, THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS, starring Vincent Price in the lead role. To me, Vincent Price - under the direction of Joe May and an adapted story and script co-wrote by Curt Siodmak (THE WOLF MAN, DONOVAN'S BRAIN) gives a better, more believable, far less silly performance as a man fighting and losing against encroaching madness.

That said, THE INVISIBLE MAN is scary and THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS isn't scary at all. And we all know Vincent could deliver the scary as easy as he could smile.

Camp, silly, turgidly dramatic, yet still frightening, James Whale's THE INVISIBLE MAN ruled as the high bar of Invisible people movies for nearly a century.

Three Shriek Girls.

This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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